Equipping teenagers to sniff out the nonsense of society, I told myself, that was the logic behind this new curriculum. I wanted my students to understand the doomed nature of Ahab’s hunt for Moby Dick, the profound calm of Ishmael’s aimless wandering, the difference between having “purpose,” like Ahab, and finding “meaning,” like Ishmael. I thought my students should learn the best ways to be lost.
