Classics and the Western Canon discussion
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Reading in High School
Lily wrote: "Jeremy, Patrice -- After having argued this one with Eman (and with and against others), sometimes acrimoniously over the years, the last time I read Tess and the critics' comments on it (as well ..."First of all, a disclaimer - my plan is to homeschool my daughters. I'm generally skeptical of the quality of education provided in public schools here in the U.S., but I readily acknowledge there are many competent teachers doing their best with what they've been given.
I think parents are, or should be, the best judges of what their children are prepared to read and process. I'm sure there are fourteen and fifteen year olds who can navigate the complex issues presented in Tess. I'm also sure there are many who cannot. Note that I didn't say I don't want my daughters to read Tess. If they choose to read the novel then I won't stop them, though I'll probably prepare them for what they'll encounter. Read in a certain way it could be a cautionary tale. What I don't want is for them to be forced to read something before they're ready for it.
Again, I agree with Patrice. There are plenty of uplifting novels that are equal to or better than Tess that can be used in the classroom instead. That's not to say that I want to shield children from all unpleasantness and paint a too optimistic view of the world. It's really about knowing when your children are ready to wrestle with the darker aspects of life. I prefer that decision to be mine and not the school system's.
To answer your other question, I've only read a short story by Gordimer (The Moment the Gun Went Off) and listened to an interview she gave.
Jeremy, Patrice -- Thank you both for your thoughtful responses.I quake at the world/planet the past two centuries of humans are willing to their children. I know not the best ways we prepare them for it, but I do think it has topics worthy of many a conversation.
Jeremy -- I have not read The Moment the Gun Went off , nor a lot of Gordimer. But I do recommend The Pickup, with its spotlight on the relative values of differing ways of family structure and of challenges and hopes presented by freedom for economic opportunity. If the book has a viewpoint, I'm not sure I agree with it, but it certainly will always be a touchstone for thought, like Hector's plume on his helmet in The Iliad.
PS -- just downloaded 'The Moment...' from here:
http://tw.aisj-jhb.com/fhurtado/files...
A quite different topic in most senses, except perhaps divergent cultures crossing.
Patrice wrote: "What is the message of Tess?"Significant spoilers here for those who haven't read it. Be advised.
There are, in my view, many. One of them is the danger of making bad choices. (That is based in part on my belief that she was seduced, though I agree that it was a strongly persuaded seduction, but also the choice of Angel was clearly a bad choice.) One is that many thing in life are beyond our control. One is that even in a hard life one's spirit can be strong -- Tess is indeed a very strong young woman. Though that may not appear on the surface of the book, the choices she makes -- taking the nighttime journey because her father is too drunk to, going out to work when the family needs it, doing the best she can to take care of her baby and trying to give it a good Christian send-off when her baby dies, coping as best she can with her abandonment by Angel, even killing Alec when it is clear that he lied to her yet again. All those are not defeatist acts, but are acts of strength and courage in the face of the nearly overwhelming opposition of fate. She never gives up, she never gives in.
All, I think, lessons that adolescents can benefit from if the book is properly taught.
Patrice wrote: "There are so many, many wonderful books that can inspire and teach and encourage. I found Tess depressing, salacious, sad. Why not fill young minds with something enlightening and uplifting? "IMO, they need both. They need some sad books to help them find ways to deal with the griefs which will inevitably come to them. It's the same reason, I think, that children benefit from the scary, sometimes even terrifying, classic fairy tales. They need to see that life can be hard, but that there are ways to get through it. Spoiled and over-protected children will have a much harder time growing up to be strong adults.
You're being too generous Patrice. Tess's mom basically pimps her out. Pardon the crude expression, but the mom and dad were willing to sell their daughter if it would raise the family's fortune.Maybe this should be on the list for 2015. I think the novel is extremely dark, but I'm willing to read it again with the intention of being open to a more positive message. Whatever issues I have with the novel I agree that it's great literature.
Jeremy wrote: "You're being too generous Patrice. Tess's mom basically pimps her out. "Somewhat crudely put, but not inaccurate.
Everyman wrote: "Jeremy wrote: "You're being too generous Patrice. Tess's mom basically pimps her out. "Somewhat crudely put, but not inaccurate."
