Do we have any school teachers in the audience?
Why do schools always assign students books which are repulsive, full of hate or neuroses. Lord of the Flies for instance. It seems to be universal to want to traumatise students, or at least make the reading experience as unpleasant as possible.
33 comments:
We had Golding's famous book as assigned reading at our high school.
I'd like to tell you how it was a positive experience, how as a victim of bullying I found it very affirming, how my youthful fear of nuclear holocaust was abated by this novel, and how it reassured me in my faith of mankind.
I'd like to be able to do that, but I can't. The only thing I can see is that it's the only book they have to use which isn't a book for teaching sexuality. All the other books we studied (I had 3 different Lit teachers in that school) were about a childs budding sexuality, and the transition from child to adult.
The other books we read were
Little Red Pony, Of Mice and Men, Under Milkwood, Unman Wittering And Zigo, To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, 1984, .
Actually, the first three years of Lit we studied terrible books, and I was so relieved that my 4th year, the run up to the O Levels, we were assigned To Kill a Mockingbird and Romeo and Juliet. I was so expecting hating them (lit had almost killed my love of reading) the it was wit fear and dread I relucantly started the Harper Lee. My what a page turner that ended up being. I cracked the spine at 10pm, and read it in one session, getting to bed just before the next lunch.
I remember two books by two different Danish authors ("Rend mig i traditionerne" and "Den Kroniske Uskyld"). Both of them had the main character ending up in an insane asylum!
We had "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" too.
What's wrong with Lord of the Flies. It's supposed to make you think that about how thin the veneer of civlization really is. Not everything in life is pleasant, and we are supposed to read books that will challenge us. As that one will, as 1984 and the others Alex mentioned will.
As Al Swearengen said, only exaggerating slightly as far as some people are concerned, life is just one fucking vile task after another.
Jimbo,
I'd already seen how thin the veneer of civilisation was at school. I was still looking for escapist work. Growing up was bad enough without having to read about it, even if I didn't have to eat eggs "where the cock has left his mark", or see my brother get beat up by a rapist, or worry about my class mates committing suicide or raping the teachers wife.
Life pressures backed off enough, and I was mature enough by the time I hit the O Levels to start appreciating literature. The first three years in high school I wasn't. Indeed I think I was about 20 before I could handle Under Milkwood anyway.
They are the last few years of being a kid. Why did we have to start the education of life so early. We were already seeing terrorism in our local town, riots, racism, depression, industrial actions, soccer violence. Local public toilets getting bricked up from queer bashing. We had a major military installation in town, and the oil industry nearby, so we knew we'd be the first to get a nuke.
With so much life around us, why did we need to be shown how much worse it could be?
Sure, Golding is well written, I just encountered it at the wrong time of my life. After the two run ins with Steinbeck I finally broke down and read Cannery Row a few short years ago and loved it.
I'm ready for real books, and have been since my late teens. I just wish some lit would be brought to us later. It seems there is no middle ground. One week "Biggles Kills the Niggers", next week Tolstoy.
The booklists for most schools were the same or similar in many areas. The books selected for reading were (and are) designed to program the young minds so as to achieve a non-thinking population, which we now have. Outrageous gas prices, stupid laws, unfairness in the law and in society, crappy treatment by employers are all examples of the desired result.
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If people could reason and think and work together, they would shut down the perpetrators. But no - we just pay more for gas, put up with laws, continue to work for Walmart - and never lift a finger to fight back.
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Yes, we complain - but we don't revolt. Programmed Public is what they wanted - and they did it.
The joke is that in 2-3 generations, that same public won't be ABLE to read or comprehend those books. Maybe people then will just come with a huge USB port.
Alex...(off topic)...these are for you. Don't know if you've seen these before but just ran into them and thought of you. :-)
http://tr.im/jNnZ
http://www.seankenney.com/
Eolake: "Why do schools always assign students books which are repulsive, full of hate or neuroses. Lord of the Flies for instance."
You had a lot of books like this in your danish curriculum?
Really interesting question, I will have to think about it...
Kabel: "The books selected for reading were (and are) designed to program the young minds so as to achieve a non-thinking population, which we now have."
Would be interesting to measure this! :-)
For me, Golding did make me think a lot. I think that was the most shocking of the curriculum, but I felt it useful. But there were a lot of other kind of books.
I studied in hungarian secondary school while the communism was at its end. it is funny, because when you have an openly totalitarian system (communism there) you don't have to have such a very tight thought control. Because, well, it is clear anyway that if you do or don't do what you should, you get direct punishment anyway. The chains are visible, you don't need to put them in the minds. People could think what they wanted as far as they were shutting up.
Ok, this was my parent's generation, but the system did not change that fast.
