My favorite part in To Kill a Mockingbird happens in Chapter 17, when Scout gives readers a picture of the Ewell residence: “the plot of ground around the cabin look[ed] like the playhouse of an insane child,” she tells us. It’s a dreary paragraph with a grocery list of descriptions that support Scout’s observation. I’m not of the haunted house type, but if I were, this paragraph would be what I would base my inspiration around.
My favorite part comes next, when Scout tells us about a corner of the Ewell yard that baffled Maycomb because in that corner sat “six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums.” Word on the street is they were Mayella Ewell’s. Mayella Ewell, who has never seen kindness in her life, never been treated with love and respect. Mayella Ewell, who has no friends, and who had to drop out of school after a year or two to work. Mayella Ewell, who snapped the mockingbird’s wings. She’s the one who cleaned out the old slop jars, went to the hardware store or the farmer’s market to buy the seeds for the red geraniums. She’s the one who learned how much water to give them so they’d grow, and where to put those jars so they’d face the sun. She’s the one who had to trudge through that nasty yard, kneel down next to those flowers and look to see if anything was growing.
What do we do with this kind of beauty? It certainly complicates things. It’s hard for me to hate Mayella Ewell for one thing. This scene makes me look at evil for a long time until I can find something good to fix my eyes on, even if it’s a remnant of what was, or what could’ve been. This scene reminds me that people are not always who they seem to be. Sometimes they can’t show another side. Sometimes they don’t know that there is another side to show.
This is the part my 8th graders and I are studying in class. They are working on a little project I call, “Slop Jar Beauty.” They need to create a scrapbook of six memories: three from To Kill a Mockingbird and three from their own lives. Each memory they write about and draw must show something dark (fear, sadness, anger), but the students need to find what shimmers in each memory as well. Last year when I tried this project, one student wrote about why mangoes are his favorite fruit; it was the last meal he had with his grandmother before she died. Another wrote about being sad he and his family had to move, but his parents let him have a say in the house they’d pick next. He chose one with a red door because it was his favorite color. Another found beauty in the leftover pedals that were sent to Jem from Mrs. Dubose. Don’t forget you lost your temper, Mr. Jem. Don’t forget you read to me every day for a month so that I could die peacefully.
This project was easy to present to last year’s 8th graders. They were risk takers. I shine when I have a class like this, and I cower when I don’t. “I’m as good as you’ll let me be,” I used to say in my early days of teaching. I’ve been thinking a lot about that statement now that I have this year’s 8th graders, and I think I have it wrong. Why should I be as good as someone will let me be? Where’s the grace in that? Why should I hold back something that could change the way they see themselves or the world just because I have a group that acts like the Herdmanns?
I don’t do it to punish them. I second guess myself because I’m afraid. They snicker. They roll their eyes. They’re going to say this project is dumb, I think, so instead I should just give them a test: Who defended Tom Robinson? Who plants red geraniums in her front yard? What was Scout for the Halloween play? Pick a theme for the story and in three paragraphs explain it.
If Mayella can grow something beautiful in her world, then I can do the same in mine. She is an example of someone who had a mustard seed of faith to hope for something to take care of and make beautiful. I don’t believe she knew whether those flowers would bloom. My guess is she scrubbed those chipped slop jars in an act of misery and desperation and loneliness. I imagine her crying as she cleaned. I imagine that, despite how awful her life was, the idea of creating something, of attending to it, no matter what the outcome would be, was enough to fill those jars with a bit of soil, press a few seeds into it and give those seeds a drink of water.
The day I presented my “Slop Jar Beauty” project, three students were non stop snickering and talking. I stopped what I was doing, walked over to them and told them this story:
When I was in 8th grade, I was supposed to read Animal Farm. I had no intention of reading that book. I wasn’t into reading, and I really wasn’t into animals who could talk.
I came to class during that unit unprepared and ready to mess around with my friends instead of participate. I remember once I tied a kid’s sleeves to his desk chair so that when the bell rang he wouldn’t be able to leave class.
One day, my teacher took my desk and chair out in the hallway and told me to sit there for the remainder of class. I did, staring at the cover of Animal Farm, and about 15-20 minutes later he stepped out of the classroom and placed an index card on my desk. On the card he wrote that while it may not seem like it now, he cares about me and he believes I am better than the way I am acting. He wrote that he hopes I’ll make better decisions from now on.
The nerve of that guy, I thought, thinking I was better than this. I’m not better than this, and I’m not reading this stupid book.
I didn’t read Animal Farm, but I kept that card. It was on my bulletin board in my room next to pictures of my friends, song lyrics, and movie ticket stubs. I took it to college with me.
Look, I can’t make you read To Kill a Mockingbird, and I certainly can’t make you like the story. I don’t know if I would’ve like the story in 8th grade, either. But I do think you are better than the way you are acting. I do believe there is something inside of you that is waiting to come out, and it might not be this book that brings it out, but the reason you come here Monday-Friday is to look for what’s inside you, and to fight to bring it out. Right now though, you are not ready to be in this classroom. So I’m going to ask you to leave. I want you to go upstairs with a piece of paper and sit in the administrator’s office. You are to summarize what I said, and tell me three things you will do to change so that you can come back and figure out what it is that is inside of you, because I think there’s more than what you’re showing right now.
I shook while I spoke. I cried on the way home from school. I was nauseous the rest of the day. I worried I got it all wrong. After all, after those red geraniums were grown and showing off their brilliancy in the Alabama sun, Mayella took advantage of Tom Robinson. Then she went to court and lied about it, and poor Tom Robinson died. Those geraniums weren’t enough to soothe her tortured soul.
Several years ago, I went back to my 8th grade English teacher’s classroom after I was a teacher. I showed him the index card he placed on my desk. I thought he’d be happy to see I still had it, and to see what I’ve done with my life, but he flinched as though he was shaking the memory off of himself. I didn’t understand why until last week, and now I wonder what kind of toll this digging around in the dirt and hoping for things unseen takes on people.
I’ve always thought that the reason I love this scene in To Kill a Mockingbird is because it’s proof beauty grows everywhere, no matter what we do or who we are. I’ve always looked at it as a religious metaphor; Jesus seeps through it all and there’s nothing we can do to stop Him. Now though, I think what I mean is this scene haunts me: I try to grow things, I try to create stories, I try to teach middle schoolers because I will die if I stop grasping for and imagining beauty. I’m wondering now whether Mayella even noticed how brilliant her red geraniums were. My guess is she’d be embarrassed, maybe even flinch in disgust, if someone where to tell her how beautiful they are.
Maybe all we get is the opportunity to work with seeds before they’re beautiful, and hoping for things unseen is plenty.
Bill Feyen says
Callie: love this story. I’m not a teacher but I believe that middle schoolers are the worst and the best age to teach. I will pass this on to Amanda, she also has a love for this age group. Thank you.
Elizabeth Ryan says
Your writing here is full of grace, amazing grace…keep working with the seeds and act on faith that the things unseen will be plentiful and eventually make a better world. Bless you.
Meta Kroker says
Gorgeous piece of writing, Callie. Makes me wish that if I’d had more teachers like you, especially in junior high.
Sarah Elizabeth says
This brought tears to my eyes! What an amazing piece about grace for ourselves and grace for others. But also a piece about perseverance and cultivation despite the odds, and the grace that springs forth in the midst of our imperfect attempts to sow and grow beauty. I loved this! It makes me want to go read the book again.