9:40 A.M. U.S. Studies

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

The topic is Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Even the avid students in this honors U.S. studies class are drowsy. They have just watched a jolly but interminable student video about the colonial South, and English teacher David Mendelson sympathizes with their plight: "I feel like my brain has been sandpapered."

If so, it has attained a fine finish. Over the next 50 minutes, Mendelson, a gangly man with a Dead Poets passion, alights on the distinctions between the Puritan, Enlightenment and Romantic mind-sets; Pascal's wager over the existence of God; his (Mendelson's) sister; the unreliable narrator; and, of course, Muhammad Ali.

"For those of you who are still awake, let me offer you a slight bit of extra credit. In their treatment of Hester, the villagers of Boston are showing what historical tendency that I told you about on the very first day of class?" Hands raise. "I think I will let Erica take it."

"The Knights of the Round Table, how they glorified their past?" suggests the girl tentatively. "Not bad, Erica. However, I will not write her name down." A protesting murmur arises at this denial of credit. Mendelson responds delightedly: "Do you think I'm some sort of a slut!?" Another student takes a shot: "How you love the people who have conquered you?" Again the teacher demurs. "I'm talking about how the villagers at first reject Hester, but later on their opinion changes. Carl?" Carl, seemingly asleep in the back of the class, asks, "You talking about Muhammad Ali?" Mendelson, a carnivore spotting its prey: "What does the villagers' treatment of Hester have to do with our treatment of Muhammad Ali?"

"Well, I guess he was different at first, but later on they realized what he did, how it was good..." A girl named Ellen picks up: "Once people prove they can win, they're all glorified." "Close," prods Mendelson. Another girl administers the coup de grace: "Muhammad Ali, the farther he got into Parkinson's--now he's harmless, and so they're not afraid of him anymore. He's like a Hester now that she's a good girl." Mendelson, triumphant: "Once an enemy of society has been defeated, we can embrace them and call her cute little Hester, cute little Muhammad Ali. They don't pose a threat. You know what Joe Frazier said about Muhammad Ali? When he saw him lighting the Olympic torch, he said they should have pushed him in. People thought Frazier was being callous about Ali's suffering. But Joe Frazier respects Muhammad Ali as a warrior. You can't condescend to him; he's not a puppy or something. Show some respect."

The class nods knowingly. Hester and Ali, Ali and Hester. Whether in years to come they will share Mendelson's disdain for the easy sentimentality, they at least stand a chance of recognizing it.

He turns to his grade book. "I need a sturdier implement to add all this extra credit."

--David Van Biema