The summer before last, I was attempting to plan a new curriculum for some of my classes. Since I didn’t use a textbook, I was free to choose from any materials I wanted as long as they were affordable and easily accessible. I found an abridged version of Hugo’s classic Les Misérables in a catalogue and the text seemed simple enough for my French III class to understand, so I ordered a class set confident that my students would love it. I was excited about the prospect of making them culturally literate on a topic I thoroughly enjoyed.
The book came home with me over the summer, but did not get read. About a week before we were ready to begin studying the novel as a class, I finally sat down to read it. What I found worried me. Most of the text stayed true to the original, and as a result, was extremely depressing and difficult to read. Even I had to look up several words per chapter, so I knew this would be a daunting task for my students. I decided to take it a day at a time and help them through it.
We would begin each chapter by taking highlighters and finding 20 unfamiliar words. I would then ask each student for a word, write it on the board, and after we had compiled a list of at least one word per student, we would go through and erase the words which were deemed too easy or overly difficult. In this manner, we created a meaningful vocabulary list together. Each student would be assigned a word which they had to write a sentence for and illustrate. Some of the sentences were hilarious, and their illustrations made the vocabulary words easier for them to remember. In a couple of days, we would have a test over the words.
Reading and translating the text was not quite as easy or fun. No matter what method I used, this novel was just too advanced for my students. I resorted to reading it together line by line as a class. When each student was called on, they had a choice to say either “read or translate.” Usually, they would choose read, and read a paragraph in French, which I then translated for the class. Some of the stronger students, or students who did not enjoy displaying their French accent for everyone, would choose to translate. In those cases, I would read and they would translate.
After a while, this got very boring, so I decided to read a chapter to them in English. I wanted to hook them on the story so they would be more interested in what was going on and engaged in class. Unfortunately for me, I chose a very bad chapter to do this with. It was the chapter where it became evident that the Thenardiers, who Fantine had entrusted to care for her daughter Cosette, were mistreating the little girl and exploiting Fantine. They kept sending letters saying that Cosette was sick and needed expensive medicine. Poor Fantine did everything she could. She sold her hair and even her teeth in order to send them money. Finally, she had nothing left.
Imagine me reading this to a group of high school students. Now imagine me tearing up as the story got sadder and sadder. Perhaps I am overly empathetic, but I couldn’t help but imagine how I would feel if I were in that situation. At one point I stopped and said that I couldn’t read anymore, because it was very sad and would make me lose it. Of course, my students urged me on, saying things like, “We have to know what happens. Don’t stop now.” So I continued to read to the end, and totally broke down in front of my class. I don’t mean just a tear or two, I mean downright crying. The entire time, I was apologizing and admitting that the novel is just too depressing. At one point, I think I said, “I just keep imagining, what if it were Maia.” My lovely students tried to reassure me that it was just a story and that Maia had a good life and was not mistreated in any way. It was very touching. Some of the boys teased me. Some girls got tears in their eyes, but I’m not sure if it’s because they were also moved by the story, or if they were just downright mortified for me.
The truth is that I was going through a lot at that time. I wanted to be pregnant, but wasn’t. I knew that I had to announce my decision not to return the following year to administration, but just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was overwhelmed by my life, but somehow felt that changing it would bring me sadness. Reading the unfortunate story of Fantine’s situation unleashed the flood gates that were overdue for a good cry. Too bad it had to happen in front of a class of students, but luckily they knew me well enough to understand. At that point, they had studied with me for two and a half years, and we all knew each other’s idiosyncrasies. In short, they knew that I didn’t usually do crazy things like that, so they excused it. That’s not to say that they didn’t tell all their friends or whisper, “I think Yokoi is pregnant; she’s super-emotional.” Or even more amusing, “PMS.”
After the incident, we read a couple more chapters, and then I gave up and showed them the film. Like all good teenagers, they loved the movie, but hated the book. I still felt they had gotten their cultural lesson, but with much less pain on everybody’s part. We had worked hard on Les Misérables, but the time had come to move forward with the curriculum. After the nearly impossible Les Mis, the students found “Le Fantôme de l’Opéra” easy. They could translate almost all of it with very little help. This had not been the case with my students the year before. It turned out to be a positive experience, though it was difficult on many levels at the time.
In the end, I announced that I was leaving a couple of weeks later, and found I was pregnant shortly thereafter. Although it was painful to tell my students, many of whom were pretty sad, I feel I made the right decision. My own little Cosette was waiting for me at home, and now we get to spend our days together. I will probably still cry when I read sad stories of mistreated children, but at least I’ll know I have spent as much time as I could with my own.