A current book club read for me: The Pearl that Broke Its Shell. It includes a look at some current day bride price practices -- as well girls masquerading as boys when a family has no sons. Not the "classic literature" of Tess. Nor would I recommend it for high school curricula. But, neither would I suggest Memoirs of a Geisha, and I see that on book store shelves for school reads.
Patrice wrote: "Is it a cautionary tale for young girls? Or is it a salacious, self indulgent reverie by a middle aged man? Again, I did not read it all and I know there must be more to it than that but that was my impression.
There are so many, many wonderful books that can inspire and teach and encourage. I found Tess depressing, salacious, sad. Why not fill young minds with something enlightening and uplifting? ..."
I whole heartedly agree with this, and I find my reviews I write of books I've had to put down are almost always because of this reason you stated. I feel like there are many books with vulgar topics that tell it in a way that makes me feel like the author is indulging himself or herself in the vulgar and profane simply to get a rise out of the readers. Human nature if left unchecked tends to place some value on the horrific and shocking. These books often leave me with the feeling that the author was trying to persuade me to his way of thinking of the world. Not only do I disagree with the view, but I'm left feeling sorry for the author. To me these are books I put down, and it's very different from a book that includes dark things that happen to good people that find a way out of it. These books I definitely still enjoy and feel are edifying.
Maybe that is the idea. To take you to the brink of understanding how the party or parties felt (from whichever viewpoint that author has chosen to project).I really believe books are about taking you to a place in which you can explore and gain a deeper understanding of real people who live in those dark places.
How can you understand the depths of darkness that a person can go to if you haven't been cautiously led to the edge where you can peer in. By that I mean, feeling uncomfortable about your own emotional reaction (rather than merely hearing a detached tale).
Of course I speak only of writing by a skilled author that is capable of making you feel that way.
When I read Crime and Punishment I was shocked by the feeling that I could commit a crime, even murder someone. The author had pushed himself so far into my head and synced me up with the thought process of the protagonist that I was amazed at how similiar my own thoughts could be. It was quite an eye-opening experience.
Jeremy C. wrote: "Human nature if left unchecked tends to place some value on the horrific and shocking."I agree, and I think that's all that some of my students get out of their readings. In high school, I was not mature enough to process these darker novels, though I've learnt to do that with time. I used to strongly dislike 1984, but now I think it's brilliant. I agree with Cass here that "feeling uncomfortable about your own emotional reaction" is an important part of reading. I finished a novel recently (Number9Dream by David Mitchell) where the ending blindsided me and I ended up changing the way I view certain life events. I am a more developed person because of that. Other books have acted in similar ways to make me more sympathetic or to gain a clearer perception of myself and others.
However, the general sense I get from many students is that being given depressing book after depressing book starts weighing on them. They lose interest in reading because all they're getting out of them is "look how bad the world is. There's nothing we can do." This is why I loved Anthem from the first time I read it. It discussed a broken society but allowed for optimism at the end. When I was in high school, I needed that light at the end of the tunnel.
Patrice wrote: "OTH, there always is another hand, the Bible would be banned by these standards. Nothing more horrific than the Bible is there? Maybe I'm wrong...."
The bible talks about horrors, but it is a historical document rather than a really well-spun story (the Book of Solomon may be the exception). So you can easily read it without feeling like you are the men being slaughtered after being circumcised, or the women being rounded up as concubines.
I think the issue is not what they are talking about, but whether you feel emotional drained after reading it. How it affects your headspace (do you feel like a rapist, or a voyeur, or a murderer).
Cass wrote: "I think the issue is not what they are talking about, but whether you feel emotional drained after reading it. How it affects your headspace (do you feel like a rapist, or a voyeur, or a murderer)..."I agree Cass! I had to read The Collector and In Cold Blood at concurrently during my final year of high school and I have to admit I had some incredibly disturbing dreams at that time.
But keep in mind, sometimes teenagers will find disturbing stories on their own. I found a Japanese manga (I forget the name) that at that time the most visually violent manga I'd read. I had nightmares from that. I also read a book that almost made me throw up (Deerskin) because of a rape scene and R.L. Stine was wildly popular. So perhaps having books like Tess are a good choice because teachers can then help students to learn how to deal with the emotions that books can bring up.
