Overview:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee are both written in the voices of children. While each book gives an unabashed commentary of the social mores of the times and places where they are set, our students can learn about attitudes about education from these periods. Examining primary documents will also show what schools of the time had to offer their students.
Background:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the
story of a fourteen year old boy from Missouri who is
dissatisfied with his life and sets out on a journey
along the Mississippi River. He teams up with
a runaway slave named Jim and the two of them travel
south on a raft. The novel is set during the Antebellum
Period. Huck and Jim meet many different people as they
float along the river; some are people of good will,
while others are not so nice. Through the people they
meet and the adventures they encounter, the reader learns
about the attitudes, grudges, strengths, and weaknesses
of people who lived at a time when slavery was practiced.
Twain tells his story in the vernacular and from the
point of view of a country boy who lives by his wits
and charms.
To Kill a Mockingbird is set in Alabama in the 1930s. This story is told by Scout Finch, who begins her account the summer before she enters first grade. As Scout tells about her small town and the people who live there, it becomes clear that there are deep racial and class tensions within this community. These tensions erupt when a poor white woman accuses a black man of raping her.
Both novels explore the attitudes and prejudices of the people within them. Because the stories are told by children, their commentary and criticism of society is less guarded than it might be, had adults told these stories. Huck and Scout have strong fathers with their own ideas about the value of education. Huck’s Pa demands that he stop going to school because in his family there is no need to know how to read. Atticus Finch spends most of his time at home reading. As a young child, Scout picks up reading on her own, much to the frustration of her first grade teacher.
The idea of compulsory education in the United States
is attributed to Thomas Jefferson. Unlike many other
countries, in the United States the responsibility of
providing education for children was given to individual
states. During the nineteenth century, schools
systems were set up to meet the needs of a particular
state, whether the purpose was to educate children from
a rural community or to socialize immigrant children.
It wasn’t until 1918 that all children were required
to attend primary school up to the eighth grade. During
Huck’s time schooling was offered to boys of means.
By the time Scout went to school, education was compulsory,
but if you read Chapter Two of To Kill a Mockingbird
it is clear that many children of limited means did
not attend regularly. In both cases the schools that
these children attended would have been racially segregated.
Materials:
Aim/Essential Question:
What can we learn from novels about attitudes towards
education and schools in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries?
Motivation:
Ask the students to jot down what they think a parent
or adult family member would say if they were asked
if it is important to learn how to read and go to school.
Have the students share their thoughts and record what
their ideas on the chart paper.
Objectives:
- Students will read and discuss selections from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird.
- Students will view and analyze pictures and images that relate to schools and education during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
- Students will use their own school experience to write a piece of fiction.
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