In my Forties By Kristie Camp As far as conscious memory goes, life in my teens centered on what other people thought – a tight-wire balancing act between wanting to be included because I was loved and wanting to be admired for being different, unique, cool. Having the hip haircut, listening to the newest bands, skipping school with my group, sharing secret memories together. Perception was reality; therefore, I had to craft the perception. Then, in my twenties, I lived in hot pursuit – always seeking adventure, a passionate love affair, a meaningful and prosperous career, an extended education. Always chasing that mirage of what life was supposed to be. I spent my thirties as a mom, raising two boys. My life was not my own in my thirties; I lived for them, for my husband, for my job, for my church, for my social standing, for my reputation. Trying to earn respect, seniority, a place of authority. But somewhere in my forties, I decided that I could go ahead and open the Amaretto coffee creamer even if I hadn’t fully finished the coconut crème coffee creamer. Somewhere in my forties, I decided to wear my hair as long as I wanted it, sometimes with bangs, sometimes letting the bangs grow out, sometimes braided, sometimes with a headband, and even sometimes hot-rolled. Just because. Somewhere in my forties, I decided to download the greatest hits of Glen Campbell, Chicago, and Marvin Gaye. And I listened to them all on the same playlist with Loretta Lynn, Bruce Springsteen, and Justin Timberlake. Somewhere in my forties, I decided to take a Sunday morning and write poetry. Somewhere in my forties, I bought a blue rain hat with a floppy brim and pink flowers, and I wore it to work on rainy days, all the way into the building, not removing it when I received a second glance. Somewhere in my forties, I stopped advertising my beliefs, fully intending to live them instead. Somewhere in my forties, I decided that I could spend $15 on authentic honey-lemon bath wash from a boutique while buying lotion from the dollar store. Somewhere in my forties, I began buying dresses that hugged my curves, and I splurged on gel-polish manicures. Now, at 45, I look over the edge, pondering the second half. I look out of my cloudy living room window with only a longing to be in the yard, planting more and trimming more. I examine the blank page on the computer screen, my fingertips itching to tap the keys. I toss a frantic pattern of books, swapping one for the other according to my mood. Yet, even now, as I look in the mirror, I worry that the cut is too low and the eye shadow too dark. I weigh myself every morning and watch the numbers on my FitBit. I yell at the posts I see on Facebook, but I won’t type a word or say a word. I still keep some book titles hidden, along with a few songs on the playlist. And the pendulum of guilt swings back and forth, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
Duel Purposes A Reflection on Hamilton in AP English Language By Kristie Camp
I knew my students would love Hamilton as soon as I started listening to it myself, and I knew I had to get it in my classroom. The more I listened to the Broadway cast album as I walked around my neighborhood for my daily stroll, the more I plotted and planned how to incorporate it into my daily instruction of American founding documents, speeches, essays. Like I said, I knew they would love it; I just didn’t know exactly how deeply the play would affect them.
I first heard about Hamilton from our drama teacher last spring when she staged a school version of In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Broadway hit, which was a hit with our students, as well. While we were discussing how perfect In the Heights was for our students, she commented, “The guy who wrote this has written another rap musical about Alexander Hamilton.”
“Really?” I asked, perplexed as nearly everyone is when they first hear of the concept behind Hamilton. And sure enough, after she told me about it, I started seeing comments about the off-Broadway hit on social media, and by the time school began again in August, Lin-Manuel Miranda began showing up on talk shows to promote the release of the cast album. So some time around October, I began listening to the album, falling in love with the characters and the poetry and the music itself.
So, when we came to back to school after Christmas break, I had a plan to play one song each day at the beginning of class as our warm-up activity. We would listen to the song, discuss the literary elements of the song, and then move on to our rhetorical analysis of Jonathan Edwards, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin. And that is how the journey began. As we listened each day, the students fell in love. I would watch their faces as they listened. At first, they turned their heads in curiosity, surprised by the way they found themselves captivated by the story from the very beginning.
“I thought this was going to be whack, Mrs. Camp,” Zyria said after the first two or three songs, “but this is really good.”
