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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

#131

Post by crooked-v »

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…

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

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

#132

Post by alistairSH »

allturtles wrote: post #106
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…

> Like if you read Dickens, will you know enough about the industrial revolution, the condition of cities at the time, and such? We did talk about these things in English class in high school. The teachers would lay out the historical/social/cultural context of each book we read. Did your school not do that?

Several of our English and History classes were paired on purpose for just this reason. We'd be reading Dickens while study that era, or Catch-22 when studying WWII and the immediate post-War era, etc.

That said, I'm also frequently amazed at the stuff some people didn't learn that I clearly remember being covered in school...

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

#133

Post by conductr »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #83
NobodyNada wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same experience reading A Midsummer Night's Dream in high school -- I could follow the story, but it was a slog to get through and I didn't understand what was supposed to be so great about it. Then I saw an actual performance of the play recently, and it all clicked. It was just as understandable as any contemporary film, and easily one of the most fun and entertaining stories I've seen.

I gave up trying to read plays shortly after school. There's no point to me, they are supposed to be performed. I still think it's worth studying some of the more famous ones in school, but any study should absolutely involve actually going to see the play at some point.

I commented elsewhere but my schooling had a pattern of: read > analyze/discuss > watch movie > analyze/discuss. Most of the material has film adaptations and this was fairly sufficient in closing the loop during the course.

Even in history class, when we studied key documents the teacher would often at some point show us an oral presentation of the document- like a clip of (actor portrayed) Abraham Lincoln reading the Gettysburg Address. It’s such a well written speech that’s it’s exceedingly simple to comprehend when read. However, when you hear it orated it becomes evident how powerful it was and monumental moment in American history to justify learning about as it was unifying and motivating for all even in the midst of civil war. (Sorry may not be relatable reference for non Americans was just the first that came to mind)

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

#134

Post by radlad »

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…

> 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.

I agree with this premise - but the arts and humanities are a big part of how we learn these things in the first place!

In other words, you have to start somewhere. Context builds on context.

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

#135

Post by TacticalCoder »

> I always assumed that so-called “great” literature was a hoax, a punishment inflicted upon adolescents for the crime of being young.

It's mixed. It's both true and false.

There are a great many books out there, but there's also countless pointless turds.

Then something has to be said about your teacher forcing you to read a great book in a language that is not the author's native language. Some do translate well (Dostoevsky for example) but for many others it simply doesn't make any sense. A great book is not just a story: the writing itself is an art form and that cannot be translated.

Then many books are just bland, naive, with a ridiculously laughable "message" they try to pass.

The problem is a teacher shall force you to read either indistinctly. At least mine was.

I could be forced to read great literature just as I was forced to read the latest fart from whatever author was fancy in the city atm for his parents owned a bookstore.

Another way to see it is this: how many books (novel books) are there out there? Like, literally, how many? The number is gigantic. How many great novels are there?

If you were to pick one at random, which probability that you'd end up on a great one?

What's the probability your teacher will pick great ones?

In my case, the odds were basically as you'd expect: I remember very few of them because most didn't warrant being remembered.

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

#136

Post by ux266478 »

nostromo95 wrote: post #65
Bratmon wrote: post #49

In my understanding of literature, I went through the same arc as the poster, but then I made it to the next realization- "thickness" is just your willingness to give authors credit for things they didn't write, and it can be done just as well for works that are considered "schlock" as it can for the canon of works that are considered "great". You can read "Moby Dick" as a story about a fish, and you can read "50 sha…

I'm sure this aesthetic relativism holds up under argument, but this is an 'anti realization' that: -Reduces explanatory power (if Moby-Dick and 50 Shades are the same, why has one been lauded for 100 years, minted the careers of countless academics, etc.?) -Makes the world less interesting

On the first point, explanation is inherently subjective. It reduces explanatory power purely because you're forced to acknowledge it was never universally appropriate, which tracks. The variety of explanation you're referring to in this context is one that I always found to be unsatisfactory. It's inherently stripping context (IE every component of what makes something the right place, the right time) out of the equation, which makes comparative analysis absurd.

On the second point, I vehemently disagree, and I'm curious how you think a larger, more complicated world can be argued to be less interesting? Does the fact that your hallucinations and delusions are vacuous, and that they don't sit alone in a dark void, paralyze you with fear?

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

#137

Post by obviouslynotme »

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…

I second this. As a teenager, you don't have the life experience to appreciate most classic literature. I don't even think you have it in college, although this is less true.

That being said, there is important literature, both fiction and non-fiction, that should be introduced early, even if they won't really grasp it for decades. Most would be early philosophy and mythology, along with their best refutations. Learning how to read, think, and discuss them is the skill you're really looking to impart on the students to prepare them for real reading as adults.

Unfortunately, the education system is designed to train children to the minimum requirements of their predestined jobs and no further. It's no surprise that schools have made reading and thinking so unpleasant that most people are too traumatized to do it on their own.

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

#138

Post by serbuvlad »

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…

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 the book really shows you how important and spiritually so it is for the main character (and therein, for the average farmer at the time) to work his own land, to sweat and toil over his land. How he collapses to his knees and kisses the dirt when he finally gets it etc.

High schoolers can get most books with adult themes, and most books require very little context, since they are filled with passages upon passages upon passages of description.

> How would you know what the characters in Pride and Prejudice are worried about if you don't know how that society is?

Because they literally say it!

    “Not that I am afraid of myself, but I dread other people’s remarks.”
    “How can I promise to be wiser … if I am tempted?”
    “My father’s opinion of me does me the greatest honour; and I should be miserable to forfeit it.”
    “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
Or the narrator does

    “To Elizabeth it appeared, that had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit, or finer success.”
And from the books YOU LEARN WHAT THE SOCIETY WAS LIKE!

I don't think waiting 20 years to acquire a much vaguer and much less correct understanding of the context from YouTube/TikTok/TV cultural diffusion is very wise.

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

#139

Post by yogurtboy »

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.

You say you felt like the article wasn't well-written (which I disagree with, btw, it was clear and with many nice turns of phrase), but your comment complained about it not being very hackery or newsy. Maybe your comment was thick cause we were supposed to figure out what you actually mean.

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

#140

Post by joshgachnang »

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…

The best class I had in high school was American Dream: a mixture of literature and history/social studies. You'd learn about a time and then read a book for that time, like Grapes of Wrath or The Jungle or All Quiet on the Western Front. It was a double period, had two dynamic teachers (one old hippie and one young fun guy), and most of the grades were from papers about how the book and history related. More schools should have something like that.
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