This is what I was arguing back @74. I know these are uncomfortable feelings, but they give us both insight and awareness of them. They can be a bit like a vaccination, a chance for the body to learn how to respond to a dose of an emotion, while getting to see the gritty results of these things.
Cass wrote: "This is what I was arguing back @74. I know these are uncomfortable feelings, but they give us both insight and awareness of them. They can be a bit like a vaccination, a chance for the body to lea..."And, as I think I mentioned above, many classic fairy tales are mighty dark.
Patrice wrote: "I know Bruno Bettleheim thought that Grimm's fairy tales were great for kids. But Bettleheim is no longer held in high regard and I wonder, how do we know those fairy tales are really good for kid..."Great questions.
Maybe kids don't get it until they are older.My 4yo daughter plays the most gruesome games. People are always dying, being killed, being eaten by animals.
The other day she told me she was going to keep her doll. I asked her what happened to the other one... she told me that she killed it because it cried too much.
She plays with concepts that I would not, because they are too dark for me. Yet to her they are just silly games. Perhaps the darkness comes with understanding.
Tiffany wrote: "But keep in mind, sometimes teenagers will find disturbing stories on their own. "I think this is quite right. I remember reading Hesse's Demian as a nice young Catholic boy and it nearly wrecked my worldview in one stroke. Manichaeism is not what the Jesuits wanted me to be thinking about at the time, but it fascinated and horrified me. It deeply disturbed me, nearly to the point of neurosis, until I discovered that what really frightened me was not the possibility of a Manichaean reality but the fact that I was questioning my own belief system. That is part of growing up. Sometimes literature helps us to do that, as uncomfortable as it may be.
I guess it depends on the child. If you see that certain foods are disagreeable to your child, or certain playmates are too dominating, too submissive, or otherwise bringing out qualities you don't want to encourage....you might want to intervene and restrict their diet of whatever is making them ill. Books are no different.
Patrice wrote: "Thomas, does the church still have that list of approved books? I'd be curious to see it. "I'm not sure if there is a list of approved books, but there was a list of prohibited books, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The Church did away with the Index in the 1960's. But here is the last published list, from 1948:
http://www.cvm.qc.ca/gconti/905/BABEL...
All the familiar names are there... Descartes, Hobbes, Rousseau, and of course Voltaire. I was a little surprised to see Pascal though. And some novelists: Victor Hugo, Flaubert, and Zola. (ALL of Zola.)
There is a process for approving books as well, which I think is exclusive to religious books, but I'm not sure if there is a list of them. Sometimes you'll see the terms "nihil obstat" or "imprimatur" at the front of a book which means that it has been officially approved.
Thomas wrote: "I'm not sure if there is a list of approved books, but there was a list of prohibited books, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The Church did away with the Index in the 1960's. But here is the last published list, from 1948: ..."Thomas -- am I reading it incorrectly, or were writers like James Joyce and Marcel Proust never on the Index, at least in 1948? Or Pierre Teilhard de Chardin?
Lily wrote: "Thomas -- am I reading it incorrectly, or were writers like James Joyce and Marcel Proust never on the Index, at least in 1948? Or Pierre Teilhard de Chardin? "Apparently not. Darwin is not there either. But evidently they went after Sartre pretty hard. Maybe it was a matter of popularity? Perhaps the Vatican did not think it necessary to ban a book that few people knew about or were interested in. Not many people were reading James Joyce when he was alive, and fewer still would have been interested if Ulysses hadn't been labeled "obscene" by U.S. authorities.
More surprising, and disappointing, is that Vatican officials had to think about Mein Kampf pretty hard... and then decided not to put in on the list. Yikes.
http://americamagazine.org/issue/517/...
Thomas wrote: "...Maybe it was a matter of popularity?..."Wiki has a few comments that I don't quite understand about the impact of popularity -- like maybe the devout were supposed to know enough to stay away from certain things without putting them on the Index. Also, about the likes of Calvin and Luther.
P.S. Thx for the article! I suspect many Americans, like myself, have only thin understanding of the interplay of Judaism, Protestantism, and Catholicism on the Continent, especially Germany-Austria-Prussia.
