The Lorax

Today, we watched “The Lorax” by Dr. Seus in Environmental Studies 1010. How adorable; much like the rest of the curriculum. Not that I dislike the picture book, and I remember sitting down and watching the animated video all the way through some months ago when I should have been doing homework. In certain contexts, the video would be strikingly appropriate, but I did not feel that way this morning.

Perhaps I am frustrated because I feel that my class is at least half-full of little once-lers, paying no real heed to the message of the class, a message quite like that of the lorax. Unfortunately, I fear it is being communicated just as ineffectively here as in the picture book and that my classmates are no less determined to chop down every last trufula tree than they were when the semester began. Stocks are up! Let’s keep biggering!

I write this as a final tantrum, finally admitting to my true feelings about how I have been spending my time lately. I woke up today to complete the assignment in our cute little lab manual. The entire thing asked us to jump from webpage to webpage, writing down some specific piece of information. Some of the pages didn’t actually exist anymore, although really the whole thing would likely have moved more quickly if I had Googled each question individually.

But you’re supposed to read the articles and learn from them!

That’s not what I was asked to do. If you want me to read about ozone in the troposphere, why don’t you just assign me articles to read about it? Why, you could even put the information you want me to know in the textbook itself! Why have me jump from place to place, regurgitating information like I did in middle school from articles written at a third grade reading level? The real reason, Professor, that students complain when you assign us readings from scientific journals and ask us to synthesize information in an academic essay is that you, not the rest of the system, have lulled us into expecting assignments like what I completed this morning. Why are you surprised, or even disappointed?

As for class today, “The Lorax,” is a well-written story. We’re all familiar with it, a small fuzzy man speaking out against the greedy onceler and his thneed business. We have all heard the refrain, “I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees!”

And the class just sits there as our professor explains that we should take notes because it has to do with class.

Yes! Yes, “The Lorax” is a call to action! And that’s exactly what this class is missing. By this point in the semester, this moment when we have covered every topic in the manual and theoretically have a sound information base in all sorts of environmental issues, the story of the Lorax might just be exactly what ought to tie it all together. Now that you know, now that you see how all of this is connected, take care of that last trufula seed! What? The Lorax is a fictional character? Then it is YOUR job to speak for the trees.

But it has instead become just one more exam item, as if there were any point in testing anyone on “The Lorax.” And when the class was over we all began asking straightforward questions about when assignments are due and how we might weasel out of them. And the tiny little Lorax, he and his message are forgotten.