Man and Beast from The Moth

The story reminds me so much of the movie “Avatar” and in follows the basic Joseph Campbell Journey of the Hero. The main character, the boy, is the average kid, a good potential hero, who has a problem that keeps him from becoming the person he strives to be. He stutters; a speech impediment over which he has no control. However, it is not insurmountable, because he knows that under the correct circumstances, he can speak freely; he can do that with animals. So he needs to attain the basic means to live in his own world, the speech classes, and then sets out to live in the world in which he can flourish, the jungle. When he finds that the way of life of his new environment is threatened by civilization, he has to use all of his teachings to overcome his disability and rescue his charges. In the end he is also judged by the inhabitants of his new chosen world as worthy of being accepted into their community, a dangerous, potentially life threatening confrontation.
In Avatar, the wounded hero, has through much hard work, been taught to be functional in spite of his disability. He is given an opportunity to live and become a part of a different community, an environment in which he is not hampered by that disability. He must then be the one who saves his chosen “family” from the destruction of “civilization”. He must also be accepted and trusted completely by his chosen world by successfully proving his sincerity even in life threatening confrontations.
The Campbell model is the hero who has a problem he must overcome through guidance and deprivation, given an opportunity to prove his worth. He eventually gains the recognition and subsequent paradise he so longs for.

What touched me most in the story were the helplessness of the boy and the inability of the status quo to be able to recognize that though there was a problem, it was not insurmountable. In schools, we keep running across kids who have some problem that interferes with their growth, their learning potential and their self esteem. By the time it is addressed, as an educator I keep wondering, “Didn’t anyone think to address this in a positive way before now?” Why it is so hard for people to see this is not an indictment of the child is difficult for me to fathom? It is nothing that cannot be tweaked so that it is not a major factor in their self image for the rest of their lives.