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

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

#181

Post by Night_Thastus »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #36
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 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…

I felt the same way. I think we were on Hamlet, and reading it alone just felt so confusing and lifeless. I couldn't tell when characters were upset, sarcastic, ecstatic, etc. It drained it of all character.

But then later on I saw a play version of it and suddenly it all made sense! Even if the words were identical, the context made it much easier to follow the story. I could piece together what it meant even if it wasn't modern English. You could hear the emotion in the voices and better follow what they're reacting to. I really appreciated it!

It's not like it would have cost the school anything...it was freely available online!

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

#182

Post by lunatuna »

conductr wrote: post #127
NoboruWataya wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

A lot of people revisit these works later in life and have even further appreciation of them. I think it all validates the goal is to teach learning as a life skill. Learning is never complete. Even things you know, you may not understand until later. It’s all part of the process of learning to learn and emphasizing curiosity and critical thinking. These are the high level objectives of education and inform a lot of…

I’m in my fifties and taking a break from work and have now found myself reading Macbeth, Doctor Faustus, along with Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy. My movie watching is now much more auteur and reaching for the unconscious and immaterial experience.

I’ve wonder if I was taught Shakespeare too early, but see it more as an Easter egg or gift waiting for me to catch up. I think more so I was so focused on the rational I was ignoring the other parts though fully immersed in being the other part. Now I see it and appreciate so much have the right lens from early teachings with my experiences. And to your point continuing to learn.

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

#183

Post by matherial »

RealityVoid wrote: post #175
matherial wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get your point, and the book does say that. It's just... For a teenager, it rarely lands. Basic education is weird because it has two conflicting goals. One is to get everyone to the same basic level needed to function in a society. And that's where all the incentives are - that's what you and the teachers are graded on. But another goal is to give you a taste of what's out there, so that some of the more talente…

I don't see the conflict between the two. I think you can do both. But, yes, the quality of the teachers matters a whole lot. And, sometimes, how well they relate to the kids. Because I can imagine that some people just won't click well together. Thinking back on the poor professors, I kinds of am sorry for all the crap they had to put up with. And I do believe the student has part of the blame here. Or at least, the…

You have 20 kids in a classroom. Fifteen of them want to know what's going to be on the state-mandated test. Five, if you're lucky, may have some interest in the subject you're teaching.

So, do you design the class for the five gifted kids and risk failing the other 15, or do you get everyone over the finish line through rote repetition until they can all recite the names of the Founding Fathers for the test, knowing full well that you can't make them care about history (or, in some cases, even keep them off drugs and street crime)?

Sure, there are exceptional teachers who can keep the entire classroom engaged, but it's so rare that we make films about them. In most cases, in public schools, it's a choice that needs to be made.

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

#184

Post by gowld »

dehrmann wrote: post #44
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…

> where the performance carries a lot of the meaning The big one for me is you don't necessarily know Elizabethan slang, but when you see the play performed, the dirty lines get delivered dirty.

That's why The Taming of The Shrew is recommended for children. The bawdiness s straightforward.

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

#185

Post by stackghost »

bluGill wrote: post #97
magneticnorth wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I agree completely with the Shakespeare point. I was lucky enough to have a close friend (also a teenager!) who really got Shakespeare. She would explain to me what was actually going on, and read it with the correct emphasis so you could mostly actually follow it. She is 100% of the reason that I was ever able to appreciate Shakespeare. You would hope that most teachers could do this, but in my experience it wa…

There is no correct way to read Shakespeare. There are many wrong ways, but don't let your friend's interpretation cloud you from the others. It is really magic when you see some other interpretation and understand both are right despite not being compatible.

Oh, I hate this sentiment so very much.

Example: The song "We Are Young" by fun features the following lyrics.

    My seat's been taken by some sunglasses /
    asking 'bout a scar, and /
    I know I gave it to you months ago / 
    I know you're trying to forget /
    But between the drinks and subtle things /
    The holes in my apologies, you know /
    I'm trying hard to take it back
The aspiring song analyst might think it's about the singer being asked by a cop (wearing sunglasses) asking about him abusing his girlfriend, or whatever, but Nate Ruess is on record saying it's just about being hung over, and no more deep than that.

Projecting meaning where there is none, or where the meaning is clear, is simply not valid even for Shakespeare.

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

#186

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #129
ninalanyon wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading these comments about Shakespeare makes me think that most of you had terrible teachers of Eng. Lit. Plays, all of them not just Shakespeare, are written to be performed. If your teachers didn't have you perform plays and also watch professional and amateur performances they were derelict in their duties as teachers. Performance isn't just rote recitation.

I guess I can't lump every English teacher into the same bucket, but in my experience, they aren't particularly skilled at explaining the context behind a lot of the stuff being taught.

I would agree wrt my High School teachers. They were basically competent, but not particularly good.

In college however, my Humanities professors were better than I appreciated at the time. They forced us to think about the material and challenged us to defend our interpretations. As an Engineering student who just wanted the class to be over, I really missed out on a lot of good stuff.

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

#187

Post by gowld »

bluGill wrote: post #97
magneticnorth wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I agree completely with the Shakespeare point. I was lucky enough to have a close friend (also a teenager!) who really got Shakespeare. She would explain to me what was actually going on, and read it with the correct emphasis so you could mostly actually follow it. She is 100% of the reason that I was ever able to appreciate Shakespeare. You would hope that most teachers could do this, but in my experience it wa…

There is no correct way to read Shakespeare. There are many wrong ways, but don't let your friend's interpretation cloud you from the others. It is really magic when you see some other interpretation and understand both are right despite not being compatible.

Obligatory "To Be or Not to Be"

https://youtu.be/iQULEW2JwHE

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

#188

Post by jameshart »

hibikir wrote: post #152

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, an…

Totally. The right way to approach an art gallery is definitely just to walk round until something hits you.

Most astonishing time that happened to me was a wall-sized Rothko that just floored me, in a way I never would have expected a slab of color to.

Dali’s La Gare de Perpignan stopped me in my tracks too.

Rarely been as stunned by more famous works as when I got blindsided by something that leapt out and said ‘look’.

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

#190

Post by abighamb »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #173
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…

A couple years after I graduated college, I came across the 1972 movie of Macbeth . The experience was so drastically different from reading it in high school that it seemed like a completely different play. Suddenly, it all made sense now that I had a visual context. I remember one of the characters (Macduff?) covered in blood after a battle and grinning about how he had opened up his opponent "from the knave to the…

They really need to be produced to be appreciated.

I came to love Shakespeare in High School because I happened to perform it in a Theatre Class. Acting it is totally different from reading it.

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