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I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

experimental-history.com

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Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#151

Post by cestith »

lordnacho wrote: post #33

As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…

One might consider this an argument for an integrated curriculum. Teach Les Misérables during a unit on the French revolution. Teach Huckleberry Finn or Roots when discussing the history of slavery in the US. Teach The Great Gatsby as part of a unit on the roaring 20s and Prohibition or alternately on the second world war.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#152

Post by hibikir »

The anecdote about the garden of earthly delights is going to be relatable even for art students. I've met art teachers that ended up "trapped" in Madrid by the Prado Museum: A green, American future Ph.D student that was heading to Greece to specialize in old greek art. But instead of flying straight there, they stopped at Madrid to see the Prado, and were never able to leave. Changed their direction immediately, and ended up teaching in Madrid, and retiring there, because one of the countless masterpieces in there stole their life plans away.

There's more famous museums, and it doesn't have the most popular paintings for non specialist, but it's just haymaker after haymaker, in every single room. And that's leaving the modern art to the Reina Sofia, a short walk away. (Although I guess keeping late Goya there is kind of cheating, as I'd argue he becomes a pioneer of modern art after the war starts)

Books might require quite a bit of work before you can tell they are eternal masterpieces. Seeing the depths of some forms of music might involve not-so-impressive efforts earlier, just to get to the good parts. The very best paintings in the world, in person, can stop people cold. Large format efforts that demand attention even when you don't consider every single small decision.

The Garden of Earthly Delights used to be stuck in a corner, at the edge of one of the wings of the Prado. As if "oh well, I guess it fits here, near all the medieval art". It counted as an ambush.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#153

Post by dgabriel »

blobbers wrote: post #102
jihadjihad wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always funny to me how often comments like yours show up, despite a long history on here of diverse thoughts and intellectual curiosities, technological or otherwise. But especially funny and bewildering in this case is that you have this in your About section of your HN user account: > A journey from the liberal arts to hacking the latest gadgets or statistics.

I find it slightly creepy that people are reading my past thoughts. Time to look into privacy settings. I just felt like the article wasn't particularly well written. Just because AI can produce slop, doesn't mean humans don't either.

Hacker news comments aren't private, and they shouldn't be private. I find it interesting that you think your own public soapbox declarations should not be discoverable.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#154

Post by groundzeros2015 »

lordnacho wrote: post #33

As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…

It’s not only the historical context is missing but you yourself haven’t experienced life to be interested in the topic. If you haven’t had a child or a marriage, or even a friend who had one. Why would you understand that relationship. How can you possibly think about government structures when you’ve never led anything.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#155

Post by serbuvlad »

RealityVoid wrote: post #146
serbuvlad wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the book tells you? To my shame I've never read Dickens, but I did read the Romanian canonical authors (I am Romanian), and a lot of them, the ones I liked, gave you a very real sense of the life of the people at the time. Ion, for example, is basically a tragedy about the titular character scheming to marry a woman whom he doesn't love (but who loves him) because he's poor and she's "rich" (owns land). And t…

Oh, such a day, a talk about Ion on HN. I get your point, and the book does say that. It's just... For a teenager, it rarely lands. And connecting context is super important. I mean, sure Ion wanted land, but you really can't contextualize that kind of desire when your needs and desires are completely different. Maybe you were more capable of empathy or better at contextualizing what you were reading. I sure as hell…

> in the right frame of mind and, importantly, _interested in it_

Very much so! I'm not saying the way school approaches books is good, I'd wish there would have been be a lot more time dedicated to reading the darn things. :)

My point is that, if you find reading enjoyable and do it as sort of a hobby instead of a chore (I did, and a bunch of my friends did too, so this wasn't just a me thing), you can get a lot out of the books even at that age.

Of course you understand them more later, but it also goes both ways, you also understand life situations a bit better because you've seen them before in books.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#156

Post by kazinator »

blobbers wrote: post #102
jihadjihad wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always funny to me how often comments like yours show up, despite a long history on here of diverse thoughts and intellectual curiosities, technological or otherwise. But especially funny and bewildering in this case is that you have this in your About section of your HN user account: > A journey from the liberal arts to hacking the latest gadgets or statistics.

I find it slightly creepy that people are reading my past thoughts. Time to look into privacy settings. I just felt like the article wasn't particularly well written. Just because AI can produce slop, doesn't mean humans don't either.

> Time to look into privacy settings.

Here is a privacy setting: leave the "about:" field blank in your profile, if you don't want anyone reading it?

It's one click away from every one of your comments; no digging required.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#159

Post by CocaKoala »

crooked-v wrote: post #131
pavel_lishin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It felt even worse when reading Shakespeare, which is nominally the same language you and I speak, but just barely. Add the fact that it's a play, where the performance carries a lot of the meaning. The end result was that I - and as far as I could tell, 99% of my classmates - got basically negative value out of sitting in class and reading lines we didn't understand out loud, without even time to try and parse it ou…

If not for Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, I'd probably had just completely bounced off Shakespeare's works in high school.

Another really good and interesting film adaptation of Shakespeare is "Scotland, PA" - Macbeth, set against the backdrop of a 1970s fast food restaurant featuring a soundtrack that consists entirely of Bad Company songs (apparently the library was shockingly inexpensive?) and Christopher Walken as an inspired Detective Macduff.

I think there's a lot of value in going back to examine the original text in school, but adaptations can do a lot to help students connect the idea that this story has characters and motivations that are human and resonate even outside the context of whatever the setting of the original play is.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#160

Post by kstenerud »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #57
lordnacho wrote: post #33

As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…

> So as a kid it just totally didn't mean anything to me, it was just a strange torture A lot of school is like this though. English is basically my only language, I have taught myself some very basic Spanish over the years but it is a struggle when you are busy and don't have a consistent routine. I can't believe that for years the state paid a professional to spend hours each week trying to teach me not one but two…

> Ideally, a good English teacher will explain these things

A high school English teacher won't have time for that. There are standardized tests to pass.

The American civil war was about slavery. That's all you need to know.

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