Thomas wrote: "Patrice wrote: "Thomas, does the church still have that list of approved books? I'd be curious to see it. "I'm not sure if there is a list of approved books, but there was a list of prohibited bo..."
Thanks, Thomas! I had never even heard of the Index. Interesting that my Catholic high school and college both had me reading those prohibited books just 30 years after the Index was tossed.
IMO, If anything, it's easier now than ever to read the canon. Having trouble with Richard II? You can watch The Hollow Crown. Trying to figure out the symbolism in The Picture of Dorian Gray? Wikipedia. Don't understand Plato? The History of Philosophy podcast. When I was in first grade, we lost access to the teacher once we went home and started working on our homework. By college, I had access to resources anywhere and at any moment....and I don't think you can just age into being a book snob. You have to compel students to challenge themselves for their own sake. Then, when they develop an interest in something, they have all the requisite knowledge to enjoy things. It takes a lifetime of cultivation and a spark. The most important part is the spark. I think that basically defines a liberal education.
How interesting. When I was in the convent seminary (a century or two ago), I was told to stop reading Merton and de Chardin. However, once a mind goes that way, there's no bringing it back. I'd read Twain's "Letters from the Earth" as an adolescent and my take on religion was always a tad off anyway. The convent was, to me, an ashram with modern plumbing from which I could do good for society; I did not last long! I do remember that the Catholic church bulletin had a list of banned movies and books every Sunday. I remember "Forever Amber" being there, which I read in before I was 10. There were very few, if any, books in our house, but my mother returned it to whomever she'd borrowed it from before I'd gotten very deeply into it. It was hidden high and deep in the liquor cabinet!
Ellen wrote: " It was hidden high and deep in the liquor cabinet! ..."lol!
Good discussion, well done!From what I see, young people [high school students or even college one] hates to read classic, they're thinking it's wasting time.
And it's so sad 'cause they doesn't see beyond " boring" title, this "boring" title hides wonderful world, classic instill values and in the same way makes you to feel different feelings.
Well I think yes because classics is part of learning of our history. I mean I’m just middle school. I’m already reading the classics some may consider me high school already. Since I’m grade seven. I mean in the school I go to at the start of the new semester I have to read of mice and men. The grade eight has to read The Little Prince. The grade nine has to read much ado about nothing the grade 11 has to read an abridged novel of Les Misérables. I think it would be a good idea.
Sophia wrote: "Well I think yes because classics is part of learning of our history. I mean I’m just middle school. I’m already reading the classics some may consider me high school already. Since I’m grade seven..."Very true. There are classics that are good for every age.
Great thread. For my own part, I would agree with the literary critic Northrop Frye's series of lectures, "The Educated Imagination," in which he addresses this question. His claim was essentially that our school system starves students' imaginations by not training them through exposure to the classics. He says there's a clear test which we can use to identify what constitutes genuine classics: it is those works that strive to offer the most comprehensive, unifying view of reality as a whole. He stressed the importance of teaching great, synoptic mythic visions (the Bible, some of the classic Greek works, and I would also add that in this age, we should also expose students to at least some Eastern thought early on). He stresses the value of teaching Shakespeare and Dante.
He does not even formulate this as a question of the truth (or lack thereof) of these works. Rather, he thinks we benefit students by training their imaginations to stretch out and try to grasp the shape of the world as a whole through these works that try to offer some view of the universe as a "cosmos" (an ordered whole). The question of truth can only come later for students, after the act of imagination can occur. In fact, they can't even ask about the truth of such totalizing views until they can present their image before their minds as a whole.
We can't ask about the truth of ideas that we cannot imagine. He makes a good pedagogical (and epistemic!) point here I think. And to train the imagination, you need to graft its imaginings on the most well-elaborated, comprehensive structures. The imagination needs a sturdy structure, not a fragmentary mish-mash of this and that at every student's discretion. They can experiment in their free time. School is for challenging people to go out of their comfort zone and to motivate them to discipline themselves when they would rather not.
