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Essential Conferences for Summer, 2007

Eugene Schwartz Biography

Articles:              -Handwork and Intellectual Development  -----ADHD: A Challenge of Our Time                  -The Cry for Myth -Freedom of Choice or Freedom From Choice?              -Computers in Education            -Helping Your Child's Teacher Communicate

The Cry for Myth / 2

            I smiled, recognizing how weird my answer would sound. 

            “We tell a story,” I said, “In which the antagonists are given a mythical dimension.  That tends to objectify the experience.  In fact, in fourth grade we tell many Norse myths, in part because the Norse gods are the most argumentative and aggressive gods in world mythology — that, and their liveliness, provide an accurate reflection of the fourth grader’s own nature.  We don’t say very much directly to the children involved, but let them ‘digest’ the story and see the effect of their behavior as though it were happening to someone else.”

            The teacher looked skeptical.

            “And that works?” she asked.

            “It takes a few weeks,” I conceded, “Or a few months, or sometimes a few years.  But, yes, eventually it works.”

            “If you tell these kids a Norse story, they’ll just use it to make fun of each other even more,” she said, “And they probably won’t even listen in the first place.”

            “Oh, go ahead,” said her principal, “What have we got to lose?  Let him try it.” 

            Within a few minutes I was standing before the class, relating the tale of Loki’s jealousy towards Baldur.  The envious and spiteful Loki finds a way to kill the almost immortal Baldur, but, instead of being accepted by the Aesir, he is scorned all the more.  In the tried-and-true Waldorf method, I did not draw any link with the events of the morning as I told the story, and I did not look at the two girls involved, but rather spoke to the class at large.  They proved to be a quiet, attentive and completely involved audience. 

            Later that afternoon, as I was preparing to leave, one of the antagonists came up to me and handed me a piece of lined paper.  Upon it she had written her name, her school name, the date, and the following (spelling has not been corrected): 

NORSE GODS

 Comments:  I think the story was nice and

                                  it had a good morale.

                                   Morale:  Should not be jealous enough

                                  to kill!

                                   P.S. Can you come again?

            Jean Bethke Elshtain, Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago, cites a story told by the psychiatrist Robert Coles “of a little girl named Ruby whom he met during the early days of desegregation”:

Coles became intrigued by the 7-year-old, who had to be escorted to school by federal marshals. She would get out of the car and be met by jeering mobs who shouted racial epithets at her. She would pause, bow her head for a moment, and then walk into the school staring straight ahead. He got to know Ruby’s family, and finally felt

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