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In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

theatlantic.com

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Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#31

Post by jraines »

orib wrote: post #15
micah63 wrote: post #10

Very insightful view into the mind of an essay marker. I've always loathed the subjectiveness of English courses, that's why I took computer science :) I agree with the author, not everyone is cut out for English classes, but I think an alternative to these "trying help you an write essay" classes should be some kind of "just read a book and enjoy it" class. It would be a start anyway. In school, any hope of loving E…

The problem with dissecting a book is that -- just like dissecting an animal -- at the end of the exercise, the subject of the dissection is dead. While mulling over a good book and discussing it can be enjoyable, the attempt to squeeze deep meaning out of something that the author put in by chance simply kills the joy of a good book. Besides, I find that often the books that tend to be chosen for literature classes…

I wholeheartedly disagree.

I know literary criticism is about as popular as Windows ME here, but reading good examples of it can be as enjoyable as the text itself(1). Of course there's always the question of how much authority the critic has -- but it's kind of like having someone with a lot of expertise explain the Linux kernal to you, even if it's not Linus.

To your last point -- I feel bad for you if those are the kind of books you had to read in high school. What were they?

(1) If you want to know what I'm talking about, try the Viking Critical Edition of Don Delillo's 'White Noise'. It has examples of criticism both of the kind I'm talking about and the kind that pg and others rightly mock.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#32

Post by marvin »

This is a very interesting story. What I'm left with is the question of 'who are these people, really'? Is there really a considerable portion of American (or we could say Western) society that is practically illiterate? This seems counter-intuitive to me, I thought it was hardly possible to function at all without a basic understanding of the written word. If these people are out there, I have certainly never had any deep face-to-face conversation with them.

Or put in other words; I didn't think there were enough jobs available that didn't require a minimum of college-level skills. A checkout clerk could obviously make do, but I'd expect even a car mechanic to have enough brains to grasp some abstract literary concepts.

And other questions arise: Isn't academic aptitude strongly correlated with ability to succeed in the world at large after all? You'd have a hard time convincing me that most people who can't comment intelligently on 'The Wizard of Oz' are fit do be much more than corporate monkeys. At one level or the other, there is a major problem here - either the educational system is a massive failure, or the rest of us are stupid to assume that everybody has to be particularly intelligent.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#33

Post by weiser »

hugh wrote: post #25
weiser wrote: post #16

I can bet that woman must be good at something she has never been tested on and probably does not know about. Maybe if we start from the premise that most individuals have something they are really good at, we might be able to move beyond the educational system of As and Fs and take advantage of people's abilities to the fullest.

But what if that premise isn't true? What if some people just suck at everything? I can't see any reason why everybody must be good at something. There's nothing about genetics which says that random genes will combine in such a way as to give them at least one useful skill. How would we go about testing your hypothesis?

Yes, thats true, some people might suck at everything. But that can be managed as long as thats a small enough minority. (we have government welfare for a reason, right? :))

The hypothesis I proposed is too broad to prove easily. Maybe, we can start with a narrower premise. We can disprove "if you suck in English class, you are no good for college". A friend of mine, a maths genius, got a D in History class in college (without deliberately trying to fail) He had straight A's in all technical courses (CS, maths etc).

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#34

Post by josefresco »

tom_rath wrote: post #3

The most helpful grade I ever received on an essay was an 'F'. It was in my first year of university. I knew the course and knew the material but couldn't have been arsed to put together a paper which adequately addressed the subject. The comments the professor wrote were scathing and it was a wonderful full slap on the face that I'd better get my act together and actually deliver what was expected of me if I ever wa…

I never had a professor shoot down any paper I turned in no matter how half assed it was. I guess I was that good ...

Now, it was the papers I never turned in that hurt me the most :)

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#35

Post by orib »

jraines wrote: post #31
orib wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with dissecting a book is that -- just like dissecting an animal -- at the end of the exercise, the subject of the dissection is dead. While mulling over a good book and discussing it can be enjoyable, the attempt to squeeze deep meaning out of something that the author put in by chance simply kills the joy of a good book. Besides, I find that often the books that tend to be chosen for literature classes…

I wholeheartedly disagree. I know literary criticism is about as popular as Windows ME here, but reading good examples of it can be as enjoyable as the text itself(1). Of course there's always the question of how much authority the critic has -- but it's kind of like having someone with a lot of expertise explain the Linux kernal to you, even if it's not Linus. To your last point -- I feel bad for you if those are th…

I haven't read any especially good literary criticism, however (as I obviously failed to make clear) I do enjoy reading and discussing a book.

