Maple Street

Every year, without fail, I introduced my middle school students to a Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode called “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” We’d choose parts and read the script like a play, then watch the episode which I had on tape (yeah…tape). After I helped the kids make the paradigm shift that tv used to be all black and white, they’d settle in to watch—complaining now and then about the fact that it should be in color.

The gist of the play is this: a small pleasant group of neighbors suddenly find that the power is randomly going out and flickering on/off in various homes and appliances. Cars are starting on their own. Lawn mowers are stopping and starting for no mechanical reason. Street lights are blinking. Homes go dark. The friendly neighbors are perplexed at first. There is head scratching. Problem-solving. Collaboration on ideas to call authorities or fix things themselves. But next comes anxiety, a creeping unease, fear, frustration, anger, accusation, paranoia, and…finally, even violence. Midway, someone floats a conspiracy theory that there are aliens hiding among them in disguise. By the end of the play, these friends and neighbors have turned on one another in grotesque and scary ways. It’s appalling. It’s ridiculous. It’s…human.

The kids‘ faces were fun to watch as we read aloud. Unlike many stories they’d already heard or seen on tv, this one was so old it was new to them. They would chuckle as the hysterical neighbor lady started accusing people of being from outer space. They would frown as it began to dawn on them that otherwise reasonable people were believing her just because their electricity was acting crazy. They would gasp when the “sound effect” line read “gunshot.” And then…at the end…when the camera pulls back for a view of these normal, nice, friendly people just like us fighting in the middle of Maple Street, they would shake their heads in disbelief. Such silly people. Thank goodness, we aren’t like them.

But the real kicker in the Maple Street story (as with all Twilight Zone episodes) is the coda. The final image as the camera pulls back is of two alien beings watching all this happen from some “overhead” view. The older one says to the newbie, “Understand the procedure now?” and proceeds to explain that you don’t have to invade or attack to capture a country. You simply sow seeds of panic and sit back to let people destroy themselves. The younger alien is a little astonished at how easy it is. “Is the pattern always the same?” The other assures him that it is.

I loved watching the kids puzzle out the cryptic meaning of the narrator’s final words: “The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children…and the children yet unborn.” Even a seventh grader quickly grasped that they were the children referenced.

We used the text to discuss the thin veneer of civility that keeps us from the edge, the importance of keeping a grip on our humanity, the need to seek what binds us and solve problems together…focus on the real issues, not the scary distractions. I didn’t have to lead the kids to these big ideas. “Maple Street” was a fun text because I could sit back and watch them uncover truths about the fragile nature of decency and compassion and trust—profound ideas they worked out on their own. In thirty years of teaching the story, there were moments that made my heart leap—times when some thoughtful kid would make a connection that was incredible, arguments they worked through that made my heart hope for the future. Such is the work of teaching. Sometimes in a classroom, the clouds part for an instant, and you get a peek at what humanity might become long after you are gone from the earth.

I confess that Maple Street has been on my mind lately as I struggle to comprehend the polarization of my country. We could dissect the causes endlessly, but at the end of the day, America is Maple Street, and we have come close to turning on our neighbors instead of uniting to solve common problems that concern us all. I don’t have answers for what we do next, but I know one of the main truths the kids always used to arrive at after lively discussion: knowing who we are and what we are capable of is the first step to overcoming it. We are stronger united than divided, but we are fragile enough to become our own destruction. We must know that division destroys if we are to stop ourselves from participating in it.

Maple Street needed quiet, resolute voices and strong, brave ones calling people to suspend disbelief and fear and try to trust each other. Those voices didn’t have to be elected leaders. They could be you…and me. The flickering lights are voices insidiously sowing seeds of distrust and doubt. To them, we must reply, “I don’t understand all my neighbors, but that will not make me hate or hurt them.” Suspicion destroys love. Every time. We have to guard against it like the sneaky first wave of attack on our humanity that it is.

Full and honest disclosure: I truly don’t understand all that leads people to feel joy in a MAGA rally. I don’t get it. Our current leader is everything I never wanted my children to learn or be. I’m not enamored with him or many of the policies he supports. But I am trying to accept that there are people who are my American Maple Street neighbors for whom he is inspiring. People who have felt worried, disrespected, powerless, afraid, or something else I don’t understand. Though we disagree, we are not enemies. We each believe with similar vehemence that we possess truth and are on the side of good. And that makes it all the more important not to assume the opposite of each other and not to give in to fear. Will we convince each other? Probably not. So what’s next? Can we find some things we do want to do together and start in? Can we mow the lawn and lend each other tools? Have a potluck and talk about our children? Build a park? Try to get to know each other’s worries?

Democracy is a fragile experiment; our country is vast; and our people represent perhaps the widest variety in any country in the world. Splintered media, fractured institutions, fear of others, and too much “hit and run” on social media have stressed our understanding of one another. But the lights are flickering on and off for us all. We need to focus on why and work together to keep them on for everyone.

Full script of “Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” found here: https://ccms.buncombeschools.org/common/pages/UserFile.aspx?fileId=3313039)