I can only, sadly, agree with you Alison. My grandson who reads constantly
and who had read all of the Lord of the Rings for the first time by fifth grade
and who at eighteen buys books weekly although studying computer science
at university, saw no value in "English as a subject" in high school.
As a librarian
I have seen schools vary between pretentious attempts to introduce teenagers
to classics, disected line by line, and equally pretentious dumbing down the
selections studied. Kids love poetry if they hear it, see it, feel it, and, if
allowed the freedom to be imaginative, write it. The finest teachers that
I encountered began that process in reverse, started and startled the
kids into writing, then listening to themselves and others, and, finally
reading, reading and reading, first the moderns, then the classics.
(Shall spare you the CV.) Fran
[log in to unmask] wrote:
> >the stultifying, boring education system--most
> >students are introduced to poetry seriously in high school, which is an
> >institution more geared toward training people to show up and be places on
> >time and sit still for extended periods doing dull things--in fact what most
> >people's lives will be.
> >
> >Thus, almost is formed a knee jerk reaction : Poetry = dull= bad.
>
> As Hans Magnus Enzensberger said in reference to German poetry: There is
> nothing more dangerous than a German teacher with a poem in his briefcase.
>
> I've noticed that my son, who is surrounded with books at home and thus
> privileged, and who writes obssessively - plays, novels - on an ancient
> laptop in his bedroom, doesn't appear to associate this activity with the
> subject English at school. He has a fairly humourless English teacher.
> I can't work out if this is a shame - maybe not for him, but doubtlessly
> for others.
>
> Best
>
> Alison
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