The Library Lion
Karen S. Emmerman is PLATO’s Education Director.
When my son was in elementary school, there was an alarming incident in one of the classrooms. A teacher had a cerebral event that led to her acting very strangely. The young students knew something was wrong, but when two asked to get help outside the room the teacher refused (this was not malicious, but rather a part of the cerebral event). Once the situation was resolved, it came to light that the children had sat in the room obeying the rules for quite a long time before one of them felt empowered on their own to leave and call for help.
The tragic nature of the situation struck me deeply. The teacher, long known as caring and capable, was not herself and needed medical attention. The students knew what they were seeing was problematic and they felt the need for help but had been taught to obey. We can all point to moments in the past and present where strict adherence to obeyance leads to calamitous results.
As a philosopher working with young people, I wanted to think carefully with young people about the nature of rules— when we follow them, when we do not, whether there are rules that ought to be broken, and so forth. Enter The Library Lion, by Michelle Knudson. When a lion enters the library, the persnickety Mr. McBee of the circulation desk runs and reports the infraction to head librarian Miss Merriweather. She concludes that the lion can stay as long as he obeys the rule to remain quiet (in particular for a lion, no roaring). As it happens, everyone loves the lion. He is useful as a library volunteer and he and the children love story time together. One day, the lion sees that Miss Merriweather has fallen and needs help. He makes many rule-abiding attempts to get Mr. McBee’s attention to no avail, thus resorting to the best tool he has: a mighty roar. This roar breaks the rules. Knowing this, the lion removes himself from the library. Eventually, he is found and joyfully restored to his role in the library along with a modification of the no roaring rule to “No roaring allowed, unless you have a very good reason.”
When I use this book with elementary school students, I sometimes start with the question “Why did the lion break the rules?” which turns quickly to whether it is ever permissible to break rules. Often, the students begin with the position exhibited by their peers at my son’s school: rules cannot be broken. They demonstrate a keen sense of the consequences of rule breaking. Sometimes, the students argue that, because he had a good reason, the lion did not in fact break a rule. Here, they show a desire to make the stated rule conform to their ethical intuitions that the lion did the right thing by roaring, particularly given that his polite attempts to get McBee’s attention were unheeded.
Does it work to say that the lion did not break the rule because he had a good reason, though? The rule was that you cannot roar in the library and he unquestionably roared. We discuss this and whether it might be the case that the lion indeed broke the rule but did so for good reason. Some students strongly defend the position that most rules come with an unspoken “unless there is a good reason” clause. Thinking about the “no running in the halls” rule at their school, they note that the rule really means “no running in the halls without a good reason.” I wonder if the school’s administration takes the same view!
Naturally, thinking of rules as having an “unless there is a good reason” clause leads to a discussion of what constitutes a good reason and who gets to decide whether that reason is valid. So often, in school settings and at home, the arbiter of these decisions is adults. I wonder sometimes what it would look like to have a panel of elementary students who weigh in on whether the rule-breaker had a good reason for their action in much the same way some undergraduate institutions have student governance over infractions against the school’s codes of behavior.
Even all these years later (my son is now a sophomore in college), I cannot help but wonder whether a philosophical conversation about The Library Lion would have made a difference for his peers enclosed in a room with their unwell teacher. I think about how philosophy’s focus on questioning assumptions and reasoning carefully translates to discernment and empowerment in young people. I’ll be honest and add that, ethics aside, I also think about how amazing it would be to have a library lion!
