Diagnosing Huckleberry

Diagnosing Huck

We've been reading Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn over the past couple of months. We are nearing the end of our work with the book. The experience has been most gratifying because this novel remains my favorite book of all time. Every time I get to read it with a student I learn something new and find another level of understanding about the “moral” that is not supposed to be in the book.

Huckleberry Finn is a boy who is rough around the edges. He lives in a mud shack in the woods. He’s a child of an abusive, alcoholic parent. He smokes, curses and never wears shoes. Huck, in spite of all the romantic treatments he receives in Hollywood, is probably someone we would turn and walk away from if we bumped into him in downtown Atlanta. He’s barely literate and, for the most part, and lives by street smarts and innate wisdom.

We tried to figure out what the modern world would make of Huck. He certainly would have received some kind of diagnosis and had a hard time adjusting to the confines of polite society. Would we of the 21st century see beyond the dirty, pipe-smoking exterior enough to realize that inside this young boy beats the heart of a hero? Would anyone recognize his unbending faithfulness to his friends and his unerring kindness?

It occurred to me that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Community School have a lot in common. Jim and Huck find peace while floating on their raft and are at odds with the world around them whenever they have to go ashore. Whenever our students go “ashore” or spend time in conflict with one another or the world around them, we help them negotiate each problem they encounter. During the time they spend with us, we get glimpses of great wisdom that they have absorbed in spite of (or perhaps because of) their difficulties.

We seek to be a raft for our students. We try to create space and time for them to relax, put their toes into the mighty river of learning and float. Whenever their raft is intruded upon by the various neurological enemies that decide to travel along with them, tricking them into doing things that are not typical of who they really are, we are there to escort the Duke and Dauphin ashore or at least encourage conversation with the riders. Sometimes, of course, life- the river- gets filled with whitecaps from storms- family conflict, death, bullying,etc.- and they crash. No one here drowns, though, because if we are not on the raft with them, we are close behind watching them pilot through the rapids until they tire out.