A Drop of Water in the Desert

It's a typical afternoon. I'm teaching John Steinbeck to my juniors, helping them to see the Christian symbolism that is being used early on in Of Mice and Men to set up Lennie as a Christ-figure, an innocent that goes off to be slain. This class is just small enough that we ca all sitting in a big circle, seminar-style.

What I'm doing this day is nothing unusual for my class: Steinbeck employs the same Christian archetypes in most of his writing, and why shouldn't he? He's writing in Western Civilization to readers in Western Civilization. Christianity is almost a sine qua non. That's what makes his writing so powerful: he taps into the symbols in our cultural subconscious, and uses them masterfully.

Well, after I show them Lennie's baptism and immediate approval by the God-figure, Slim, I asked them why they think Steinbeck did that, and what they think will happen next. Some students thought that Lennie would then go on to do great things, and someone brought up the main character in The Green Mile, who is a Lennie type if there ever were one, complete with dead mouse. Others saw a more ominous future for Lennie: no doubt they were more familiar with the Gospel story. I moderated, but didn't let the cat out of the bag.

After a few minutes of this, I told them they'd just had a college-level lesson, and admitted that I never had a teacher in high school who showed any of this stuff to me; I had to wait until I was at the university before we entered this deeply into the text. And then we went on with the rest of the chapter; hopefully, with eyes opened up a bit wider.

Here's the point of my post. After class a student stayed behind, came up to me, thanked me for showing him how to look beyoned the surface, and shook my hand as a sign of gratitude.

Teachers rarely get this kind of feedback from students, so when it happens, it's notable. Student X, you appreciate me? Not as much as I appreciate you. Thank you.