While discussing Fahrenheit 451 with a coworker this week, I was suddenly reminded of a 4th grade experience that was to teach me a lasting lesson.
While attending school in Eastern Oregon, my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. T. (no relation to Mr. T) told the class we would be starting daily journals. We were to write whatever came to mind, events of the day and whatnot. “If you want to write ‘Mrs. T. is a bitch, you can write that,’” she said.
For a week or so, we wrote in our journals. Then one day, when we came into school, a murmur started though the classroom. No one could find their journals in their desks. We asked Mrs. T. where they might be.
“I burned them,” she said.
Yes, in the burn barrel on the side of the playground(!) she had burned them. Evidently someone had written, “Mrs. T. is a bitch.” I remember looking down into the burn barrel and seeing the charred remains of 20 or so spiral-bound notebooks.
I still don’t know why she had us write in our journals. Her explanation to me is forgotten. However, I want to thank Mrs. T. for her lasting Orwellian lesson. She taught my class about privacy violated, trust broken, censorship, abuses of authority - essentially a lesson of Big Brother.
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