Day Three

On Friday, my sophomores and I went over Harold and Maude, a film about an unconventional love affair between Harold, a twenty year old, suicide obsessed trust fund baby, and Maude, an eighty year old holocaust survivor, who's obsessed with living life to the fullest. It's a great film, chock full of symbolism that leans heavily on nature.

During our discussion, I asked my kids why the idea of nature was so central to Harold and Maude's relationship? They came up with some good stuff. They felt that the two characters' love "grew" throughout the film and they "grew" closer together. Both acceptable answers, but I wanted them to dig deeper, pardon the bad pun.

I then asked them  about what happens when a tree or an animal dies in nature? "It decomposes and becomes part of the earth" was their reply.

Now we were getting somewhere.

So how does this relate to Harold and Maude's relationship?

Spoiler alert!!!


If you haven't seen the movie, you might want to look away. For the entire movie, Maude shows Harold how beautiful life can be, culminating in Harold losing his virginity to this old woman.


There are two reasons why I like to show my students this film. The first reason revolves around what we've been discussing so far. The second? I love to see the look of utter horror in my students' faces when they realize Harold has just slept with Maude.


Soon after Harold loses his virginity to Maude, he decides to marry her. But alas their romance is short lived because on her eightieth birthday Maude swallows a bunch of pills and kills herself.


End of spoiler.


So how does Maude's death echo the circle of life?

When plants die, they decompose and add nutrients to the soil, thereby giving life to other living things. And this is exactly what Maude does for Harold. Through her influence, Harold becomes a stronger, better person.

While we were discussing this, it suddenly occurred to me that by burying ourselves in coffins we have completely cut ourselves off from the circle of life. When we die, we don't fertilize the earth. In other words, we don't give back. We just take.

It was then that one of my "shining lights" brought up worms. "Don't worms get into the coffin and eat us when we die?"

"Yes, you're right. So in a sense worms are like taxi cabs, shuttling us back to nature. They chew us up and spit us right out!"

So in the end, we're nothing but worm fecal matter. I guess that's why we push up daisies.  It's the circle of life! Thanks Harold and Maude.

And that in a nutshell is why I like teaching.

Signing off.

Birds-Eye.