Achebe

I'm not quite ready to talk about Achebe yet. I read Things Fall Apart during my first year of teaching, 1988-1989. I found it in the English department's paperback book closet. I realized at once that it was a story of great power, that it would speak to my all male tenth grade basic skills class, and that I would need to prepare myself with cultural background before I undertook it. I was too overwhelmed with the daily juggling act of four preparations across three grade levels and I lacked confidence in my vision that the sophomore boys would embrace the story. I did not teach the book until 1995 when I was asked to join a team where the curriculum was set in stone.

How I fell in love with teaching during that first year I am still trying to understand, but I did, and reading Things Fall Apart, having the dream of teaching it some day, was a big part of it. The fifteen years that I did teach it were magical. I later defended dropping the novel from the curriculum (formerly set in stone), year after year. The teacher who originated that curriculum dropped a casual comment as he left the parking lot for the last time. "Keep the ninth grade going," he said. We have not spoken since but his request stayed in my mind all these years. I saw that Things Fall Apart was the centerpiece. Everything else in the four years of our English program depended on it. Other works might come and go, but not the novel written in English by a Nigerian author with a title from Yeats... okay, this is where it gets complicated.