Contra this individualistic mindset that makes well-meaning teachers and parents be wary of "shoving old fossils down kids' throats," because kids should "find out for themselves what they like," we have to recognize that before a person receives a certain amount of training of both character and intellect, they are in no position to evaluate the real worth of things and need help to do so. You cannot know what you like, what is beautiful, and what is truly good, until you have subjected yourself to training in humanistic disciplines. We all know learning physics and math takes effort. We should recognize that learning the true values of things also does. And if we think we can have a good democracy based on people who cannot rightly estimate the value of things, then we've just gone insane as a society.
The anthologizing mania fractures the imagination of students by pandering to the laziest among students. Those who have a drive to learn are stifled in this environment. I guess the choice in the affluent West is to sacrifice the best among learners for the laziest. The society believes it can afford this sacrifice, but I have my doubts that students educated in this system will compete much longer with the much more disciplined students coming from Asia and Europe.
This might sound "elitist," but then I come from a country (Romania) in which people were poor enough that schools were not expected to pander to the laziest among us. Rather, we all were motivated by desperation (and by our parents, who knew the hardship that was waiting for us on the other side if we didn't pass the exams) to bust our assess to the maximum in a way that we would not have done if the school system kept lowering standards to appease those who were least motivated to succeed. I guess in the affluent West, we need a substitute for objective hardship to motivate us to develop ourselves from a young age.
And the irony is that ALL are educable! Laziness is the only barrier to learning, in my opinion, and there are very few exceptions to this. People jump to conclusions about "natural" learning deficits too soon. I guess it exculpates us adults from our duty to help the young to push themselves to succeed. However, the lower the standards are lowered in an effort to cater to (adult) laziness, the lower they will have to keep going until we will have to just put comics on the curriculum.
I am also not sure that that kind of intellectual starvation diet will really make students who seem to demand it any happier.
Elena wrote: "Great thread. For my own part, I would agree with the literary critic Northrop Frye's series of lectures, "The Educated Imagination," in which he addresses this question. His claim was essentially ..."That's one important aspect of reading classics early. Another, equally important, I think, is that it provides an entry into understanding works which build on or refer to the classics. There is a unifying thread in literature, and in order to understand later works fully, you need to understand the references, both direct and implied, which they build on.
An opinion from a seventeen year old senior in high school!I haven’t read either War and Peace or Crime and Punishment yet, though in honesty I’ll probably skip on War and Peace and read one of Tolstoy’s other novels when I get around to him. I read Dickens’ Great Expectations in freshman year, and it was understandable but awfully boring. I likely won’t come near him again for a few more years. My English class will be reading Hamlet next semester, which I’m pretty pumped for. I’ve read other Shakespeare works for school before, my favorite so far being King Lear from eighth grade Language Arts.
Of course, I’m one of those nerds who actually enjoys reading the classics, though it’s a more recently inspired thing. The last time I read anything outside of school was back when I was a freshman before I fell into anhedonia for two years and lost all my hobbies. :-(
The English curriculum nowadays is actually pretty varied. I’ve read a mix of classics, memoirs, and non-fiction through my past few years of schooling, and they range from depressing to uplifting.
Required annotations are still a thing, and they absolutely do suck the fun out of it all.
Kex wrote: "An opinion from a seventeen year old senior in high school!I haven’t read either War and Peace or Crime and Punishment yet, though in honesty I’ll probably skip on War and Peace and read one of T..."
For a great shorter Tolstoy novel, try Hadji Murad -- A renowned Tatar chieftain comes over to the Russian side during their conquest of the Caucasus in the 1850s, but his family remains prisoners of a ruthless rival. Tolstoy himself served in this campaign, and his experiences there led to his later pacifism.
I think that in order for students to read classics they need to be interesting to the group. I recommend reading Black Beauty and Charlotte's Web in elementary school because there are a lot of good life lessons in them and it has animals. Bam! Instant connection for kids. I would recommend Mark Twain in Middle School for some good discussion, but short classics in high school. I would have an optional list of books they could read if they're interested. If they were like me, I never read what I was told to read in school because I could always trust they would give me a snoozer. I immediately went to spark notes for school books and just read what I wanted on my down time. It's almost a guarantee they give boring books (or books they aren't ready for in school) just because it's a classic.
