Over the course of the past few blog posts, I’ve spoken to the idea of the hero’s hurt in the world of story. All this ultimately leads to the final part of my hurt theory, the healing of the hurt.

Stories need closure. Since all wounds heal, all hurts must as well, too. Now of course, this doesn’t mean that all stories must have happy endings – though, I must admit as a writer, I am cut from the happy ending cloth – but audiences crave resolution.

Warning: spoilers coming if you have not read the stories I’ve been using to illustrate my theories so far. Stop now if you don’t want to know the endings.

Katniss survives The Hunger Games. The ending is exciting and hopeful and positive. (It’s also laced with suggestion that this story isn’t over yet and that there will be a Book II in the series because the bad guys are never fully vanquished – and yes, there is a Book II as well as a Book III.) In Animal Farm, the pigs have practically turned into men, creatures who have exploited their fellow animals even more cruelly than human beings did when they were in charge of Manor Farm leaving the reader to wonder and think about a heck of a lot. Hamlet dies, a victim in some ways, perhaps a hero in others, but tragedy befalls Denmark. Blood spills through the halls of Elsinore in a way that makes fans of catastrophe, misfortune and calamity proud. Hamlet’s dead. The Queen is dead. Claudius is dead. Laertes is dead. Polonius is dead. Ophelia is dead. The ghost even seems dead. Oh yeah, and the entire kingdom falls to Denmark’s sworn enemy, Fortinbras.

Talk about knowing how to bring closure to a tale. Shakespeare… the best there was ever was.

My book Cinder-Smella has a happy ending. My book Nerd Girls has a happy ending. My book Homeboyz has more of a bittersweet ending, yet still, I think it concludes on a hopeful note. No, it’s not required to have a happy ending; what’s required is that the hurts of the hero have been addressed. Yes, new hurts might be born, but the old hurt which were the primary engine of the plot at this point should have played its cards and run its course.

It’s why they call the end the resolution of the story. Indeed, it’s the laying to rest of the hurt. (Note: I know the word “healed” as I have used it infers a positive outcome but what constitutes a positive outcome is a matter of perspective. To Napoleon and the fat pigs of Animal Farm, their outcome is entirely delicious. To Boxer, not so much. The bigger point being that finality, to some degree, is what’s essential. Therefore the term the “healing of the hurt” is much more a resolution in some tales.)

Life is an open-ended story. Stories are not. Hurts, in some way, shape or form, are healed.

Yes, the bubble tests must go on.

Today’s post references a story that almost makes me want to shower. Though I can’t really say that it is anyone’s fault. A culture of TEST, TEST, WE MUST TEST has insidiously woven its way into the soul of American teaching and when people react as they do in the story I link below, well… to me, it’s just a by-product of misplaced values.

In a nutshell, a teacher died, the school (quite naturally) was shocked and saddened but, inconvenient as this may sound, the educator passed away on state testing day. So the school bravely did the right thing… and postponed the test one hole day from Thursday to Friday.

This link explains it better than I ever could.

But how has it all come to this? Well, Kelly Gallagher just linked this story via twitter which, I think, says a ton.

Two “ya really oughtta read this” pieces today… the operative word being pieces because our inane focus on bubble testing is tearing our school system to pieces.

The credible, inevitable surprise is a term I use to describe that part of the story where BOOM! it twists in a WOW type of way that really takes the audience to a new and heightened (and, most probably) more exciting space.

It’s that “Oh my goodness, no way!” moment that was practically destined to happen anyway. It’s the shock that’s not.

• When Boxer gets sent to the glue factory in Animal Farm, it’s the shock that’s not.
• When Peeta saves the life of Katniss instead of killing her because he loves her, it’s the shock that’s not.
• When Darth Vader tells Luke, “I am your father,” it’s the shock that’s not.

These are the moments when it all makes sense. They are credible. (No  deus ex machina. No, “Come on, that would never happen” type of sentiment in the audience.)

They are also inevitable. After all, many, many good stories are often quite round in their nature. By that I mean that the problems and conflicts which arise early are the problems and conflicts which will see finality by the end. And almost always see a conclusion arrive in a way that the audience could have easily predicted… but didn’t.

• When Claudius allows Denmark to fall to Fortinbras, we all knew that was coming. It’s inevitable.
• When Huck and Tom save Jim, we all knew that they’d figure out a way. It’s inevitable.
• When Melinda finally triumphs over the Beast, we knew she’d be confronted by him again. And we knew things would be different by the end. We knew she’d figure out a way to Speak. Why? Because it was inevitable.

The credible, inevitable surprise really sets up a very unique relationship between author and audience in that the author must give the audience both the credible and the inevitable while making sure to chart a path that seems as though ‘there’s no way on God’s green earth it’s gonna work out the way I know it’s going to work out.”

And when it does, audiences get to relish in the happy surprise of 1) I knew it all along and 2) I had no idea, either.

Fairy Tales know it…

• The Three Little Pigs follows suit. (The last pig actually saves the day but for a moment, we all were quite concerned about the wolf have a few bacon sandwiches for dinner.)
• Cinderella follow suit. (We know the prince is gonna discover Cinderella’s real identity and spare her from the evil step-family.)
• The Gingerbread Man follows suit. (You just can’t be that annoying and full of hubris and not expect that you’re own sense of arrogance will not eventually lead to your downfall.)