What I hated was attempting to mash meaning into every word in the story, even when there was obviously none intended by the author. An example I remember was when, in The Great Gatsby, it was mentioned in passing that someone had blue eyes, and the teacher went on and on about how that represented sadness, how it showed the economic differences between the classes, etc, etc. No, it meant that the eyes were blue. stop putting words in the author's mouth.

As for the kind of books that I had to read -- I found the Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) to be utterly horrid. Bad writing, large plot holes, poor continuity, etc.

To be fair, many of them (eg, A Streetcar Named Desire) I disliked simply because I found the characters distasteful and unappealing. ("meaningless people with meaningless lives")

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#36

Post by pi3832 »

tom_rath wrote: post #3

The most helpful grade I ever received on an essay was an 'F'. It was in my first year of university. I knew the course and knew the material but couldn't have been arsed to put together a paper which adequately addressed the subject. The comments the professor wrote were scathing and it was a wonderful full slap on the face that I'd better get my act together and actually deliver what was expected of me if I ever wa…

Did you go to university in the '70s pr something?

All that's "expected" of students anymore is a pulse, AFAICT.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#37

Post by hugh »

marvin wrote: post #32

This is a very interesting story. What I'm left with is the question of 'who are these people, really'? Is there really a considerable portion of American (or we could say Western) society that is practically illiterate? This seems counter-intuitive to me, I thought it was hardly possible to function at all without a basic understanding of the written word. If these people are out there, I have certainly never had an…

Is there really a considerable portion of American (or we could say Western) society that is practically illiterate? This seems counter-intuitive to me, I thought it was hardly possible to function at all without a basic understanding of the written word. If these people are out there, I have certainly never had any deep face-to-face conversation with them.

Try reading the comments on youtube.

I'd expect even a car mechanic to have enough brains to grasp some abstract literary concepts.

A car mechanic has enough brains to grasp some pretty complicated mechanical concepts, but for whatever reason he can quite easily fail to grasp a simple literary concept no matter how well it's explained. In the same way, I'm sure I can find you plenty of professors of English who are incapable of grasping how an engine works. In both cases, I'm not sure whether they're genuinely incapable, or whether they just have psychological barricades set up which lead them to think that this kind of knowledge is "beneath" them.

You'd have a hard time convincing me that most people who can't comment intelligently on 'The Wizard of Oz' are fit do be much more than corporate monkeys.

Most people out there probably just don't think that commenting intelligently on The Wizard of Oz is a worthwhile thing to do.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#38

Post by pi3832 »

hugh wrote: post #13
tphyahoo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I, too, taught "literature" to people that could barely read. It sucked. If you can't read, you should learn the mechanics of how to read before dealing with things like "foreshadowing" "theme" "denouement." Just, basic stuff.Otherwise, it's just ridiculous. That's what these colleges should be doing, if they're taking student's money. Not raping them in their vulnerability, naivete, and ability to get a loan.

Just, basic stuff.Otherwise, it's just ridiculous. That's what these colleges should be doing, if they're taking student's money. No, that's what high schools should be doing. No wait, actually, that's what primary schools should be doing.

A vice president of a state university once said to me during an interview:

"I wonder when the state legislature is going to notice that they are giving us money to teach to students the same things they gave high schools money to teach to the same students?"

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#39

Post by pi3832 »

weiser wrote: post #16

I can bet that woman must be good at something she has never been tested on and probably does not know about. Maybe if we start from the premise that most individuals have something they are really good at, we might be able to move beyond the educational system of As and Fs and take advantage of people's abilities to the fullest.

>I can bet that woman must be good at something she has never been tested on and probably does not know about.

Hah. That women may very well be average at a lot of things, and bad at the rest.

This idea that "everyone has a special gift!" is just pixie-dust dreaming. Most people simply aren't special, in any sense of the word.

Fight Club: "We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact."

The sooner people learn that, the sooner they can get on with their lives of mediocrity.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#40

Post by edw519 »

tom_rath wrote: post #3

The most helpful grade I ever received on an essay was an 'F'. It was in my first year of university. I knew the course and knew the material but couldn't have been arsed to put together a paper which adequately addressed the subject. The comments the professor wrote were scathing and it was a wonderful full slap on the face that I'd better get my act together and actually deliver what was expected of me if I ever wa…

I went to college to be an English major. My first paper freshman year came back with a "D" on it and the remark, "Sophomoric Ramblings". It didn't seem logical, a bad grade and a compliment. (Since I was a freshman, I thought "sophomoric" meant "advanced".)

One week later, I became a math major and I've never looked back.

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