I was quite the opposite, reading such classics as the Odyssey and The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Everyman wrote: "There is a unifying thread in literature, and in order to understand later works fully, you need to understand the references, both direct and implied, which they build on. ..."One of the problems is how to continue knowledge of the Bible in our secular education systems. Much of Greek and Roman classical literature, of course, is independent of it, at least among early classics. But English writers, certainly Chaucer and beyond, knew well the Biblical stories and many of those stories were entwined in their own in one way or another.
Patrick wrote: "I think that in order for students to read classics they need to be interesting to the group. ..."This describes the young me to a tee. I remember being forced to read The Good Earth in 9th or 10th grade and disliking the experience so much that I stopped reading for several years. I bluffed my way through class readings. Nothing wrong with The Good Earth, but I wan't ready for it, finding the subject matter boring. I picked up reading again in college when I was blown away by all the symbolism in The Great Gatsby.
I think the way literature taught in most public education settings is not properly focused, as the teachers mostly teach the class like a checklist of things for the students to "learn". my observation is that the reason most students don't really get into classic literature is because the way the curriculum is structured and teachers not able to communicate what makes literature so important. My view is that teachers should teach students why and how to appreciate great literature, and mostly let the author teach the student. It may not be for every student, but I like the idea of strong classical education for most people, especially in the teaching of literature.
Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "Patrick wrote: "I think that in order for students to read classics they need to be interesting to the group. ..."This describes the young me to a tee. I remember being forced to read The Good Ea..."
I haven't read The Good Earth yet and I would love to. Its definitely on my TBR list.
I used to say I had a doctorate in BS lol cuz I never liked reading the books I was forced to read and just read the summaries to write my reports. Now that I'm older I'm going back to the classics.
Gabriel wrote: "I think the way literature taught in most public education settings is not properly focused, as the teachers mostly teach the class like a checklist of things for the students to "learn". my observ..."I totally agree with you! It is a checklist, almost like a cookie-cutter way of teaching/learning. I never felt close to the literature we read in school. When I was in college for education they teach us to help students develop a love for learning and reading, but the curriculum in schools really limits us. It is basically a regurgitation method of teaching and no one learns that way. Our public education system is crap and there is nothing educators can do to change it unless they start their own school. I've found that the Classical method or Charlotte Mason method the most successful teaching methods. Like you said, those methods let the authors teach and the teacher is only a guide who introduces them to good rich literature.
Lily wrote: "One of the problems is how to continue knowledge of the Bible in our secular education systems."This is true. In general, the courts allow courses on "The Bible in Literature," as long as there is no proselytizing, but schools are afraid to offer such courses even when they are legal. But mostly the old Testament more than the new.
And after all, the Greek gods are also religious, so if they teach Greek literature, they should be able to teach Biblical literature.
I think a big question implicit in this discussion is: What is the goal of high school reading?We can probably all agree that it shouldn't be to just "check off the boxes" on "great literature" or whatever. My personal bias that it should be to lure students into--and making them curious about--reading for pleasure in a world full of much easier pleasures.
I had a fairly standard Anglo-American (Canadian, specifically) high school reading syllabus (4 Shakespeares [Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Twelfth Night], 1 Dickens [Tale of Two Cities], 4 20th century English [Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies], 2 20th century American [To Kill a Mockingbird, Great Gatsby, 1 Canadian [Medicine River]).
I think there are a few problems with the above list:
1) A focus on "great works" rather than readibility or enjoyability. I now love Dickens--years later when I achieved the right level of reading skills and patience. I can't imagine why anyone thought it was a good idea to force 13-15-year-olds read a full bloody Dickens. Why not just pick a selection from Pickwick Papers to actually highlight his wit and power of observation? For our short story section the teacher taught James Joyces' "Araby"--I read that story 10 years later and still have trouble with it. What reading level do they think they're catering to? Why can't they teach some books that marry good plot and action with literary style so students can actually enjoy them?
2) Lack of selections from non-English sources. This is not merely for "diversity", but for the simple facts that 1) there is excellent literature in other languages and 2) translated works are frequently more approachable because the translator's language is less dated. As a result of point 2), I hated Dickens in high school, but was reading Rousseau quite happily. For alternatives to Shakespeare (again, love him now, hated him then), classical tragedies are shorter, intenser, and probably more approachable. I can imagine some very animated classroom discussions on Medea or Agamemnon--hard to see high school students get that excited about "Midsummer Night's Dream" or "Twelfth Night".
