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Education leads to a loss of innocence.
“The School” opens with the students planting trees. The goal of the lesson is to teach them about root systems and individual responsibility. Instead, the students unintentionally learn about death. Earlier, when the school’s heating system was shut off due to a strike, they had learned that snakes die of cold. They learn that herb gardens can die if they are overwatered and that small animals will suffocate when enclosed in plastic bags. They learn that orphan children can die of an unstated cause. They learn that parents and grandparents are not exempt from death. The body and mind often fail, and deadly accidents happen, even to classmates. Each day seems to bring a new lesson about the fragility of life.
With each death, the students lose some of their innocence and gain experience and an awareness of life’s tragedies and unpredictability. After the snakes die, the students aren’t too upset. But when the Korean orphan dies, they feel too sad to adopt another. They begin to think something is wrong with the school, but nothing is wrong. Living things are mortal. The students’ questions about death dramatically emphasize their loss of innocence. Their questions begin small and simple: “Where do they go?” Later, they become increasingly complex and philosophical. They are upset at the answers they receive and ask for an “assertion of value” to quell their fears. Through their experiences at the school, the children lose their innocence and gain knowledge of the fragility of life and the inevitability of death.
There are no easy answers.
Edgar is a schoolteacher, someone who should have answers to the students’ questions. But he rarely does. When the orange trees die, he says, “I don’t know why they died. They just died.” He offers a possible explanation—perhaps a matter of bad soil or low-quality trees. Even so, he doesn’t know for sure. When the herb gardens die, he says it was probably overwatering, though he doesn’t know if it was the result of an accident or intentional sabotage. When the puppy dies, he can only guess that it was distemper since the dog probably hadn’t been immunized. When the Korean orphan dies, the agency provides no reason. Edgar’s only response is to say, “Maybe we adopted him too late or something.” Likewise, he explains how the parents and classmates die, but not why.
Edgar also answers the students’ question about where things go when they die with confusion and hesitation: “I don’t know, I don’t know . . . nobody knows.” When they ask if death gives meaning to life, he weakly responds that life gives meaning to life. When the kids begin asking about death transcending the mundanity of everyday life, he interrupts them with a vague reply. He is unable to give satisfying answers to their questions. But readers cannot blame him. There are no easy answers to many of life’s questions, and Edgar admits as much. As he says about the tropical fish lesson, there’s “nothing we [can] do . . . you just have to hurry past it.” Accepting that there are no easy answers in life allows people to move on with living it.
There is value everywhere.
The students ask Edgar to make love to Helen as an “assertion of value.” They are frightened and want proof that life is worth living. Edgar responds by telling them they shouldn’t be frightened, although he acknowledges that he often feels frightened as well. Although he can’t answer many of their questions about life and death, he tells them that “there is value everywhere.” This claim is implicitly reflected in the valuable lessons the students learn during the school year. Orange trees can die even if you try to care for them. Likewise, herb gardens can die if you overwater them. The puppy also dies, but its death happens two weeks later than it would have if it had been run over by the delivery truck. In the extra two weeks of its life, the puppy brought a great deal of joy to the classroom. No one lives forever—not family members, friends, or pets. Although this reality may be sad, new life is always possible. After all, you never know when a new gerbil might walk into your life unexpectedly. Life has value if you know where to look for it. Still, the optimism of Edgar’s statement contrasts strongly with the catalog of deaths in the story. Barthelme allows readers to make up their own minds about whether Edgar’s statement is valid or not.