As the personal freedom was restricted (no travel for my parent's generation, no getting rich, no starting a business), literature, art, maths, music were areas of freedom that many people enjoyed, much more than today.
Quite ironic actually.
I don't think there's a real problem with these books. The problem today is much more that so many young people aren't reading at all. TV and video games have them in a trance that is far more de-humanizing than any variety of book.
Hokey shit, Alex, that was Manchester? I see that where I grew up was paradise compared.
Not Manchester, but Chester. We got everything the rest of the nation saw in microcosm.
Millwall had a brutal following of socccer thugs, and Chester and Wrexham were very keen to show their best against them.
I remember almost weekly sectarian killings on the news. Footage of London bombings and the Iranian Embassy siege were very impressive.
Chester did fall victim to letter bombs, but from the Welsh activists not the Irish.
The military installation was Western Command, actually just by our school. There was BNFL Capenhurst and Shell Stanlow within a 10 mile radius of Chester too. Hence the purported risk of first strike.
It was for the most part a pretty tourist city and quiet college town, all grown out of a Cathedral City and market town. But that did not stop it being very British.
Getting to Manchester in my late teens brought things closer to home. The Asian commuity (Longsight) where I lived in '90, was shut down by the police when the NF marched up the A6. Students were raped on the premises of our Halls of Residence in Didsbury. The year after I emigrated the IRA blew up the Arndale Center and Marks and Sparks. In '89 a friend was held up at gunpoint in Moss Side.
I had my car broken into in Bootle, my friend had hers done in in Levenshulme, another friend in Rhyl, with anti Welsh graffiti to add insult to injury.
That's just how life is.
I see that where I grew up was paradise compared.I was thinking the same thing.
TC,
Finally got to follow the links
Awesome.
The exec at the desk is great. I've seen my kids build that sort of person, but not so relaxed. Even the ones in Legoland, which are basically the same technique, are stiff in comparison.
Did you see the MOC's on my blog?
http://alexod.blogspot.com/2009/04/some-new-mocs.html My son put together some cute little statues...
Alex,
Your childhood report sounds kind of a war-time childhood.
I definitely grew up in paradise!
The creatures your son built are hilarious! Very cute.
Chris S.,
I really agree with you. But as people read so little, the choice of what books to give children is even more important.
Though, if I remember well, the books that I really liked were not the compulsory ones.
Alex said...
"The exec at the desk is great. I've seen my kids build that sort of person, but not so relaxed. Even the ones in Legoland, which are basically the same technique, are stiff in comparison."
I have to admit that I hadn't looked around very much...until you mentioned the above. Holy ** he has done...a LOT!! And...some pretty cool commissions, too! I LOVE the little 'Smart' cars!! CUTE! :-)
Ironically, my brother grew up playing w/Legos and I introduced my son to them, when he was really small but he didn't *take* much to them...until now. He's 11, also. :-) But for years, I would shove legos in front of him and he wasn't much interested in them. Now, all of a sudden, he is interested in them and can put together a Lego Star Wars model (our relatives supply those. I can't afford them! lol! And...I would much prefer him to make them up out of his own mind...much like your son is doing! Very cool! :-) in no time flat! It's quite interesting to see how much he enjoys them, now.
"Did you see the MOC's on my blog?
http://alexod.blogspot.com/2009/04/some-new-mocs.html My son put together some cute little statues..."
I had not been on your blog for quite some time. Thanks for sharing. :-)
Perhaps someday we'll be able to visit Legoland. I hear it is better...than the original, in DK?? Is this true, IYO??
(I apologize for digressing on your reading assignments post, Eo! lol!)
Aniko said...
"But as people read so little, the choice of what books to give children is even more important."
I completely agree, Aniko. :-)
TC,
I have only been to Legoland CA. I hope to go to the one in the UK with my nephews.
I've wanted to got to Billund since I was about 6. My mum went a few years ago and loved it. We took her to the one in CA. She never said much about one versus the other.
An 11 year old may be interested in filming with Lego. Have a look at Brickfilms, their either a .com or a .org.
http://alexod.blogspot.com/2007/12/my-attempt-at-stop-motion.html
I'll try and get some of my kids films on-line. Their pretty cool.
When I was a kid we never made any set Lego projects more than once. All the stuff got mixed into one vast pile of stuff and we made whatever we felt like. Much more fun that way. The whole point is to use your imagination.
Jimbo said...
"When I was a kid we never made any set Lego projects more than once. All the stuff got mixed into one vast pile of stuff and we made whatever we felt like. Much more fun that way. The whole point is to use your imagination."
Exactly. That was what we started with. HUGE tubs of the stuff and he wouldn't touch it for YEARS! And then...all of a sudden, he fired up, just this past year! I had never seen a boy who didn't care to build things so...I was slightly concerned.
