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Post by gyro on Apr 21, 2009 9:13:48 GMT
" Classic literature should be withheld from the young until they're old enough to appreciate it. "
Depends how you define 'young', but I think you're wrong. It's all down to how it's taught. Shakespeare, for example, would be fairly inpenetrable without an element of teaching, in all honesty, and a great amount of 'appreciation' can only be learnt through proper presentation, not guesswork or making your own mind up, to a degree.
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Post by Kimby on Apr 22, 2009 15:29:36 GMT
Two books I've read recently that address a possible future after the system breaks down:
Into the Forest, 1997, by Jean Hegland (http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_I/into_the_forest1.asp) and
Earth Abides, 1949, by George R. Stewart (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345487133/interactiveda927-20)
Though neither book presents a way forward after the collapse, they both deal beautifully with how the survivors manage to survive in the near future...
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Post by spindrift on Apr 22, 2009 17:21:44 GMT
Gyro - I had read that story years ago...but today I read it again.
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Post by gyro on Apr 22, 2009 19:07:06 GMT
And ? Did you like it ?
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Post by lola on Apr 23, 2009 1:22:57 GMT
Here's my thinking, gyro: What makes young (or any) people want something? Being told they can't have it. What makes young (or any) people hate somthing? Having it forced down throat.
Tell the 14 yo's they're too young for, say, Hamlet, and they'll be reading it under the covers with a flashlight.
It's worth a try.
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Post by lola on Apr 23, 2009 1:36:35 GMT
Okay, okay, not Hamlet. Certainly by mid teens people can use some systematic study of difficult classics, write long analytical papers, all that jazz.
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Post by spindrift on Apr 23, 2009 2:28:30 GMT
Gyro - of course I liked it. It was a short and concise story able to be read in one sitting. With strong feelings of dread throughout culminating in a final horror. The two women and the boy in the story were 'wronged' and were unable to change their fate,set off, years before, by the farmer's illicit affair with a milking woman he felt unable to marry. So the dreadful permutations slowly worked out and came to a frightful conclusion. This is Karma. What we oursselves set in motion we will reap the end result. I have read all of Hardy's prose and poetry.
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Post by gyro on Apr 23, 2009 6:40:55 GMT
Lola, you're being a tad presumptive. The point I'm making is the VAST difference between being taught something properly, and having it 'forced down their throat'.
ANYTHING that is forced on you is going to have a negative effect, naturally. Being introduced to something and having it effectively and appreciatively taught is completely different, and we mustn't assume that everything presented in school is being done so in a negative and dictatorial fashion.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2009 7:29:17 GMT
I would tend to agree, but there is that grey area that is halfway between the force feeding and the correct teaching of appreciation, and that is probably where most teachers fall.
I specifically remember having to read (as I think just about all American high school students did) The Great Gatsby. It was obvious that the teacher really loved it and did his best to explain why it was a great novel. But he wasn't a very good teacher, so I think that only about half of us were won over and had the quality make that important click in our minds, while the other half never clicked and wondered why their time was being wasted on a boring book of sentimental torment.
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Post by gyro on Apr 23, 2009 7:42:28 GMT
"halfway between the force feeding and the correct teaching of appreciation, and that is probably where most teachers fall."
Yep.
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Post by spindrift on Apr 23, 2009 8:14:42 GMT
I don't remember being taught how to appreciate anything......it's something I do automatically if the subject matter is worth it.
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Post by lola on Apr 23, 2009 16:05:01 GMT
I don't think a teenager can understand Great Gatsby beyond the most superficial level. Let them read things they enjoy, and work their way up to the good stuff when they have a little life experience under their belts.
The drama club I volunteer direct, ages 13-18, is putting on Antigone next month. Last year when we did Tartuffe, and the year before Comedy of Errors, I adapted to cut out the tedious parts. This time they love the entire play and didn't want me to cut anything. I wouldn't force King Lear on them, because they are way too young to love it.
Spindrift, I agree with you.
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Post by Kimby on Apr 23, 2009 16:34:00 GMT
I don't remember being taught how to appreciate anything......it's something I do automatically if the subject matter is worth it. They teach Art Appreciation and Music Appreciation courses. Why not teach how to appreciate literature? We are not born loving complex challenging reading material. We may need a nudge getting into it.
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Post by rikita on Apr 23, 2009 20:43:25 GMT
my literature teacher (at least the one from grade 11 to 13) seemed to want us to analyze and criticize rather than appreciate. some really liked the course, because they were allowed to "prove" how what we were reading is silly... in my case though, i liked the texts usually, but was unable to point out why, so i liked reading, but didn't like the course...
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2009 20:47:54 GMT
One of the great tragedies of secondary school is discovering how many of the students are really at a loss on how to 'intelligently' support or criticize such things. I think it may have been my dual culture which allowed me to look at many things from two points of view, but I never had any problem defending or denouncing just about anything at random. In debate situations, I found that I would be doing all of the talking while the others remained speechless.
As the years have gone by, I have become a professional hypocrite as the situation requires.
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Post by spindrift on Apr 23, 2009 21:08:35 GMT
Kimby - I'm an inveterate reader. It's an effort for me not to read. Since reading occupies the mind I have to discipline myself to have an empty mind (meditation).
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Post by rikita on Apr 23, 2009 22:01:27 GMT
kerouac - i didn't mean i can't put my opinion into words. i just didn't feel like analyzing every bit of it. i wanted to enjoy it, rather than take it apart.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2009 4:57:30 GMT
Same with me -- but in a school situation, I would do what they asked me to do.