I used the lyrics to teach concepts such as the self-made man and ad hominem fallacy. I used the structure to teach about Aristotle’s definition of tragedy and how the musical very nearly lines up to a perfect classical tragedy (even with the role of the Greek chorus being performed by the ensemble comments). We talked about narrative structure since the antagonist tells the story of the protagonist, and we talked about how the music associated with each character builds a thematic motif for that character that plays its way all the way to the end.
Each day, the kids found themselves more and more enthralled. They picked up on the rap allusions (“10 Crack Commandments” and “Now ya know, Mr. President” and “Let’s go” elicited nods and comments and fist pumps). They went home and listened on Pandora and Spotify and Apple Music and You Tube. They started bringing me stories of parodies they had found online. As we encountered new moments in Hamilton’s life, students would Google the event while the song was still playing and then offer their discovery to the class when the song ended. The short bio we read of Jonathan Edwards before we began our study of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” mentions that he is Aaron Burr’s grandfather, but when they heard Aaron Burr sing “my grandfather was a fire and brimstone preacher,” they said, “Oh, yeah! That makes sense. He has that ‘going to hell’ stuff in his head.” The play was a hit with my kids just like it is with all the rest of America. Yet, two particular moments in our study stunned me, left me with more questions than answers.
“You have no control / Who lives, who dies, who tells your story…”
First, Maria Reynolds. I set them up for it; they knew Hamilton’s fall was coming. I had taught them about the characteristics of a tragic hero, how his flaw is a positive character trait that nonetheless brings his downfall. We had decided that Hamilton’s desire to “rise up” and establish a legacy, his ambition, would bring his fall, especially after we heard Burr say, “soon that attitude will be your doom.” I thought they were ready for Maria Reynolds.
Halfway through “Say No to This,” I saw jaws drop. I saw heads shake. I saw eyes avert from the screen to their desks. I heard gasps. I heard as many “no!”s from my classroom as from the song itself. As soon as the song ended, they said, “Why did he do that?” and “I can’t believe he did that!” and “Well, he’s screwed now.” The Googlers added, “It went on for three years!” My first period told my 7th and 9th period about what they were going to encounter in English class that day, and even the forewarning from the other students wasn’t enough to dampen or soften the heartbroken (and a little embarrassed) reaction from my students.
Now, my kids are not strangers to the concept of a sex scandal. We live in South Carolina where our former governor told the world he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when he was really flying state planes to Argentina to see his girlfriend while his wife and sons wondered where he was on Father’s Day. They are social media junkies who tell me crazy stories about the sexual escapades of the Kardashians or other celebrities. And who is cheating on whom at Gaffney High School always takes center stage of any nearly any discussion around school. So, why were they so devastated by Hamilton’s indiscretions? I had taught them about Thomas Jefferson’s sexual relationship with his slave, Sally Hemmings. They knew of Ben Franklin’s philandering ways, also, so their shock shouldn’t have come from a mistaken idea that people just didn’t do those things back then.
Had they found themselves so attached to Hamilton as Miranda presented him, so whole-heartedly believed in him, that they felt as betrayed as Eliza herself? I think this may be the case because when we listened to “Burn,” the tears began to flow. The girls sniffed back the tears, and the boys looked away in response to the raw pain in Phillippa Soo’s voice in “Burn.” In fact, many of the boys didn’t know how to handle her wrenching, “You, you, you, you”; some giggled nervously when we hit that part. The rawness of heartbreak was real to them on at least three levels: 1) They have felt betrayed at some point in their own lives. 2) They believed in Hamilton, his dreams and ideals, and feel betrayed by him themselves as if they were there. 3) They commiserated and empathized with Eliza, the wounded wife, the loving supporter, the hero of the story before they even knew she would end up being the story’s hero. In fact, the heartbreak they feel along with Eliza makes the ending all the more powerful because they comprehend the remarkable nature of her strength in forgiving Hamilton and in working to preserve his legacy (and are quite in awe of that strength). At the end, my students said, “Eliza went through it, Mrs. Camp.” They told me, “She lost everyone and still kept going.”
One young man in my 7th period said, “So, who would have thought Eliza would be the real hero of the story?”
I responded with, “Cameron, say that again out loud so the rest of the class can hear you.” So, he did. Another young man said in response, “Eliza, how can she be a hero? She is woman!”
The rest of the class groaned and responded with comments such as “Shut up, CJ,” but the idea stuck.