What story are you reading right now? And what’s the credible, inevitable surprise? The authors who do those well – Dickens was a master – are the ones who will always have an audience.

It’s just the way we’re wired.

I just made this point in a response to one of my blog posts last week.

More people in the 20th century read Shakespeare than any ever did in the 17th or 18th or even 19th centuries combined. And why? Because of technology.

And the thing is, for me, this illuminates the value of writing. Why? Because writing forces me to think and the thought above is a thought I’d never held before. It came to me through deeply ruminating about the impact of technology on today’s kids and classrooms.

So why do I blog like a fiend, posting probably 3,000 words a week online? Because writing sharpens my thinking and while not all of my thinking is remarkable or original (trust me, I am all too aware that I often score points in the “spectacularly unimpressive” category by people who take their time to read me), it does feed my brain in a way which I do find to be of benefit.

And to poo-poo the impact of all the online writing going on with today’s students is to, imho, disregard the thinking that they are doing in this day and age.

Me, I watched about 20 zillion hours of The Flintstones, The Brady Bunch and so on when I was a kid. Goodness knows how much better off I’d have been having had the ability to interact with my favorite media the way kids do. Instead, my brain was being trained to become passive mush – while being told to shop for sugary cereals and the such.

Sure, we can idealize how much better it was before all these video games and cell phones and blah, blah came to be but the idea that I can make a reference to the voodoo doll in the hokey Brady cave, Bam-Bam and the Fonz and have virtually everyone from my generation understand the reference because of OVER-EXPOSURE to this mindless dribble (okay, The Flintstones was cool, the Fonz in this day and age would get taken out back and pummeled and the Brady family… heck, even back then we knew that this was just weird) just further cements the point that things were not better when we were kids. At best, they were even. But in truth, today’s kids have access to scope, depth, and dynamism in a way which was never afforded to us… and to think that this will not result in a BURST of elevated thinking once they hit their 40′s (my age range) strikes me as cynical and arrogantly dismissive of genuine belief that the next generation can stand on the shoulders of our generation and take humanity to a higher and “better” level.

Is heated rhetoric the cause of violence?

I mean on one hand, fringe loonies trying to stir the pot can definitely attract more fringe loonies.. and when you get too many fringe loonies together bad things can certainly come from it.

But isn’t the beauty of democracy to be found in the fact that we encourage, accept, want and desire debate? Vigorous, thorough, passionate debate.

The Lincoln-Douglass debates of 1858 are legendary. We want bright minds going toe-to-toe.

I happen to think that conversation is often the antidote to violence, that communicating and talking and debating and arguing and working through issues in a “talk about it” style prevents people from resorting to taking up physical pitchforks against one another. My belief is that when you don’t let people express themselves, that is when they feel as if physical altercations are their only resort. But when you allow them to communicate and express and weigh in – and debate – then, in a way, I believe you are disarming folks as well.

Because you are validating them. Because you are (hopefully) listening to them. Truth is many, many people just “want to be heard”.

We ought to be able to have civil debate though. We’re a diverse country with lots of different perspectives… and a lot of loudmouths (like me) who feel the need to make their ideas about matters known, heard and understood.

A classroom that isn’t characterized by open conversation, by both the students and the teachers, is a classroom constrained. Same with a family, a working relationship, a romantic relationship and so on.

Sometimes, we’ll break bread and smile with one another; other times we’ll dig in and argue. In a certain way, I am not sure if you can really have one without the other in a healthy relationship.

So, do I want the heated rhetoric removed from our national conversation? Only the stuff that is designed to foment hate.

“Join my team and fight the good fight!” speeches are different than “Kill the enemy” podium talks. But when you take the stage, my belief is that you do have a responsibility know the difference.

Almost to a student, kids have been, in a Pavlovian way, turned off to textbooks. That especially hurts an English teacher’s aim of trying to develop them into readers through the use of textbooks because it’s not just an ELA association they have with them; they come into class with a history of pretty much loathing these things in their other core areas of study as well.

From 6th grade on, kids are pounded with math textbooks that far-too-many teachers use in a drill and kill style… and science textbooks that teachers use in a “Do the unit questions at the end of the chapter” style… and then history textbooks where it’s “remember these 15 dates and names by rote” style… so even if the ELA textbooks were the cat’s meow (and in my opinion, they ain’t) the kids come in with emotional baggage about using textbooks that is almost insurmountable.

And from there it feels like we’re just putting lipstick on a pig by trying to show them just how amazing these tepid, issue-free, sanitized, 12 pound tomes are.

They don’t buy it. And yet, we keep trying to sell it to them. Worst of all, district admins remain deaf to the cries of “these things ain’t working”. Cause if they were really working, maybe our “data” would be better. After all, what’s been the primary educational tool in the classroom for the past two decades?

Textbooks have ben at the center of the curricular wheel in all of the core subject areas and yet, how come few, if any, people point to them as perhaps the problem with our curriculum/low achievement/poor test scores as opposed to viewing them as the solution?

However, here’s a school district that is embracing new ideas. And I gotta say, it makes me feel like the folks out there in Pulaski are doing the sorts of things that I’d like to see embraced by more and more and more of our schools.