The Classics Rant
This is in response to something over at Leila's blog. I just wanted a copy of it here in case I needed to find it again later.
I appreciate that you folks had good experiences and good teachers while learning the classics but I however did not, and I suspect that the article's author is speaking from an experience similiar to mine, or has a child with a similiar experience. I still have a knee-jerk reaction whenever someone tells me a book is a classic.
Tenth Grade: We had a book report due every two weeks. We had a list of classics to choose from expressly for these book reports. I remember maybe four books. That's 9 months of school, 2 books a month (vacation was not an excuse) and I remember maybe 4? We never talked about any of those selections. Also we read, as a class, 1984 and Juius Caesar. When we weren't handing in rough drafts of book reports, getting quizzed on vocab, or diagraming sentences, we were MEMORIZING passages from the classics being read as a class. That's two weeks at a time dedicated to 30 14-15 year olds getting up in front of the class and reciting Mark Antony's speech, which after the second stuttering rendition loses all meaning.
Eleventh Grade: American literature year in Shrewsbury. I remember reading Grapes of Wrath and Moby Dick. We never discussed the Great Depression or how it occured or the ramifications of it. We were quizzed. We were spoon fed that Moby Dick was a story about revenge, and were not allowed to come to any conclusions about it ourselves.
Twelfth Grade: Oh, this one was my favorite. I had one of the best teachers, by reputation, in the school. I was taking AP english. I thought we'd be reading and discussing, finally, because wouldn't that be what a college course did? I was disappointed. We had quizzes 3-4 times a week, on what we should have read the night before. Mind you this does NOT include the constant that was the Friday vocab quiz. When we were't being qizzed, we were writing timed practice AP test essays about the diction or the syntax of our classics. So when did we have time to discuss these rather thickly written books (eg. Crime and Punishment)? We didn't. It seemed to be enough that we could name the characters on the quizzes.
In summary, I went to Art School not so much becasue I wanted to be an artist, but because I was sick of "reading" classics and being forced to regurgitate names and places and essays on the successful diction. Despite my love of reading I never wanted to have to read classics ever again. My high school experience almost killed my desire to read. I can't imagine what it did to those folks who already didn't like reading. So while, yes, there are ways to teach them well, for many it is not the norm. I share the author's opinion. If you can't teach classics well, don't teach them. Teach kids to love reading. Don't teach them that some books are more worth reading than others because of a label. Just let them read.
I appreciate that you folks had good experiences and good teachers while learning the classics but I however did not, and I suspect that the article's author is speaking from an experience similiar to mine, or has a child with a similiar experience. I still have a knee-jerk reaction whenever someone tells me a book is a classic.
Tenth Grade: We had a book report due every two weeks. We had a list of classics to choose from expressly for these book reports. I remember maybe four books. That's 9 months of school, 2 books a month (vacation was not an excuse) and I remember maybe 4? We never talked about any of those selections. Also we read, as a class, 1984 and Juius Caesar. When we weren't handing in rough drafts of book reports, getting quizzed on vocab, or diagraming sentences, we were MEMORIZING passages from the classics being read as a class. That's two weeks at a time dedicated to 30 14-15 year olds getting up in front of the class and reciting Mark Antony's speech, which after the second stuttering rendition loses all meaning.
Eleventh Grade: American literature year in Shrewsbury. I remember reading Grapes of Wrath and Moby Dick. We never discussed the Great Depression or how it occured or the ramifications of it. We were quizzed. We were spoon fed that Moby Dick was a story about revenge, and were not allowed to come to any conclusions about it ourselves.
Twelfth Grade: Oh, this one was my favorite. I had one of the best teachers, by reputation, in the school. I was taking AP english. I thought we'd be reading and discussing, finally, because wouldn't that be what a college course did? I was disappointed. We had quizzes 3-4 times a week, on what we should have read the night before. Mind you this does NOT include the constant that was the Friday vocab quiz. When we were't being qizzed, we were writing timed practice AP test essays about the diction or the syntax of our classics. So when did we have time to discuss these rather thickly written books (eg. Crime and Punishment)? We didn't. It seemed to be enough that we could name the characters on the quizzes.
In summary, I went to Art School not so much becasue I wanted to be an artist, but because I was sick of "reading" classics and being forced to regurgitate names and places and essays on the successful diction. Despite my love of reading I never wanted to have to read classics ever again. My high school experience almost killed my desire to read. I can't imagine what it did to those folks who already didn't like reading. So while, yes, there are ways to teach them well, for many it is not the norm. I share the author's opinion. If you can't teach classics well, don't teach them. Teach kids to love reading. Don't teach them that some books are more worth reading than others because of a label. Just let them read.
posted by Chrissy at 8/17/2006 10:40:00 AM
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