Eliza carries on; Eliza is a symbol of strength and forgiveness; Eliza endures. They had found someone to admire in the story even if the protagonist had broken their hearts.
The second moment of reckoning: the duels. They thought the first duel between John Laurens and General Charles Lee was entertaining. They laughed at Miranda’s portrayal of Lee (“Wheeee!”), and they admired Laurens from the beginning, especially since he was from South Carolina, and as a favored son of South Carolina, one who bucked the slave system we are so well-known for. They cheered for him throughout the first act.
The second duel elicited quite a different response. They began to piece together the similar tune of the counting of one through nine in “Ten Duel Commandments” and of Eliza teaching Phillip to play the piano and count in French. Again, they saw the inevitable coming, but they weren’t able to prevent the onslaught of tears when the inevitable arrived. They also knew how Hamilton would die before we arrived at the Hamilton-Burr duel (of course, that’s the part of Hamilton’s life everyone knows). Yet, when the play was over, they sat in stunned silence until someone gathered enough courage to ask, “What would happen if he hadn’t gone to the duel?”
“He would have been dishonored, labeled a coward, and probably blacklisted from society,” I answered.
“I guess I would be a coward then. Who would go to a planned shooting where you know you could die?” This comment or something similar erupted from every class at the end of Hamilton, and we spent the next 5 -10 minutes discussing the history of duels and the notion of honor and what we do today to defend someone’s honor. Yet, questions about the duels kept coming; the duel scenes stuck with them, plagued them for days.
Overwhelmingly, my students were bothered most by these duel scenes, the moments of arranged and gentlemanly violence. My students, who watch violent movies and play video games such as Black Ops, and who listen to popular music that treats death as an expected and somewhat honorable occurrence. My students, who lost a classmate last year to suicide and lost two more friends this year to an accident caused by their friends’ own drug use and impaired driving. My students, who see gun violence portrayed on daily news broadcasts. My students, who come from homes where owning a gun for protection is seen as standard procedure and who live in a town where not owning a gun is viewed as naïve and not smart. My students, who witnessed the hysteria and heartbreak and fear caused by a serial killer stalking our very own town and killing people we knew personally just seven years ago. My students, who just last summer witnessed the gruesome slaughter of innocent church members just miles down the road in a place where they often spend summer vacations and take school field trips. And yes, my students who even own guns themselves and often go hunting in the morning before school even starts – these very students so accustomed to gun ownership and who respect the power of guns and who do not blink when they hear about a murder or a school shooting were silenced and bewildered when they witnessed a familiar duel that actually took place 200 years ago but came alive and played vividly on the stage in their minds. Why?
Could it be that the art itself, the music and the drama portrayed through the lyrics, catapulted a common occurrence into a realm that news broadcasts, and even reality itself, couldn’t capture? Miranda’s story captured their minds and hearts at a level that transformed seemingly abstract (even if common and familiar) concepts such as dying, defending one’s honor, facing death with courage, and showing mercy to one’s enemy into one concrete lump in their throats that just wouldn’t settle and that sat stone cold and still in their bellies when they managed to force it down.
For years, when I taught Aristotle’s definition of tragedy and explained the notion of a catharsis, I taught it as a purging of emotions, a way to express our grief and frustration in a healthy, vicarious way. We would get those negative emotions out, throw them up and walk away clean. Yet, maybe a catharsis is something more. Maybe a catharsis is more of a way to internalize those emotions, a way to connect to humanity by making the emotions raw and tangible, yet able to be expressed freely in a safe place – the theater – where those emotions are welcomed and accepted and celebrated as part of our humanity. A catharsis is more of an awakening when we have fallen asleep to the pain that surrounds us, to the injustice that has become routine.
I don’t know exactly where to go from here; I am in the planning stages of a new unit based on Hamilton’s music for next year. Yet, this new perspective has awakened an old longing in me, too – a longing for that sweet spot of learning, that moment when heart and mind connect to make new meaning that lasts far past a test. I am certain we hit that sweet spot this year with Hamilton, and I know my students will carry that moment with them far past their use of the musical as evidence on their AP exam. In fact, I pray that this year’s experiment was not a moment, but a movement. Thank you, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Kristie Camp 