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Post by rikita on Apr 24, 2009 6:05:21 GMT
oh of course i did. but it made me not enjoy class as much. and i just wasn't as good at it as some other students, because i guess i lacked a certain critical distance. and because i wasn't as fond of throwing around big words to impress the teacher. she seemed to like those best that used the most "scientific-sounding" style, and i think that a simpler style can be better style sometimes...
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Post by gyro on Apr 24, 2009 7:30:38 GMT
" Let them read things they enjoy, and work their way up to the good stuff when they have a little life experience under their belts. "
In which case, take literature out of school as a subject, and don't bother to teach it. Sounds stupid to me, although I agree that a great deal of 'teaching' and/or appreciation is flawed. Still no reason to give up though. How many people would go on to study it at college or university if they're not given the exposure to it at school ?
Maybe some teenager can't appreciate the importance of plate tectonics at school, in which case they should stop teaching geography too ..... ?
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Post by bjd on Apr 24, 2009 12:15:21 GMT
" Let them read things they enjoy, and work their way up to the good stuff when they have a little life experience under their belts. "
I don't agree with this either. Does that mean you will cater to the slowest kids in the class and let them read comic books? Sorry, graphic novels. In a class of 30 kids, you will have varying levels of reading ability and kids that love to read as well as those who never look at a book. How do you choose what is to be taught?
And some "life experience" is learned from good books too -- we don't all live through everything that can be found in books. As much as I didn't particularly appreciate English class when I was in high school, although all I remember studying is Shakespeare and Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, which I absolutely hated, I have always read a lot and believe that it's important to introduce kids to a wide variety of books.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2009 12:23:14 GMT
I think we should all take a literature class together and see if we get in a fist fight.
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Post by lola on Apr 24, 2009 13:31:44 GMT
good idea, kerouac!
I belong to a book club with the dearest most well-meaning people, couples mostly, and the books have gotten steadily more PC and the discussions tending ever so slightly towards the boring. A fistfight would liven things immensely.
It is hard to select books for mixed groups, and then the books have to be Good For You kinds anymore. The wine, potluck food, and company are good, though.
Good news, skeptics of my plan: I have no say in the education of anyone but my own teenage daughters, and they are turning out very nicely indeed. And read classics for fun.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 24, 2009 14:02:37 GMT
Re: replies #s 28 and 30 ~~
I'm coming late to this discussion, but tend to agree with both of you. I have always loved to read, but can remember hating "Big Two-Hearted River" and "To Build a Fire" when they were thrown at me in jr. high. "Oooo ~ boring boy stuff!" I thought. I was not yet developed enough as a reader to get how the writing itself was the appeal in those stories. In high school I remember several instances of sitting in class and thinking, "It's a good thing I already like to read, as this teacher is totally alienating those students not yet turned on to reading."
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Post by rikita on Apr 24, 2009 15:59:27 GMT
hm i think the book i found most boring to read was gavroche (no idea now if that was parts of les miserables, or a version for kids, or whatever), which we read in fifth or sixth grade i think. in that case, i think we were too young, and we hadn't studied anything about the french revolution yet in history class, so the context didn't make much sense to us, and it was along with the song of the little trumpet boy just another of those annoying examples they tried to give us of how we should act and be curageous and selfless.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2009 16:38:30 GMT
Combining literature with morals is a low blow.
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Post by Kimby on Apr 24, 2009 17:07:02 GMT
I didn't LIKE all the literature I was made to read in school, but I'm glad now that I have been exposed to it. I sure wouldn't have chosen to study it in college, and probably wouldn't be checking it out of the library as an adult. But to be informed citizens/participants in a society, shouldn't we at least be familiar with this stuff?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2009 17:24:26 GMT
I admit also that I am glad that I was forced to read certain things. Not only did it help me discover certain things that I really liked, it also showed me what I absolutely hated. I would have done a lot of hit-and-miss reading without that exposure.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 24, 2009 18:33:19 GMT
I think the crux of the matter is learning to appreciate literature, or at least to understand why it's considered great. Also, what seemed to spark the discussion was the comment about when kids are "old enough", which was maybe taken out of context. I took it to mean that kids will never be old enough or ready unless they're prepared by good teaching to be receptive to all forms of literature.
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Post by Jazz on Apr 24, 2009 21:11:21 GMT
I would tend to agree, but there is that grey area that is halfway between the force feeding and the correct teaching of appreciation, and that is probably where most teachers fall.. Yes. And, the great teachers (a minority) go far beyond that. Somehow, a great teacher has to think of all of your expressed thoughts in the context of each student, yet also work with the class as a whole. A delicate balance. I think that appreciation and true criticism can be taught. Often, what you think of as 'natural' appreciation isn't 'natural' at all, but the result of your home environment and your more general cultural environment. I don't think that only the mid-range of children should be catered to. The slower learners and the extremely bright need attention and exposure just as much, if not more. Too often, I have seen eyes glazed with boredom and then, complete withdrawal. Children are also at different levels of maturity, emotional and intellectual, in any class, at any given time. A great teacher knows his students and can try to customize his teaching as much as possible to each child's state of mind. As with all experience, we all come to appreciate it when we are ready. Some children who hate reading suddenly 'discover ' it in highschool, or, never. Apreciation can come at any time in life. But, I think it is valuable and esential to try to show what is there (as much as you are capable of giving to the student)...and the student can choose his path.
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