Importance of the Slave Dancer Book

¶ … Slave Dancer: How to teach the book, how to teach about slavery, race, and ethics

The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox, viewed from the eyes of a student, is an adventure tale with a young protagonist who can be easily identified with, in the eyes of a young reader. Plot wise, the book tells the story of a young, thirteen-year-old boy in 1840, when the American slave trade was still legal. The boy, Jessie Bollier, has recently lost his father. He makes money for his family by playing his fife on the docks of New Orleans. Suddenly, one day, he finds himself on board a ship called "The Moonlight." The Moonlight is a slave ship bound for the coast of Africa.

An exciting story from the point-of-view of a student, but a potential lesson in history and ethics in the eyes of a teacher, for Jessie, as compelled by the crew, must play for the slaves so they can dance and keep themselves 'in condition' for the horrific state of human enslavement that awaits them. Few Africans survived the journey known as the Middle Passage with bodies or minds intact, and Jessie becomes a part of this frightening part of American history. This merging of American history and personal identification with the story's main character is conveyed in an especially strong fashion by the author because young children can so easily identify with the protagonist. Like all of boys junior high school age, children such as Jessie are often thrust into a situation where, in his words, was no one can save him. In other words, Jessie has very little control over his life. His father is dead, and he has few resources other than his own wiles. (Fox, p. 22) He does not choose his fate, his fate chooses him.

Even if children have never lost a parent or a loved one, children of junior high school age are all in a conflict over dependence and independence as they teeter upon the brink of childhood and adolescence. They often feel imposed upon by fate and outside forces. Jessie is a child, and ordered around like a little boy, but he has a job like an adult and is forced to assume family responsibilities that he is not really equipped to deal with. Then, history thrusts him into an ethical dilemma that not even grown men have been able to resolve.

Over the course of the book, a portrait of American slavery is painted that children can emotionally identify with -- what child has not been thrust into a situation where they cannot understand all that is whirling around them? What person has not suffered the feeling when of junior high school age, of being overburdened with too many adult and childhood responsibilities, all at once? What child who has not lost a parent, specifically, been made feel that he or she has too many adult responsibilities and has too few emotional and personal resources with which to cope with the loss? Jessie faces all of these troubles; in addition to the historical situation he is an unwitting actor.

The protagonist is also forced into a conflict of morality, not simply because of the musical actions he is forced to perform, but between himself and other authority figures, such as "Purvis with his horrible coarse jokes, his bawling and cursing, " (pp. 47-48). The book's portrayal of the enslaving crew of sailors and overseers suggests that adults are not always trustworthy, a sentiment children can also easily identify with. Still, because there are some good men on the ship, the book not paint a world of total mistrust of the adult world.

One particularly helpful aspect of The Slave Dancer for teachers is that it even offers a teacher's guide that suggests such helpful ideas as to instruct students to consult reference sources so they might be able to draw and label a diagram of the ship Jessie might have sailed on. Students can glean such information, from a diary entry in which Jessie explains what the boat he said on looked like, as well as compose 'log books' as if they were on the ship, of a vocabulary list of new words.

The website offers other helpful suggestions, some of which can cross the barriers of the disciplines of math, science, history, and English. For instance, to integrate math, history, and English, students can calculate the number of miles that Jessie traveled while he was on the ship and convert the mileage into kilometers. This enables students whose abilities might be stronger in math and science rather than literature and history to feel a vital part of the lesson. Also, students may want to add this information to the map they create in a geography activity, of mapping out the route of the ship.

However, what is undeniably most central to teaching and utilizing the theme and the book of The Slave Dancer in the classroom is the moral and ethical dilemma Jessie's plight poses for its young readers -- should the boy continue to play for the enjoyment of the slaves, merely to keep them fit for the enslavement that awaits them? Is it ethical to do a good thing, in other words, in the service of a bad cause? Students can bring their own personal struggles to this question, with politics and ethics, as well as their personal queries about race relations, the loss of a parent, and conditions aboard the ship.