"If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all." Thumper the Rabbit
Thumper would have loved the book Wonder.
For the last three years I’ve ended the school year by
reading it to my class. The same thing has happened each time. Without fail,
students get their own copies to read along with me. Some even finish on their
own before I do. With no other book does this occur.
Wonder, by R.J.
Palacios, is the story of August Pullman, a 5th-grade student in
Manhattan. Auggie has previously been homeschooled, but for junior high his
parents decide to send him to a private prep school. It’s a risky decision,
because, well, Auggie isn’t a normal child. Intellectually, he is above
average. Physically, though, he is facially deformed. Hideously deformed. The
Elephant Kid.
Palacios gives her readers a few descriptions of Auggie’s
face, mostly in one chapter narrated by his sister Via (if you’re curious,
Google mandibulofacial dysotosis). But the full force of his appearance comes
through how others react to seeing him for the first time.
The look away.
The pause.
The double take.
And these are from adults. Children are less subtle. Through
Auggie’s classmates, we see how mean kids can be. Auggie is ignored at lunch
and sidestepped during class. His classmates go to great lengths to avoid
touching him, as if his DNA is contagious.
Against this backdrop, Palacios weaves a theme of kindness.
She starts with Auggie’s English teacher, Mr. Browne, who challenges his class
to live out a monthly precept. He starts the school year with:
“When given the
choice between being right or being kind. Choose kind.”
Palacios concludes with a wonderful commencement speech by
the middle school director, Mr. Tushman. In between, Mr. Browne’s precept
reverberates as Auggie’s classmates are challenged. Readers see who has
listened and who hasn’t.
Why does Wonder
resonate so strongly with today’s children? Palacios uses humor at the
beginning to grab her readers. Her chapters are short and fast-paced and Auggie
is as funny and loveable as he his grotesque. In this age of picture books
disguised as novels, Palacios proves that today’s kids can handle mature themes
with challenging messages.
But I wonder if it’s
because children are longing for moral direction and instruction. Which takes
us back to Bambi’s sidekick Thumper. His words from 1942 need to be repeated to
our kids everyday. Or at least as often as they hear the latest Ariana Grande
lyrics.
Additionally, children need tangible examples of what
responding with kindness looks like. They need to know that being right is
secondary to being kind, that emotions and feelings get bruised just as easily
as elbows and knees. Because, yes, words, just as much as sticks and stones, do
hurt. Most children don’t judge their peers based on race or socio-economic
status. But children do respond selfishly, angrily, or cruelly if they feel they’ve
been slighted. This happens regularly, usually when lining up or playing on the
yard. It’s during these times that teachers and parents need to not just quote
Thumper but also explain and instruct that’s it actually okay to respond with
kindness and suppress the desire to be right.
Classroom teachers are big on quoting a guy a little older
than Thumper. He said to treat others like you want to be treated. Maybe you’ve
heard of the Golden Rule? This rule is summed up with the word respect.
With all due respect
to Aretha Franklin and Rodney Dangerfield, I’m going to have my students attach
another word to the Golden Rule and Mr. Browne’s precept: Admiration. What if students were taught to treat others better than they want to be treated? As
if they looked up to their peers, like they do the principal or a pop-culture
superstar. As if little Suzie was Taylor Swift and little Billy was Clayton
Kershaw. Perhaps then more kindness would start seeping into our schools.
Wonder’s message
is good for our grown-up hearts too. Who are the Auggie’s in our world? For
many, they’re those who appear or act differently than the perfect view we have
of ourselves. They’re those who think differently or believe contrarily than we
do. In our PC climate we don’t voice our disgust out loud. Instead we take to
social media to express our “rightness” and declare everybody else’s
“wrongness”. We tweet and post things that we’d probably get punched in the
stomach for saying to someone’s face. People leave hatefully anonymous notes to
protest a war and they type vile and repulsive comments about a dentist who
killed a lion.
The culture of social media reminds me of my only trip to Boston’s
Fenway Park. It was in 1997 and Redsox great Roger Clemens had returned as a
Toronto Blue Jay to pitch against his former team for the first time. Clemens
had left Boston as a free agent the previous off-season. My seat was near the
Toronto bullpen and as Clemens went through his pre-game warm-ups, the Boston
fans read him the riot act. They spewed every form of possible profanity on
him. And man, can Bostonians cuss. Of course, Clemens was helpless. He had to
take it. Today’s fans save the strain on their vocals cords and type their
disdain into their smart phones.
Facebook is a great platform for declaring your agreement or
disagreement with the issue du jour. But is it always kind to do so? I learned
a valuable lesson in this the other day. I “shared” a chart about murder rates
in Chicago vs. the murder rates in Houston. I thought it was interesting and
maybe a little snarky. I didn’t consider that I have friends and relatives in
Chicago. Nor did I think that they might not approve of the chart. A
Chicago-based friend minced no words in explaining in a private message how
angered she was by the chart. It was a misgiving that could have been easily
avoided. It was an-anti-Mr. Browne’s-precept-moment.
It’s impossible to limit our newsfeed readership to those
who believe exactly like we do. However, I am going to think very carefully in
the future before I hit the “share” button. For me, it’s worth it to do so if I want to place
kindness above being right.
Maybe Thumper’s words need to be updated: If you can’t post
something nice, then don’t post at all.
I think it’s what Auggie would want.
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