The Ant and the Plague of Locusts

Today I subbed in a seventh grade Language Arts classroom. The teacher intentionally left simple lesson plans because of standardized testing, so each class read two versions of the old fable, “The Ant and the Grasshopper.”

If, by some chance, you’ve never heard the story, here’s a brief synopsis:

The grasshopper plays all summer, and the ant works hard putting away food. When winter comes along, the grasshopper has no food, but the ant has a lot of food. The grasshopper asks the ant for food, but the ant tells the grasshopper he would’ve had food if he’d worked all summer and refuses to share.

Now, we all know, or at least I hope we all know, that the wayward grasshopper learns he should work to put away for bad times instead of wasting ALL of his time playing.

I learned today that today’s seventh graders don’t see it that way. Their reactions at the end of the story:

“Oh my gosh! The ant is so selfish and greedy!”

Huh?

I didn’t even know what to say to that. The moral of the story “In good times, prepare for when the bad times come,” was written plainly under the main text of the story. Being the conscientious substitute teacher that I try to be, I asked them how they expected to “play” if they didn’t work.

Their response:

“If you get really good at playing, you can get paid for it!”

Uh-huh.

I told them once you get paid to play a sport, it becomes your job and you have to work hard to be good enough to get paid. Then I asked them what the world would be like if everyone was like the grasshopper.

Their response:

“Oh my gosh, that would be so cool!”

I asked them what was more important in life; play or work?

Their response:

“Play, because in order for a kid to be happy they have to play and have fun.”

I told them we were talking about a happy life, not a happy childhood. That’s when they stopped listening. When I collected the discussion questions, the sentiments were definitely in the grasshopper’s favor; the ant was “rude,” “mean,” and “maybe right still really selfish.”

Well, I guess in ten years none of them will be trying to take my job. 

I worry about them, though. Why have they only just read this story in seventh grade? And why do they think the grasshopper deserves anything? What are we teaching them? Play all you want because someone will feed you? 

It’s not all of them, though. No, I wanted to hug the young man who wrote, “I think the ant was right to teach the grasshopper a lesson. If the world was full of people like the grasshopper, there would be no future.”

But for all our sake, I hope he’s wrong.

Kelli