Saint Dolly

The philosopher, Mary Townsend in a superb article in Plough, asks “What is virtue, what is the good, what is the beautiful? It looks a little like Dolly Parton.”

I couldn’t agree more.  Dolly Parton is one of the people I consider an icon and patron saint of my English classroom.  It helps that she is an artist extraordinaire who cares deeply about literacy—but mostly I admire and strive to emulate Dolly in her formulation of the successful concert template.

Dolly says that to give a good concert, you have to do the following four steps:

“Make ‘em laugh,

Make ‘em cry,

Kick ‘em in the ass—

Send ‘em home.” 

                  This formula for perfection is how I try to write all my lesson plans.  No matter how tragic the text is that we’re reading—and we read a lot of tragedy in my class—I still try to get a laugh out of my students at some point in the class period.  Every good teacher is a bit of a ham, a bit of a comic, a bit of an actor.  It’s always a bit of show.    

                  Good literature should (proverbially) kick our students in the ass a bit.  What are we reading for if not to change our lives and live the best lives we can?  If something we read challenges us, makes us a little uncomfortable, or “steps on our toes,” GOOD.  Literature should wake us up[1] and make us think about our choices a little bit more.

                  And every class, every concert, and every sermon ought to end with what I’ve heard called a “launch.”  Something with a taste of finality in it, a little “go ye therefore,” to send us out the door.

                  Dolly’s dictum ought to be taught in education programs across the world.  Dolly said it best, did it best, and all we can do is try to keep up.  The form of the Good indeed.  Hallelujah.

[1] Or in Kafka’s violent imagery, literature should be the axe that breaks up the frozen seas within us.