Beguiled by October
"Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know,"
I began the Current Events class with Robert Frost's "October." Once we defined "beguile" the students were captivated by the line:
"Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know,"
They pointed to all the ways fall entrances them: golden leaves; autumn sun; brisk wind; crisp smells.
Then they brought their news stories out. They chatted over the heist aspect of the robbery at the Louvre, shared the pros and cons of AI, pointed out the lack of evidence in the opinion piece around the No Kings protest, and then things got heavy as someone read the story of the boats in the Caribbean that our government is blowing up—she had articles both from US newspapers and from Latin America, and she looked at me with pleading eyes and said, "This is dystopian, Mrs. Lee."
What could I say, other than, “Yes. Yes, it is.”
These are educated kids, and they wanted to know how this act didn't violate the 5th amendment and habeas corpus—humans are humans, the kids said.
We ended class with the famous "first they came for" poem by Martin Niemöller, and I reminded them that they have a voice. Keep learning. Keep speaking.
They filed out silently.
As I walked out to my car I saw most of them sitting on the curb eating lunch, lined up like cormorants in the sun. One shouted out, "We're talking about class, Mrs. Lee. And being beguiled by October."
They get it.