Lesson Overview 

 We begin by asking the students "What is truth?" - they write down their individual answers (a single honest sentence).  I then give them time to write while I begin my first ever attendance for the class - I will stop and ask them how to pronounce their name, what they like to be called (nicknames) and if they have a preferred pronoun.We then walk to the parking lot or a far part of the school.  The students give their answers, one at a time - and with each answer, we take some steps back to our classroom.  This will serve as a metaphor for the entire year.  By the end of the year we will not have definitive answers - but perhaps we will know more than we did at the beginning (I certainly have every year for certain).    We then read Stephen Crane's poem "The Wayfarer" - and we discuss what it means - what they see in it and talk about some of its ideas.  Is it hard to take the path to truth?  Who are some famous people who have gone through the painfully sharp weeds that Crane describes.  We then watch a short video that I have put together of Chris Hedges's commencement speech he made at Rockford College - the Iraq war had just begun and was seemingly over without any substantial losses.  Hedges a war correspondent gives a sober view which went against what most in our country thought about the war at that time - and for that, he was attacked (literally) and booed throughout.  The connections to "The Wayfarer" are mostly left for the students to put together themselves (like any good lesson I suppose).

My Lesson Notes (2016/2021) - two pages and last used 2021 - (my final year)

Thoughts on the Lesson 

I'm not sure when I first started doing this lesson (at least 1996 so say my notes, but perhaps earlier than that).  I do know it makes sense for the class - that day - to get a feel for the students, for the class, and for them to get a feel for me.  The students will not get definitive answers during the course of the year - but I hope, and I do believe it's true that we will know more than when we came in.

Recently (01/22),  I was watching a film, "The Hurt Locker" which began with the Chris Hedge's quote: The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.   I recognized it immediately as coming from this speech and his subsequent book: "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning".