1. Analysis
“This was the moment I was waiting for, a realization from my own childhood that had been so thrilling and profound it had constituted a revelation. I don’t recall the circumstance, can’t remember which teacher taught me islands or how her lesson demonstrated that the sea is just the top of it, that islands go, as Okan said, the whole way down and are attached, connected, mute heralds of a vast and hidden underwater world. But to this day the thought of islands gives me goose bumps, and they are a central metaphor for how I think about the world: we cannot draw conclusions by appearances, there’s always more than meets the eye, whole worlds exist that are invisible. In this sense, islands also shaped the way I thought about this class, this archipelago of children, each one the visible face of the unseen, mysterious worlds I tried to fathom.” Pg. 151
In Swope’s fifth grade class, the major project for the year was to have the children create and draw an island and then write a story based on their island. When Swope asks his children, “What do you suppose keeps an island from floating away like a raft?” one child answers, “Maybe they go all the way down.” In other words, islands are simply the visible tips of large underwater land masses that stretch miles below the ocean’s surface. Similarly, Swope’s children are like islands. In class all Swope can see are their faces, but once he gets to know the children and their families, he finds out that there is much more than meets the eye.
The passage above represents one of the key factors in Swope’s teaching approach: never judge a child’s character solely on their behavior in class. As Swope befriends his students, he learns that their behavior, whether good or bad, is often influenced by issues at home of which he was previously unaware. For instance, one student, Miguel, gets in trouble for crawling on the lunch table and exposing his bare stomach to his classmates. The student’s teacher, Mrs. Melvern, dismisses the child’s actions as those of an incorrigible brat, but when Swope hears about the incident he reacts differently. Knowing that Miguel suffers from asthma and comes from a poor family, Swope asks him how things are going at home. He learns that Miguel’s father has lost his job and that his family is struggling to pay the bills. In turns out that Miguel’s bullying is a result of troubles at home.
Swope constantly makes an effort to get to know his students and their families. By doing so, he learns that no student’s life is a mass of land floating on the water’s surface. Instead, he realizes that economic issues, parental issues, and religion all constitute the parts of their lives that make these metaphorical islands “go all the way down.”
2. Discussion Questions
What significance did nature writing have in the student’s education?
Since they were used to writing fantastical stories, the children often had difficulty writing objectively. Nature writing forced the children to abandon their imaginations for a moment and write about their immediate surroundings. Nature writing also gave the children the opportunity to experience the outdoors, a joy that most of these inner city children never experienced.
Evaluate the pros and cons of Mr. Swope’s collaborations with his students?
The writing collaborations had several benefits. They gave the children an opportunity to work one-on-one with Mr. Swope. These writing collaborations allowed the children to express their most creative ideas while also learning from Swope’s advice and feedback. A negative aspect of these collaborations comes from the unintended influence of Swope’s advice. Often times, Swope’s suggestions would lead a student’s story in a completely opposite direction from what the child originally intended.
The material for this book was gathered in the 1990s. Do you think that Swope’s teaching style would be applicable in today’s classroom?
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