Opinion: Dante And Another School Year: A Teacher’s Reflection

By: John Cabascango

Once again, the school year begins, with busy schedules, and a process that is part of what we as a society call success. For some it will be a pattern of getting good grades, and activities which promote athletic or artistic measure. For others, the process will be stressful because of clothes, food and activities which are beyond affordable. Over time, various groups will emerge, following paths which include the achievers, middle of the road participants, vocational paths, the barely getting by or dropping out.

In my 27 years of teaching I have seen too many silver bullets. All of our societal failures should have been shot down and mounted on the wall by now. They haven’t, although our pathways still lead to positive outcomes because of and despite our best efforts.

I don’t write to advocate the best way. There are certainly enough voices clamoring to get the attention and followers they crave. Today I reflect on our so-called cultural values, the social waters we all swim in. I do this as a teacher examining a text rarely taught, other than perhaps a small excerpt from a textbook years ago when textbooks were part of the daily routine of a teacher.

In the sixth Canto of the Inferno, Dante encounters a circle of Hell inhabited by the Gluttonous, guarded by Cerberus. Cerberus is usually a giant three headed dog, known to those who have read Greek Mythology or the Harry Potter books. In the Inferno he is a three headed demon who barks incessantly and tortures those who live in a climate of endless freezing rain.

At one point, Dante’s guide, the poet Virgil, silences the barking by throwing mud for the three heads to consume. At this point, it becomes obvious that consumption is the point of the craving. The maniacal cycle has no refinement of taste, no longer differentiating between something worth consuming and consumption itself.

There will never be a perfect system for educating our children. Perhaps our salesmanship and desire to compete will always mean that we as parents, teachers and students will always have to filter the next trend without losing sight of our own learning process and that of our children. However, in a wealthy, driven society such as ours, there is one litmus test which must be applied to our endless need to market success and education together. That test is endless consumption itself.

If we as a society push financial acquisition as the lighthouse that brings us to the shore of a meaningful life, we will never develop a conscience that questions whether the ways we make money can be counter to a healthy and meaningful life. If we don’t realize that students come into schools with various challenges, some much more significant than others, we will continuously measure and celebrate test results as a race with multiple starting lines and a single finish line. And, if we insist on solving all problems in the school house, we will overwhelm the process itself by continuously asking it to address all needs at all points, no matter how many challenges there are.

For much of Canto 6, Dante the pilgrim hears of Gluttony as a sin of acquiring knowledge and power, much more than food and drink. At points the knowledge craved seems like poetic gossip, information about who is in what level of the Inferno and why. Our societal use of social media can move quickly away from seeing the latest pictures of family and friends to weaponized gossip. The latest knowledge of the current crisis becomes nothing more than layers of virtue signaling.

Neither the conservative or the liberal have cornered the market on this sort of gluttony, which functions as media junk food endlessly feeding a craving and never leaving the devourer full. Just as Dante’s circle of Hell was filled with never satisfied appetites, so our endless media feed leads from national conspiracies to local gossip, with the same hollowing lack of nourishment.

This year, as we begin another cycle with the potential of progress and actual improvement, it would behoove us to celebrate improvement more since we have many starting lines. It would be helpful to reexamine learning as something other than a platform for bragging about success, which can lead to pointless competition. It can be healthy to work hard at building learning environments without expectations that the local school be some sort of paradise that offers experiences most of us have never known outside of isolated experiences with true friends and family.

Dante’s Canto 6 is the horrifying vision of those who constantly crave and consume, and live amidst the reality of no nourishment and icy rain. It is not the hunger of those who lack, or struggle to survive. Life has examples of those who do not have and still share, at times even mystifying or shaming those who have much more.

The 6th Canto is a warning that the never ending desire for promotion, knowledge and power may well be more destructive than the never ending desire for food and drink. In the end such pursuits are not limited to ruthless cartels or unethical politicians and investors. They may well begin in the local politics of education, where we push forward our children as trophies of our success and shout each other down at meetings to show how much more we care.

In the end, our education battles may not be the cause of our endless consumption and competition, but a reflection of the icy rain and endless howling we unwittingly choose.

John Cabascango is the author of Throwing Moses Under the Bus: A High School English Teacher Looks at the Ten Commandments and Off the Rails: Evangelicals, Power and Politics