King and the Dream: A Brief 11th-Grade Lesson

Following are three reflections that took up space in my head today, the 86th birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. The first I posted to Facebook early this morning. Some folks commented on the post, which prompted the second reflection. The third was screaming to get out during 2nd and 3rd periods with my 11th-graders.

(8 a.m.) I'm still on the fence about seeing "Selma." As historical FICTION and not documentary, there will be scenes and lines that are, simply, made up. Films like this make us believe we are seeing wholly accurate re-enactments. Only the actual footage of that March day can really put us there. Generations, including my own, that were on the tail end of the movement or came along years after are prone to be misled by this type of depiction. It seems so real, so true. Among the criticism is the movie's downplaying or degrading of SNCC. So ... is knowing something better than knowing nothing, even when that something that you know is incorrect and/or misleading, not factual? Is there such a thing as sort of factual? Is that okay?

(7 p.m.) I find myself wanting American blacks to stop looking to be entertained all the time. That's been sort of my understated mission as a teacher, to get students to start thinking for longer periods of time, to develop those thoughts, to begin to feel the spark of energy when original insights pop into their minds -- their own ideas! -- and when they ask a question no one has asked. My 9th-graders used to see me setting up the LCD projector and ask: "We watching a movie today?!" After a while, they came to know the answer: "Oh, that's right, Ms. Matthews shows docuMENtaries." I've wondered about it at times. But my students are never disappointed, whether they realize I see it or not. They discover every single time their capacity to learn something, to see something in a new way, to go, in their minds, beyond where they'd ever been. They feel good about themselves.

(8 p.m.) It was my honor today to show my students the entirety of the "I Have a Dream" speech. We watched excerpts of two other King addresses, but I started with the March on Washington. I wondered this morning if they'd ever heard it or if all they knew were the famous buzz words that project interracial nirvana. A couple of my students actually said, when I asked what they knew about the speech, that King's message was that he wanted black and white children to be able to play together. Alrighty then. It was this level of understanding that I wanted to dig into and elevate, if possible. Actually, I was certain that it was possible, once they saw King deliver the full speech and heard him in other speeches, one from 1967 and the "mountaintop" address. The students were watching and listening closely. They were enthralled. They saw King the human, King the "frustrated," as they said, King the "tired," King the "aggravated," King the "fed up," King the uncompromising. I just wanted them to leave school today knowing more of the whole picture, more of the complexity of the movement, of King, more of what had been at stake, that it was a living time, not just still pictures and monuments. I don't want them to hear "I have a dream" in the same way any more. I want them to see why it's still relevant. Why the necessity for civil rights advocacy still is pressing.