3) Length: I would have liked to see more works sampled so students can have some choice on which longer works they'd actually want to read. Textbooks in China are like that: lots of excerpts from novels across different time periods, so students can choose to delve into any deeper should they choose and can spend less time on stuff they don't like as much.
Everyman wrote: "And after all, the Greek gods are also religious, so if they teach Greek literature, they should be able to teach Biblical literature..."There's a big difference between teaching Greek mythology and teaching the Bible.
For years I taught a college level Early World Literature class in which I included a few selections from the Bible. I stressed to my students that we were exploring the Bible purely as a literary text. We would read the selections and discuss the different sources of the Pentateuch, for example. We would read and deconstruct the story of Adam and Eve through a gendered lens. I had to walk a fine line, working hard in ways I never did with Greek mythology to get the students to explore the Bible as a literary text and to help them understand that the discussion was never, ever, intended to challenge their faith.
I taught the class to first and second year students, some of whom were non-traditional.
I can just imagine what it would be like to teach the Bible as a literary text to high school students. On the one hand, you would have angry parents perceiving it as an attempt to proselytize; one the other hand, you would have angry parents perceiving it as a challenge to their faith.
And yet Islam is studied freely in schools in order to know them as a people. Talk about double standards. They are beginning to study Islam in elementary level too. But a Christian child prays over their lunch and they are ridiculed. (Speaking from experience and witnessing events).
Just seems a bit strange that one is favored above another. Just how African Americans feel racism from other groups, Christians seem to struggle with the same kind of thing from other religions and other people.
Patrick wrote: "Gabriel wrote: "I think the way literature taught in most public education settings is not properly focused, as the teachers mostly teach the class like a checklist of things for the students to "l..."I mostly came about my conclusions on public education of literature on my own, but recently I have found I agree with the way they teach at Hillsdale College.
Patrick wrote: "And yet Islam is studied freely in schools in order to know them as a people. Talk about double standards. "I'm not sure that this is a double standard as much as it is just education. Most Americans know what Christianity entails. 70% of Americans identify as Christian. Christmas is a federal holiday. Muslims, on the other hand, make up less than 1% of the U.S. population. And not only is Eid Al-Fitr not a federal holiday, most Americans have never even heard of it.
Kids bully other kids, unfortunately. Educating kids about why people are different, and that being different is okay, can sometimes remedy this problem.
Patrick wrote: "Just seems a bit strange that one is favored above another. Just how African Americans feel racism from other groups, Christians seem to struggle with the same kind of thing from other religions an..."I am not sure that a group that have the majority (christians) in the West, then and now, are suffering opression. It's probable the reverse. I am pretty sure that people who goes to the church every sunday probably don't need to study the Bible in the school, not in the traditional (proselitizing) way, they are studying it already in the church. But an literary approach, like the one suggested by Tamara would be a good choice.
Classics and the Western Canon
Books mentioned in this topic
Dead Souls (other topics)Melymbrosia (other topics)
The Grapes of Wrath (other topics)
Great Expectations (other topics)
I Read It, but I Don't Get It (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
R.L. Stine (other topics)Nadine Gordimer (other topics)
Since I didn't raise a daughter and am not a heavy television viewer myself, I am curious as to why you, apparently so strongly, would not want Tess to be part of high school lit curricula. (I didn't read it myself until an adult.) Do you fear the quality of the teaching? The possible classroom interactions? The story itself? The possibility of being too young for some stories? The difficulty of good classroom discussion at the HS level? Other issues and themes about the story, such as parental support and protection, burial of the child outside "holy ground," Angel abandoning Tess, Tess' toil and subsequent choices, or Tess' execution or .....
Are you familiar with Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup ? It is a story/book that my personal bias says could be widely taught to high school seniors and college freshman. It looks hard, and sympathetically, at the values between third world cultures/families and first world opportunities. (Despite its title, sexual mores is not a primary theme, although female assertiveness re. life choices has an interesting role.)