A funny thing happened in the first year Introduction to American Culture and Literature class Last Friday. It is period 1, starting at 9:00, and many of the poor kids are sleepy when having to listen to English for 90 minutes. So I do try to wake them up when I see them nodding off sometimes.
So yesterday in the middle of my first class on Philip K. Dick's great early science fiction short story, "Human Is" (1953), I was digressing about American divorce as a way of explaining why Jill Herrick (the upset woman in the lefthand picture above) would want to leave her horribly cold husband Lester, (the cold scientist in the left hand picture above), and I'd just said that 40% of American marriages end in divorce, and I saw a girl nodding off to sleep in the back, so I barked her name out and asked her, "What percent of American marriages end in divorce?" And with sleepily challenging eyes (and without any hesitation), she said in a clear, sleepy voice, "Forty." And all her girlfriends surrounding her and some other students said, "Ohhhhh" in amazement because they'd assumed she'd been sleeping, so they were mightily impressed that she could answer so quickly and correctly. (Also I suspect they were impressed because they couldn't have answered my question if I'd asked them!) So I laughed and shouted, "Good ears!" And then I showed the class some marriage advice slides from the Internet (like "Talk to your spouse more sweetly and with more respect than you talk to anyone else"), and then I showed them my wedding photo (cause this year is our 30th wedding anniversary!)... And told them the trick to making a marriage last I was told by my best friend from high school's mother before I got married: "Never go to sleep angry." The point I was trying to make was that reading science fiction (and all literature) can lead us into interesting discussions about life and relationships and help us become more empathic people. (For the record, my wife and I have had plenty of moments like the one in the story illustration above! But usually we're a pretty good team, and talk about many things.)
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Jefferson Peters (JP)
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December 2023
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