Resistance to intellectual ambition in Coalwood's mining town culture

Rocket Boys: Chapters 6-7

Are you boys planning something nefarious?" (80) Mr. Turner's reaction to Homer and Quentin's experiments with rocketry is not approving, but suspicious. In Coalwood, anything and anyone who is different is dangerous. Even though the rest of American youth is being urged to explore the fields of science, space, and technology to keep pace with the Soviets, Coalwood admires tradition, convention, and young boys who dream of either descending into the mines, or working for the town's omnipresent mining company. Brute strength, like that exhibited by the football players, is admired in young men, not the sort of intellectual daring shown by Homer and Quentin. Even though Quentin is a boy who actually knows what "nefarious means" this only intimidates Mr. Turner as does other members of the "Rocket Club" (80).

Mr. Turner believes that despite the fact that the Rocket Club members are fine students, boys will be boys, and they must be up to no good. When he hears a description of the rocket, he says: "That sounds much more like a bomb than a rocket...I will not tolerate a bomb club in my school" (80). Notice that Mr. Turner calls the school his school, rather than acknowledges that school was built for the students, and should further the students' knowledge. In some ways, the club's rocket is like a bomb, a bomb that shakes the foundation of the lives of conventional Coalwood residents like Mr. Turner, who unfortunately is a position of leadership at the school.

This scene resonates with any student who has been unfairly dragged over the 'coals' (figuratively speaking) by an authority figure. Of course, it is never fun to get in trouble. But when you get in trouble for doing something good, rather than something bad, it is ever worse. Mr. Turner has control over the boy's lives and futures, but because he cannot understand what the Rocket Club boys are doing, he immediately tries to stifle their creative impulses.

Rocket Boys Chapter 8-9

Big Creek High School, said Mr. Turner in his shrill voice, had been placed on football suspension for the 1958 season" (111). With these words, an explosion occurred in Homer Hickman's high school parallel, in its own scale, to the horror of the Russian launching of Sputnik. Football was the school's entire world, and the ability to play football determined the social status of every red-blooded Coalwood boy. "There will be no more easy classes," says Mr. Turner (111). Although he does not say this in so many words, Mr. Turner is facing his own Sputnik. He is admitting his failure of leadership as a principal to help the young people of Coalwood live a better tomorrow. The school is too easy, and because it has not lived up to the academic demands of the new America, MR. Turner must change and the school must reassess its values.

A more challenging academic curriculum was to be installed, the result of Sputnik and the worry about how badly educated America's children were compared to Russian kids" (111). The era of football had ended, and the era of science had begun. Coalwood had to change with the times, because although some of the boys might make their living in the depths of the mines, other boys have to have greater aspirations, like to become scientists or go to college. When Mr. Turner says a girl might become a teacher or a nurse, even President of the United States, everyone laughs of course -- but today this is not so funny, given the current political situation of 2007!

This uncomfortable assembly is reminiscent of any school environment, after something horrific has occurred, like 9/11 during our own era. Of course, not playing football is hardly as awful as a national tragedy. But what not playing football symbolizes to the Coalwood community is that things will never be the same again.

Rocket Boys Chapter 12-14

All I've done is given you a book," she [Miss Riley] said. "You have to have the courage to learn what's inside of it" (207). Miss Riley makes Homer responsible for his own learning. She knows he has great dreams of scientific success. She believes in him. She also believes in the power of books. That is why his teacher orders Homer Principles of Guided Missile Design -- to keep, not merely to borrow. The book has chapters on engine design, one of the greatest problems that Homer is having with his prototypes of his rocket. Homer has potential, and he needs greater knowledge than exists in Coalwood to fully exercise this potential. He needs the book, but a book can only unlock the secrets of rocketry provided Homer has the intelligence to put those secrets to good use.

One of the most interesting aspects of this scene is how it echoes many other scenes in Rocket Boys where women help Homer succeed, even while less forward-thinking, jealous, or brutish men do not. Homer's father wants him to work for the mines; Homer's mother wants him to become a scientist. Homer's principal makes the curriculum more difficult only when the school's future football seasons are threatened, Homer's teacher encourages him to shoot for the stars. Even the girls protect the Rocket Club members from the football players at the school and the school even has a female librarian who helps Homer and Miss Riley get the important book on rocket design. "Sonny, it may take awhile, but I believe you can learn the things that are in that book," says Miss Riley, and urges him to enter the science fair (207). Admiration (and perhaps a bit of a schoolboy crush) for Miss Riley acts as a powerful motivational force that drives the young Homer's ambition. "Miss Riley,' I said, 'if you want me to enter I'll do it'" (207).