And...he does have a gob of *free flow* (lol!) pieces. He asked, specifically, for these kits...after I tried to encourage him to just get more mixed. We even went in to a COOL Lego store where you can buy whatever pieces you like...by the cupful! Perhaps that will come along, now.
Alex...thanks for the idea re: filming. He has been interested in photography, also, so...that would be a good idea, too.
It would be great to see your son's stuff. I could share w/him. :-)
Your Lego film was pretty cool, Alex! Very nice first "attempt"! I bet that was a pretty time-consuming project. :-)
that sounds like the third world - which england is gettin closer and closer to joining
I actually loved Lord of the Flies. In the same class we also read The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. I couldn't stand Shakespeare in those days. Anyway my childhood also seems to have been lived in paradise compared to Alex's. That kind of stuff I've only ever seen on the news. Not that it's crime free but by comparison...
Come on guys. Are you telling me that there has never been civil insurrection in your town? Didn't you guys have skinheads and National Front people around town in the late 70's?
There must have been some letter bombing in your city, be it anti-abortion, against holiday homes, or against oppression of a neighbouring state?
Did you never wonder why,when you needed to take a leak, the facilities were closed down?
You must have had the occasional hour without electricity because of industrial action in the coal or oil industry. You must have seen the armoured busses taking scab labour across picket lines on TV?
You make it sound like I lived in a living hell. I didn't, it's just that we don't need to read Golding, Lee, Steinbeck, Kasey et al to see how thin a veneer of civilization there is.
You wanna see somewhere that looked like a war zone, then go to Toxteth (Liverpool), or Moss Side (Manchester) in the early 80's.
Nope, none of those things.
I don't think those things exist in Denmark as a rule except maybe a couple of neighborhoods in the Capital.
I've never even been beaten up once in my life. The worst "bully" I had as a kid just stood in my way and taunted me, once or twice.
Nothing of this. Never even heard of as a kid.
Maybe communism had nice sides! :-)
Everything was repressed, good and bad.
Was safe for children.
And we could believe that the evil is not in us, but in the wicked communist regime.
Yes, that's always a comfort. Like a sedative. :-)
Nope, none of those things.
Ditto.
'The Phantom Tollbooth' Did anyone ever read that? That looks like it would have been a fun book to read...and then watch the movie in elementary school. :-)
(there are 14 parts)
Nothing of this. Never even heard of as a kid.Me too. So, I suppose I was also growing up in a kind of paradise, even if it was not in a land ruled by communism.
I'm reminded: In the late seventies I was visiting Detroit (Michigan, USA) for a conference, and I was totally shocked experiencing an everpresent underlying atmosphere of criminal violence showing up in many details of daily life there :-(
I would hate to live there and try to escape as fast as possible!
BTW talking about brickfilms: Some time ago I mentioned my nephew being interested in making animated movies. In his earlier teens he has produced some brickfilms, e.g. www.tourl.de/89 (ah, I have learned to shorten my links by using www.tourl.de, very simple ;-).
For other examples you may look for "Eclipse FX" in Youtube (=> www.tourl.de/8a)...
My thoughts... I taught in public schools in California, in the '70s. We were given an "approved" list to pick from. The concerns were that a book had "literary" value - which was academic-speak. The idea was to get students to "come up to the level" of the work, i.e., academicism. You'd miss the point if you thought it was "to enjoy reading."
Some kids were going on to college: they'd better learn the canon. Other kids, got lost.
Another important aspect is what's inherently "unfair" in teaching a class: individuals treated as a unit. (Though there's something to be said for discussing books in a group setting.)
And: If the student's not *ready* for it, the teaching's wasted. Make the teaching fit the student. There's the problem of "mature" knowledge, that needs a good foundation of experience before it'll stand. And of course some knowledge is uncomfortable to learn, and then to know (hold).
I teach prison inmates now. Most of them dropped school because everything in it seemed irrelevant.
Yes, students would learn a lot better if going at their own speed and with individualized programs. The problem is, of course, that it would cost a lot more and take more intelligence to implement.
Yeah, if you fall too far off the curve you can get a IEP, Individual Education Plan. You really need to be a long way from average to qualify, and then it still seems not everyone can work out how to tailor teaching appropriately.
Yes, students would learn a lot better if going at their own speed and with individualized programs. The problem is, of course, that it would cost a lot more and take more intelligence to implement.
There are a lot of people who would be capable and willing to implement it but the money's the problem. I wonder if people here would be willing to pay the punishing income tax of Denmark in order to fund it? I know I would have benefited from such a program as I have had much more success and more enjoyment learning things at my own pace.
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