Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

experimental-history.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 360 posts

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

#221

Post by johnnyanmac »

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 can indeed do both. That's what separates a good teacher from a great teacher.

But I think we also all now understand that public teaching is one of the worst ROI careers financially and how the few carrpts on the stick (tenure, fairly strong job security) have been stripped away over the decades. The way schools are funded literally rely on real estste value in that area. It's all made so maybe some rich areas get great teachers, but the hopes of using education to crawl out of poverty gets harder and harder. Unsurprising that great teachers leave before their prime or never come in to begin with.

And nope. They do not teach you that in 12th grade econ/government class.

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

#222

Post by eapressoandcats »

janalsncm wrote: post #210

I disagree with many of the points. First, as a point of style it makes no sense for the author to have chosen “thick” rather than the more common adjective “deep”. They describe the same thing, and “deep” even works much better for the cave analogy which is central to the author’s argument. Deep also has ties to game theory, where increasing depth introduces exponential complexity. The deeper you calculate in chess…

This comment is just truly bleak and I hope you find something artistic that you can enjoy the depth of.

The fact that some things are considered classics is not a mercenary logistical concern. Some movies are considered classics and this has nothing to do with library budgets. Standing the test of time indicates that it’s not just a product of the cultural trends of the time and speaks more universally.

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

#223

Post by horsawlarway »

SamBam wrote: post #46
tony_cannistra wrote: post #7

I have to say, this guy should teach English to high-schoolers.

I genuinely think that the vast majority of English teachers have had experiences like this. It's what made them become English teachers. Then, with all the best intent in the world, they try to explain to their students "Look, you don't get this, this fat book is transcendent if you can just sit with it and understand it! I, too, used to think that English class was just stupid words that they force you to read, but…

I think this is one of the more important points in this thread.

The problem is that too many pieces require experiences that the majority of the classroom just doesn't have.

It's not that students don't venture far enough into the cave to find the treasure, it's that the treasure literally isn't treasure to them yet.

The venturing that needs to happen for them to find the treasure isn't time spent in the material, it's time spent gaining life experiences.

Ex - there was nothing you could have done to make a book like "The Great Gatsby" good for me as a 15 year old. It's filled with themes that I had no experiences to connect with - no lost romances, no wealth (or even really a sense of wealth and money), no major life regrets, nothing at all to make this book hit. It's a dreary book about miserable, unlikable people when read from the perspective of a 15 year old student.

So why are we asking 15 year old students to read this book?

And that doesn't mean we can't throw students in over their heads every now and then (ex - exposure to the unfamiliar is fine). But if that's all you give them... they decide reading is pointless. You have to strike a middle ground with material that hits home.

And there's a range of teacher quality here as well - some are genuinely good at pushing students towards understanding the value in material, even if they lack experiences. But most aren't (at least in the US educational system I went through, which was a mix of decent public schools and expensive private schools)... they're passionate and well intentioned, but fail to empathize with the emotional maturity and world view of their young students.

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

#224

Post by sebg »

thadt wrote: post #118
PsylentKnight wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard that Shakespeare is much easier and more enjoyable for non-English speakers, because they get modern translations and we do not Linguist John McWhorter says that Shakespeare is often an "the Emperor has no clothes" situation. No one wants to admit to themselves or others that they don't understand it, and the people who think they understand it are often misunderstanding a lot of it

This is a really good point. My wife and I produce a history podcast where, right now, a lot of it draws on primary sources such as letters, diaries, etc. from the late 1800's to early 1900's. The ones in German she translates into English, but it feels "wrong" to change someone's words that are already in English. The net result is that it's easier (for me) to understand a letter written by someone in a translated f…

What’s been your favorite episode to put together?

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

#225

Post by jonnybgood »

joemi wrote: post #98
mbauman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what's the deal with calling depth thickness It's almost as though the author thought about and cared about the content and exact words he chose. "Thick or Treat" and "Thickening agents" and "Slim pickings" even immediately evoking imagery of a thin slop gruel in my own head. By using an unexpected word I think I thought more critically about it, in fact. Had the author used depth I would've immediately had more su…

I think the fact that "thick" can mean "dim-witted" is proof that the author did not in fact choose their words carefully.

I think it's made obvious that "thick" can mean many different things. Personally, I've never heard "thick" to mean "dimwitted" or it ever used as such.

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

#226

Post by andrepd »

> Guys who work in bike shops like to joke about bicycle-shaped objects—sure, that mass-produced hunk of metal and plastic has a seat, pedals, wheels, and handlebars, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bike. When the materials are so cheap and the construction is so slapdash, it deserves another name entirely.

> This terminology comes in handy, because it turns out there are also movie-shaped objects and book-shaped objects, art-shaped objects and thought-shaped objects. Just because a series of pictures flickered across the screen and the credits followed, that doesn’t mean it was a movie. Just because it’s printed out and bound in cardboard, that doesn’t mean it’s a book. There is an additional essence that is necessary to turn something from the shape of a thing into the actual thing, and the difference between having and lacking that essence is the difference between a corpse and a person.

There's nothing more to be said. This right here is what slop enthusiasts will never get, because they equate thought with a thought-shaped object.

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

#227

Post by inglor_cz »

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…

I was in Prado and it felt overwhelming to me. Like trying to eat an entire cake. I think it must be taken in in measured doses.

Goya's museum in Zaragoza was the one I could take in during one visit.

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

#228

Post by alephnerd »

j7ake wrote: post #112
alephnerd wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like it depends on how the classics are introduced. Being forced to read classics in their original form, while illuminating is unneccesary at the K-12 level where classics, humanities, and arts are meant to spark curiosity and an openness to synthesis. Using abridged adaptations (eg. Illustrated abridged classics, wishbone) aren't a bad way to impart much of the ethos of those works.

Yes, imagine classical physics were taught by studying the original works from Newton. It would never work!

A couple of my buddies and I tried that in HS - it didn't go well. Halliday Resnick and Mir publishers was the way to go for USAPhO.

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

#229

Post by pranav_tech26 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #116
pranav_tech26 wrote: post #43

[flagged]

Complexity should be relative to the material covered. Verbosity without substance is tiresome. But so is hand-waving and vagueness over complex topics (the hallmark of conspiracy theorists and absolutist fundamentalists). Providing a rich exposition of a rich topic is indeed a divine sort of thickness.

Spot on. Verbosity for the sake of it sucks, but vague docs on complex systems are even worse. Balance is everything—depth where it actually matters.

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

#230

Post by inglor_cz »

PsylentKnight wrote: post #48
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…

I have heard that Shakespeare is much easier and more enjoyable for non-English speakers, because they get modern translations and we do not Linguist John McWhorter says that Shakespeare is often an "the Emperor has no clothes" situation. No one wants to admit to themselves or others that they don't understand it, and the people who think they understand it are often misunderstanding a lot of it

[dead]
Post reply on HN