1. Meghan Shephard
TAL103P
10/15/12
1
The Water is Wide is a non-fiction piece by the author Pat Conroy. This book
relates in detail the trials and tribulations experienced by the author during his time
teaching on Yamacraw Island. Throughout the novel, Conroy forms images for the
reader, depicting his upbringing as a white Christian male in the south right before
and during the Civil Rights Movement. The experiences accumulated throughout his
childhood result in his arrival on the island, ranging from reasons of white guilt,
personal martyrdom, and societal pressures brought on by the Civil Rights
Movement.
Through teaching on Yamacraw, Conroy brought the understanding of his
own ignorance to a new peak. By noting the ignorance of his students on the island,
it highlighted his own ignorance of the consequences of racism and prejudice. Each
time he entered a new subject, he learned about a new gap in his students’
knowledge. Some of his students vaguely heard of Vietnam War, but of course did
not know what it was, confusing it with the Second World War. The children did not
know famous figures of their own race, which Conroy did not understand. He
describes his Yamacraw students as having “never done a thousand things that
children of a similar age took for granted.” He says “thousand” as a gross
understatement, because in reality, the experiences a child has should be unlimited.
However, Yamacraw is isolated on all levels; physically, socially, ideologically, and
religiously. This isolation was at a point where the children could not possibly have
the same experiences as the average or stereotypical American child.
2. Meghan Shephard
TAL103P
10/15/12
2
The students’ isolation on Yamacraw Island was not aided by Mrs. Brown’s
antiquated and rigid teaching methods. Her instruction was so disciplinary that the
students could not possibly be retaining information she was teaching due to their
fear of being paddled or whipped. Conroy’s methods, on the other hand, were more
experimental. He understood that the instructional methods used with his
Yamacraw students need to be tailored to their needs and lack of (successful)
schooling. On one day, the kids surrounded him with their desks in a circle. For the
first time in their lives, as conceived by Conroy, his students had honest
conversation about the world. Clearly this type of dialogue was the first of its kind in
island history. In this conversation, which he made sure to repeat every morning to
start class, he did not list events, but rather described personal experiences. The
kids proceeded to educate him on Yamacraw life, and what it was like to be an
islander. They discussed hunting, (which enthused the boys), the woods, and its
animals. The girls then elaborated on the “scrinching” process and its procedures
and specifications. They uncovered differences in gastronomy between Conroy’s
culture and the Yamacraw culture. Conroy wondered if they felt any pity for him and
his ‘dearth of experiences’, which included never having caught and eaten a squirrel
or dismembering frogs on the school steps. Clearly, experiences like these were
essential to living, in the students’ perspective.
Pre-Arrival on Yamacraw Island, Conroy believed that the teacher must
always maintain control in order to maintain attention, always be on the attack. His
associate, Bernie, would always make his students laugh as his primary method of
instruction.
3. Meghan Shephard
TAL103P
10/15/12
3
Post-Arrival on Yamacraw Island, Conroy concentrated on variety as his
fundamental pillar for teaching. He would put on the news and point to the map
every morning for months in order to get the kids accustomed to hearing something
different every day. This would expand the kids’ frame of reference on a daily basis.
After the news, he had multiple questions and waited for whomever to answer. If no
one would answer, he would ask the same question but in a different way to
reiterate the point of the question (i.e. Brazil/coffee, coffee/Brazil). This first
experience gave birth to the “pep-rally method” of teaching.
Every morning thereafter, the lessons included a portion of group chant and
participation; “incantations to the god of basic knowledge”. Rivers, continents,
oceans, presidents, wars, documents. Nothing was off limits when it came to the
daily dose of ignorance immunization. None of the subjects were deeply delved into,
but everything was mentioned at some point. The “Pep Rally Method” can be loosely
defined as “learning by means of conversation.” Conroy would beg them to get the
questions wrong, which in turn fired them up and prompted a chaotic conversation
of varying categories. Only seven of the students benefitted less from the pep rallies.
Although they would not know what to say, they would shout anyways. Just because
they were not verbally contributing anything intelligible, does not mean they were
not learning and enjoying doing so. For the rest of the kids, the pep-rally method
was a way to learn something new without feeling bogged down with the task of
memorizing information. All of this centered on the visual of the map, anchoring
down the auditory information they heard to an image, coating the inner walls of
their brains with new stimuli.
4. Meghan Shephard
TAL103P
10/15/12
4
Unfortunately, the pep-rallies would end whenever Mrs. Brown peeped in through
the classroom door’s window.
When it comes to Mrs. Brown, Conroy usually let her rant on, casting off her
ramblings as ignorance and blips in time. For the first time, Conroy stood up to Mrs.
Brown when she threatened to disallow the “Halloween at Beaufort” trip. It became
clear to Mrs. Brown that Conroy was not just another teacher who would
submissively comply with the arbitrary rules she pushed. After having conquered
the oppressive Mrs. Brown, Conroy moved on to tackle the elders of the island. He
strategically started with the most impactful parental figure on the island. If he
could get her vote, the trip would be a go. When she finally broke and gave consent
for her grandchildren to go on the Halloween trip, the rest of the island adhered to
her decision.
