THE WORLD FROM THE EIGHTH GRADE

Aston, a social studies teacher, shares essays written by his eighth-grade students, who were encouraged to express themselves freely in writing.

In 1969, the author was offered an opportunity to refashion the social studies curriculum for eighth-graders at the Martin Luther King School in Sausalito, California. Apparently impressed by his recommendations (and hamstrung by a slew of resignations), the school offered him a job teaching, and he accepted it. MLK was one of the first schools in the nation to desegregate racially, and as a result it welcomed a diverse mix of students: not only in terms of race, but also socioeconomic status and academic achievement. In each class, there were a few students who were all but illiterate and some who were impressively precocious. The classroom environment was astonishingly chaotic, and Aston struggled to command his students’ attention. Despite his attempts to woo them with exciting material, they were chronically disinterested. Finally, the embattled teacher decided to refocus his pedagogical energies on writing and gave the students complete freedom to express themselves, a liberty that finally seemed to engage them emotionally. “When the students at Martin Luther King realized that their writing would not be graded, or criticized, and would remain anonymous, they began to express their inner thoughts, needs, and aspirations, which, I believe, helped their emotional growth,” the author writes. The bulk of Aston’s enchanting remembrance is made up of reproductions of many of these essays, which provide a bracingly unique look into the minds of adolescents during a tumultuous time in American history.

The students reflected on an expansive range of serious subjects like race and war, but they also articulated their feelings on virtually every aspect of their lives, including their frustrations with school and, in particular, Aston’s teaching. As one student put it: “He has allowed us extreme freedom this year, perhaps too much freedom. I’m afraid I’ve learned only a pinch of Social Studies and I’m sure in the whole year I could have learned more.” Aston’s commentary on his 20 years as a teacher is refreshingly forthcoming and edifying—he often taught the most challenged students, those labeled “Emotionally Disabled”; these were children raised in households that were, “to put it mildly, not conducive to learning.” He writes both astutely and movingly about the scourge of illiteracy in the United States, an embarrassment for such an affluent nation. But the true draw of this remarkable work is the writing of his students, which ranges from the surprisingly insightful to the charmingly absurd. In either case, the reader is treated to an unalloyed glimpse into the students’ psyches, which often, as the author observes, contrast a remarkable optimism with a forlorn negativity: “My name is Xathier X. Zeus. I don’t know what I want to do. Maybe a dope peddler or a secret agent or a billionaire. I might settle for a multi-millionaire.” This is an absorbing memoir, one that offers a singular historical perspective.

An immersive collection of student writing and a fascinating recollection by an experienced teacher.