The wrong message

In grade school, the teacher had the class read a story about an oak tree and a willow tree. The trees grew near each other, near a body of water.

One day a storm came. It was a terrible storm, with high winds and much rain and then winds of increasing speed.

The oak tree stood tall and proud, extending its limbs into the wind to prove its invincibility.

By contrast, the willow tree bent to the wind, its flexibility taking the storm’s force, allowing wind to go through its collection of slender limbs.

As the storm grew in ferocity, the oak tree straightened, daring the wind to become stronger.

After the storm passed, the willow straightened and shook itself, bringing its limbs back into place.

The oak tree, however, would never again move its limbs, or any other part of itself. It had dared the storm and lost. It lay on the ground, uprooted, dying.

The moral of the story, the teacher said, was that sometimes we must give in to a more powerful force, that we cannot fight things greater than we are.

I did not like the story. The message was wrong. We are to stand up to forces that want to put us down. We are not to give in just because something else is stronger.

It was in fourth grade, though, and I had not yet developed thinking for myself and challenging the things I believed were wrong.

That was around 65 years ago, but I still remember taking the opposite lesson than what the teacher wanted me to learn.