At 05:41 PM 2/11/2005, you wrote:
>I like to think there are public high school kids - 15 & 16 years old - who
>get gripped by the work itself and run with its emotions (outrage, etc) for
>the rest of their lives while I relyi on the possibility that most high
>school English teachers are not already turning the students and the work
>into high minded fossils! The optimist here. I mean American public schools
>- unlike the French - are less hidebound - unless you are going to a private
>or select public school where to get into high level Universities they start
>turning out students who are repeaters of orthodox criticism ad nauseum.
Well, a lifted glass, sort of, to the Christian Brothers Academy, where my
girlfriend's son went to high school, only to emerge the same militant
atheist he was when he went in. He sent me a note today from college,
where he's a freshman engineering student, full of upset at Miller's
death. He referred to The Crucible as "that masterpiece." I remember now
when they had him read it--he was shaken to the proverbial core. Whatever
else they did in CBA, they didn't sugar-coat or gloss over the realities of
the era itself. I don't recall whether the teacher (secular) tried to
bring them into the present day, but she certainly explained the McCarthy
era and why The Crucible happened along when it did.
Orthodoxy was hardly the issue at Christian Brothers. David went in an
atheist, came out a knowledgeable atheist. His older cousin after
graduation converted from Catholicism to Judaism. Go figure THAT one out,
I dare ya:-).
Ken
>Oops, got to take off,
>
>Stephen V
>Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
>
>
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-------------------------------------------------
Kenneth Wolman www.kenwolman.com kenwolman.blogspot.com
"This is the best of all possible worlds only because it is the only one
that showed up."-- Russell Edson
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