Blog #449: Is George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” a Novel for Special Education Students

With Summer Reading season already underway, schools everywhere have issued summer reading material for students to read over the summer so they can be ready for the upcoming school year. Some may view summer reading as a waste of time, others may view it as a necessity to continuously improve a child’s wellbeing and knowledge.

However, the Advanced Placement European History class at my town’s high school has assigned a rather interesting novel for it’s students to read over the summer and it got my thinking about whether or not this is a story that is appropriate for special education students to read.

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I am, of course, talking about George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” that was first published in 1948.

To give a premise, a group of anthropomorphic farm animals overthrow their tyrant farmer with the goal of living a much better life on their farm. However, a group of pigs led by Napoleon, assume command and run the farm according to their way of life which involves them living like humans and leaving the other animals to be like second class citizens.

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Now, I get that the book is written as an allegory to the fall of the Russian Empire and the rise of the Soviet Union. But when it comes to Special Education students, most special education teachers can often look at “Animal Farm” and say to themselves that the book connects with their students.

Most, if not all, neurodivergent/developmentally different children and adults often thrive on anthropomorphic animals and things and nothing else. But what happens when we have to teach our special education students about something that they would try and avoid outside of the classroom? We are doing more harm than good if we do just focus on a story featuring talking animals.

“Animal Farm” gives the reader a look at what happens when we overthrow someone in search of a better life only for that “better life” to blow up in our faces.

Another lesson that George Orwell’s novel teaches us is what happens when we believe things we hear to be true. In the novel, Napoleon holds a show trial when a group of chickens revolt against the pigs when they are told to give up their eggs to be traded.

This goes against what Old Major the boar explained at the beginning of the story where the hens should never give up their eggs. Looking at this scene in the book, your students might look at this scene and go, who should I believe more: The wise and benevolent soul or the corrupt indigenous soul?

In these days, thanks to social and mainstream news media, most people will believe everything they here without thinking of the consequences and most of the people who make these false claims in order to scare the public or warp their minds is more or less on the side of Napoleon, the story’s antagonist.

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Then there are the other animals on the farm such as Boxer the Horse and Benjamin the Donkey, who represent the working class and like all the other animals want to live a better life. Boxer is a horse whom we could classify as someone who deserves better because he does, but in the end, he gets less and less eventually ending being traded to the glue factory in exchange for whiskey because he was no longer useful.

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As I have experienced in the past both during and after my time as a student that you cannot believe everything you hear and many special education teachers feel that if they have their students read “Animal Farm,” then they could easily absorb what they read and translate it into everyday life. Perhaps before reading the novel, teachers can have the students sign a contract to swear to not imitate anything controversial that is in the book.

But the key factor here is to ensure that while “Animal Farm” features anthropomorphic animals like Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny or Twilight Sparkle, at the end of the day, “Animal Farm” teaches a strong series of life lessons that we all have to learn in order to grow mentally.

Now, as an alternative or as a bonus assignment, after finishing the novel, they can view two film adaptations of the story:

Animal Farm (1954)

OR

Animal Farm (1999)

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If you want my recommendation of which version for the students to watch, I recommend the 1954 version as it not only is the more well known, but it at least tries to give an uplifting ending to the story.

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Catch you all later!!

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