All of this work that Conroy put in for this one field trip, not knowing what
would happen and if they would let him try this again, was revolutionary for the
children in his class. He believed, as do I, in learning outside of the classroom. When
you are met with a population of kids who are trying to be students but have never
been able to connect their classroom experiences to a society outside their own, it is
crucial to give them that first experience. Although the Beaufort Halloween trip was
an experience for the island that was long overdue, it was better late than never. As
Conroy describes in detail, the kids could not get over the fieldtrip for months. The
trip and their memories would dominate class and dictate what they learned for
many classes to come. The change that came from this trip was a shift in mindset, an
opening to the foreign and the abstract, a rejection of ignorance, and a denial of
5. Meghan Shephard
TAL103P
10/15/12
5
complacency. This fieldtrip transformed the island, before its residents had even
realized.
As much as Conroy could transform his students and the Island, he would
never transform into a member of the society on Yamacraw Island. "Even though I
was on Yamacraw, I was not of Yamacraw." (Conroy, 1972, p. 92) No matter how
much Conroy learned about the Island, conformed to its norms, and abided by its
traditions, he would never be able to identify himself as an islander. Pat Conroy
could live on Yamacraw, eat the native food, live among their families and call
himself a resident, but he could never consider himself a member of their society. He
did not grow up speaking their dialect of English; he did not grow up eating
‘scrinched’ squirrel; he was not born and raised on Yamacraw. Assimilation into
another culture does not make one of that culture. A linguistic example could be that
I speak African American Vernacular but that does not make me African American.
Similarly, Conroy can do all he can to live among the Yamacraw islanders, but he will
never be Yamacraw islander himself. Therefore, he could never truly identify with
the islanders who did grow up on the island.
By the same token, his Yamacraw students can learn about the world beyond
the But they will always be of Yamacraw, not the mainland South Carolina. In order
to further their learning despite this fact, he pioneered the first field trip off
Yamacraw. Before introducing the “Halloween at Beaufort” trip to his class, he
tested the waters to see the scope of their holiday knowledge. The kids did not know
the concept of ”trick-or-treating”, carving pumpkins, dressing up in costumes, or
eating candy. When asked about ghosts, the conversation became more serious.
6. Meghan Shephard
TAL103P
10/15/12
6
Ghosts were more relevant to Yamacraw, in a realistic way, depicting the mystery of
the darkness that overtakes the island at night. The island’s legends and stories are
passed on from family to family, generation to generation, creating an ambiguous
veil around nighttime happenings yearlong, not just on one night of the year. In
contrast to Yamacraw, the Beaufort children have actualized this fear of darkness in
a commercial way, consequentially overcoming the childhood fears of “The
Boogieman”, monsters in the closet, and goblins under the bed. The creation of this
yearly tradition ultimately strayed from its origins, turning into a commercial
celebration much like Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day. However, the island fear
of the night is real because much of the darkness is unexplored and remains
unknown after sunsets. Bringing his kids to Beaufort created an intersection
between the commercial holiday of enjoying the night and the island traditions of
leaving the night alone.
Unfortunately, Conroy’s improvement of his students’ education and it’s
permanent affect on the island of Yamacraw were cut short when he was fired and
consequently brought to trial. Throughout his time on the island, living among the
people and connecting with his students, Pat Conroy knew the change he was
creating. The field trip, the scholarly exploration of music history, the endeavors
into geography, the struggle to learn football, the mission to master orthography; all
of these were novel for Pat Conroy’s students. The act of so suddenly being
dismissed from all of those novelties and experiences was nuclear in emotional
impact. In recovery from this blast, Conroy immediately despised Piedmont and
Bennington. These “evil men” grew to become less evil as Conroy learned to
7. Meghan Shephard
TAL103P
10/15/12
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understand the mediocrity that surrounded him (Conroy, 1972, p. 289). In his mind,
they were just two more men that had perfected the art of “ass-kissing”. However,
these men had not learned to dominate their fears; their fears of the disappearance
of segregation. From now on, Piedmont and Bennington cannot just push “order,
control, obedience”, and that scares them (Conroy, 1972, p290). “The Benningtons
and Piedmonts could weather any storm or surmount any threat. All of this ended
with the coming of integration to the South (Conroy, 1972, p290).” At Conroy’s trial,
he saw these two men as the “soldiers of the rear guard, the captains of a doomed
army” (Conroy, 1972, p291). They may have won the battle of firing Conroy, but
they are losing the new war against segregation that Conroy was fighting by
educating his Yamacraw students.
Piedmont, Bennington, and all of those who initially refused to support
desegregation can be seen as falling victim to ignorance. Conroy has explicitly told
readers through his teaching experiences on Yamacraw that, during his time, racism
was real, and so were its consequences. Racism manifested on Yamacraw in the
form of isolation; the outside’s world complacency and lack of interest in connecting
to the island. The act of ignoring the island led to the ignorance of its population,
which all stems from the ignorance of those who supported racism and segregation.
“For in crossing the river twice daily I had come closer to more basic things… I had
seen how fog could change the whole world into its own image (Conroy, 1972,
p258).” Through working daily with his students and interacting with the islanders,
Conroy could see how the ignorance of those such as Piedmont and Bennington
