Dear Westover Parents,
As those of you returning to Westover will know, we have in the recent past
chosen a “theme” for the year, an organizing principle that helps us create
conversation across departmental lines. Two years ago we looked at images of
women in the media sparked by our screening of the film Miss Representation.
This past year our theme has been human rights, supported by outside speakers,
directed elective courses, and work done by student organizations and clubs.
Next year we have chosen a theme that is ambitious and challenging, “The Face
of the Other”, a year long exploration of difference and sameness, diversity and
homogeneity. Our daughters are lucky -- most high school students in this
country go to school with classmates who live no more than five miles away and
whose lives are very similar to their own. It is not until college and the
workplace beyond that they begin to be exposed to the rich pluralism of our
world. With students at Westover from 16 states and 17 other countries, our girls
have an opportunity for learning that is extraordinary – and we need to take
advantage of this opportunity.
Crystal Pemberton, our Director of Diversity, reminds us “Preparing our students to meet the challenges of the world, as stated in our mission, is among the most important of our school's shared goals. What a powerful moment, therefore, when our students can recognize that the challenges of the world are not abstract concepts but concrete problems affecting the lives of those around them Through the implementation of this year's theme, our students -­‐ already united in numerous things good -­‐ will be further united to change the world, not merely for the sake of what is good but for the specific good of the national and international others around them.” I want to stress that we are not embarking on this conversation because we have a “problem” with diversity as a school; in fact, it is the very closeness of our community that will enable us to have both engaging and difficult discussions. Again in the words of Crystal, “We must actively encourage and enable our students to unwrap the gift of diversity that has been presented to them by the collection of students in our school. This ‘unwrapping’ should not occur at the expense of an appreciation of sameness. Indeed, Westover's students and faculty share many wonderful things in common -­‐ among them, creativity, perseverance, diligence, tenacity, a passion for learning and compassion… just to name a few. These qualities have always been and should continue to be celebrated. However, while we must gainfully reinforce the commonalities that we all share -­‐ in unity there is strength -­‐ it is equally advantageous for us to examine the uniqueness of the others with whom we share them.”
As a school, we are moving boldly to begin our year’s engagement with this theme by assigning a controversial classic, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a required summer reading book for all students and faculty. Jo Dexter, Chair of our English Department, wants all students and parents to know that we understand what we ask in doing so. She says, “We have selected this novel, both a recognized classic and a frequent subject of contemporary controversy, as an excellent place to begin our explorations of otherness because the novel poses so many troubling questions.”
“As the attached list of reading questions suggest, we are urging both students and faculty to read Twain's novel with a questioning and critical eye, alert to its potential shortcomings as a presentation of various encounters with otherness rather than as a handbook of how one negotiates otherness. It is, to be frank, an uncomfortable book, and should be read as such. Its insistent and frequent use of the n-­‐ word should trouble us, as should its too easy displacement of large social injustices into a personal, anecdotal narrative. We recommend a few resources, also listed on the attached sheet, to help reveal and explore these trouble spots more fully. By beginning our year with conversations that coax us to explore what makes us either uncomfortable with or admiring of Twain's novel, we hope to begin our own more searching, schoolwide conversations on how we understand the demands that otherness places on us, both our own otherness and the appeal and challenge of the otherness around us. Do we even recognize the "face of the other" when confronted by it, in ourselves and in others? When we do, how do we or how should we respond? Are there better, more effective ways to recognize the other as other, or must all responses originate in feelings of sameness and universality? These are just some of the questions that we hope to pursue and that we hope Twain's novel will prompt us to begin thinking about.” We are hoping that our parents will be interested in being a part of this year’s
conversation, and that can start with reading critically The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with your daughters, beginning with the questions and
resources listed below. Because we want our students to be sensitive to the
issues raised in the book, we have attached a set of questions to accompany the
reading of this text, questions you may find it interesting to discuss with your
daughter. As the year unfolds, we would love to have you part of our special
programs and conversations, beginning with a parent reading group and
webinar on the novel to be held early this coming fall, moderated by members of
the Westover English department.
If you or your daughter have any questions or topics of discussion you would
like to introduce to our schoolwide dialogue on this novel, we ask you to send
them to huckfinn@westoverschool.org, an address that will be checked regularly
all summer long and the emails responded to as needed. We hope you will take
us up on this suggestion, as we welcome your engagement on any level. I wish
you and your daughters a rich and relaxing summer.
Sincerely,
Ann S. Pollina
Head of School
Questions to keep in mind while reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn :
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Twain's novel asks us to consider Huck himself as an 'other', as a boy on the very margins of his society through his abusive upbringing and low social status. Yet is Huck's view critical enough of the society that has reared him? What might the experience of the fugitive slave Jim teach Huck about individual conscience in contrast to social norms and laws? Do Jim and Huck ever genuinely converse, as friends and equals? Does Huck's own experience allow him to better respond to Jim's moral claims on him, or does it instead blind him to the moral urgency of those claims? Does Twain privilege Huck's viewpoint at the expense of Jim's? Or does the introduction of Tom Sawyer's more culturally privileged viewpoint into the novel's final chapters instead show how consciously Twain is inviting us to see Huck's failings of sympathy as failings? How might the characters Jim and Huck meet on the way mirror these and other failings of the characters as well as of their society?
How should we, as contemporary readers, respond to the discomfort caused by Twain’s intentional use of language and views that we may feel reluctant to recognize as part of our shared historical past?
Recommended resources:
We highly recommend the excellent, very inexpensive edition of the novel put out by Barnes & Noble Classics that features a wonderful introductory essay by Robert O'Meally, Columbia University's Zora Neale Hurston Professor of Literature, who astutely lays out much of what is troubling in Twain's depiction of race in the novel. We recommend O’Meally’s essay as one of the best on these difficult questions. If a student already has a different edition of the novel but would like to explore these topics, another good if shorter resource is novelist Jane Smiley's famously critical 1996 essay from Harper's Magazine, "'Say It Ain't So, Huck': Second Thoughts on Twain's 'Masterpiece'", the text of which can easily be found through an online search.