The Perfect Human and Lord of the Flies

Many years ago, I read a book titled “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.” As I was cleaning out my home bookshelf to take books to my classroom, I rediscovered this book and found a sheet of paper I was taking notes on as I read. One of the lines in my notes read, “What are the stages of maturity (emotional growth)?” And then with arrow leading to that same questions it said, “these are sequential stages of growth and development (each step is important and can’t be skipped… each takes time.”

So then I wondered what all of this meant… when a person takes notes, they are meant to trigger your memory for another time so you can remember what you have read, heard and learned. So now I must admit that “one has to admit ignorance to continue to learn and grow.” To continue to learn and grow, I went back and read parts of this book. I even went back and read parts of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers” by the same author. Though this is an older book and largely forgotten on a daily basis, I found many of the ideas refreshing. One particular section highlighted the values and practices that each student/human being should engage in: fairness, integrity, honesty, excellence, growth, nurturance, dignity, service, quality, potential, patience, effectiveness and encouragement. As I think about each one of qualities, I can’t help but think about the imbedded habits our children (and students) have. They like to procrastinate; they can be impatient; they are critical of others; and they tend to be selfish rather than gracious and giving. Though none of us are perfect and we all have our faults and frustrations; we need to strive to be our personal best. We need to strive to be that perfect human.

When William Golding wrote The Lord of the Flies, he had something to say about human nature, and about how humans (teenagers in this situation) grow emotionally and turn into different kinds of people. I began to look for these qualities in Jack, Ralph, Piggy, and the other boys in the book. I like to believe that I can find the good in every person I meet, even if it is buried kind of deep. I think I can see good qualities in all of the characters in The Lord of the Flies.

The perfect human would be fair. Not just fair as in cheating, but fair in their judgments of others. They would have integrity, a sense of consistent and unimpaired behavior with each person they come into contact with regardless of who that person is. They would be honest, knowing that telling a lie to anyone is wrong not matter how small the lie or the reasons behind that lie. They would strive for excellence in everything they do, not just sports or fun activities, but in academics and other more adult situations. They would want to continue to grow in all areas, which requires and open mind, a willingness to see new perspectives, and to try something new. They would be able to nurture others and not focus so much on themselves. They would want the best for those around them. They would have dignity, pride and respect for themselves, which in turn commands respect from others. They would be service oriented. They would want to help others, and not for profit. They would want the best quality in everything, not just in what they buy, but in what they write, publish, produce and create. They would use their full potential to better their lives and their community. They would create quality projects, volunteer, work hard, learn more, try harder, and never slack off when they “just don’t feel like it.” They would be patient and effective in what they do. People too often give up when things get too hard. They often don’t give themselves, or others, enough time to really learn something, and then to learn how to do it well. Not every task comes easily to each person. They would also have encouragement. Not just for others, but for themselves. We tend to talk down to ourselves when things are not going well; and then, in an unfair twist of fate, we take that frustration out on others and talk down to them to make ourselves feel better. If we encourage ourselves, think positive and talk positively with encouragement others, the world would be a better place.

What a great vocabulary lesson for students of all ages. These character traits, when I mentioned them to some of my students, were not words they could easily define. They had general ideas of what they meant, but they tended to use the same words to define each one. The nuances of the meanings are all different, but it is those subtle nuances that make each trait important and separate. As we are reading our novel, Lord of the Flies, many of the characters exhibit these traits, and others do not. I asked my students:

• For each characteristic you defined on your wiki page, which character is a good example of someone who exhibits that trait?
• I want to take this one step further, by asking what character traits do the boys in the novel exhibit that are not good traits?
• Brainstorm other character traits that helping these boys survive on this deserted island. What good character traits do the boys exhibit that are not in my list?