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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2021 21:37:51 GMT
Eliot's point was that if you reduce education to utility alone (which I'd argue is becoming more and more the case) then you miss the point of it entirely. I suspect that serious English Literature may very well be off the syllabus in a generation or two because the kids "just don't get it". Education should be difficult and a challenge, not making it easy for kids who can't be arsed to read. Much of the problem with educating humanities subjects in my experience is the simple fact that many kids do not read. If they do not read, they do not gain vocab, and then they struggle at school with difficult subjects because of it. Many kids struggle with their literacy. If you're serious about finding solutions and helping them with this then the idea that getting them to interpret and express poetic language from the 17th century as the best way is just absurd. It's like teaching people how to cook through following cooking techniques used in El Bulli when they can't even boil an egg. The teaching of Shakespeare in schools has nothing to do with enriching every child and everything to do with creating cultural elites. I should also mention I have direct experience of teaching Shakespeare to very weak students in a deprived area.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Dec 13, 2021 21:47:50 GMT
I don't agree with the point about cultural elites there G - although I'm with you generally on the points you've made.
The fact that Shakespeare is still regarded as something beyond most people is understandable but also quite wrong - it's just rarely taught well. Seeing the works performed is key.
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Post by tory on Dec 13, 2021 21:58:40 GMT
Shakespeare isn't that difficult in my opinion. Our school scaffolds study of it in bits (JC, Macbeth, MAAD and then R&J in full) until GCSE. For example, with Year 8 Macbeth individual scenes are looked at, but students are not expected to know it inside out. However, by GCSE students should know Jacobean audiences, context, tragedy conventions and the like very well. If they are solely exposed to Shakespeare once it will be very difficult.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Dec 13, 2021 21:59:28 GMT
Not teaching these things just lets the actual elite have exposure to art we are denying to others. It just needs to be done in a better way.
I mean is there worth in teaching classical music at school and exposing kids brought up on Ed Sheeran to Mozart? I think there is.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2021 22:01:09 GMT
I don't agree with the point about cultural elites there G - although I'm with you generally on the points you've made. You could say it's a way of sorting the wheat from the chav.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Dec 13, 2021 22:02:34 GMT
Gs awful SNOBBERY on full display! I could weep for those children.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Dec 13, 2021 22:05:37 GMT
Shakespeare isn't that difficult in my opinion. Our school scaffolds study of it in bits (JC, Macbeth, MAAD and then R&J in full) until GCSE. For example, with Year 8 Macbeth individual scenes are looked at, but students are not expected to know it inside out. However, by GCSE students should know Jacobean audiences, context, tragedy conventions and the like very well. Absurd
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2021 22:06:26 GMT
Not teaching these things just lets the actual elite have exposure to art we are denying to others. It just needs to be done in a better way. The better way is not teaching Shakespeare. I wish people had had my teaching experience. It breaks your heart trying to teach a kid who can barely string a sentence together and trying to get them through an exam on Macbeth. They are being failed all because of some outdated idea about the enriching superiority of "The Canon".
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2021 22:19:10 GMT
Gs awful SNOBBERY on full display! I could weep for those children. I've taught English retake classes - so they'd already all failed at school - in Chatham, a very deprived area of kent.They had very basic English as well as all sorts of other problems. And I got a 100% pass rate. So if you want to look at anyone failing them don't look at me. I didn't do it by going on about Jacobean conventions, I'll tell you that much.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Dec 13, 2021 22:19:26 GMT
They are being failed because when they get to a certain age they can't string a sentence together so something is going seriously wrong prior to that. That goes deeper than learning Shakespeare at 15 or whatever, that's a failed education/home life.
What about the kids who can string a sentence together and who might benefit? Should we remove such things entirely to accommodate those who can't? We did Macbeth at school and whilst I struggled a bit with the language it was not that bad. I would have benefited from watching a movie mind.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Dec 13, 2021 22:21:18 GMT
I'll say it again - you really need to see it performed. It wasn't designed to be read.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2021 22:50:46 GMT
They are being failed because when they get to a certain age they can't string a sentence together so something is going seriously wrong prior to that. That goes deeper than learning Shakespeare at 15 or whatever, that's a failed education/home life. What about the kids who can string a sentence together and who might benefit? Should we remove such things entirely to accommodate those who can't? We did Macbeth at school and whilst I struggled a bit with the language it was not that bad. I would have benefited from watching a movie mind. On your first point - yes. Forget differences at 15, those differences are apparent at 6. That's the kind of discrepancy schools are having to deal with. Honestly you're probably in the top 5 % in English having gained a degree in it, so if you "struggled a bit" then imagine how the rest feel. There's all kinds of literature and poetry that can challenge and push and enrich brighter students, you don't have to go back to Elizabethan England for it.
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Post by souphound on Dec 13, 2021 23:48:14 GMT
Let me tell you first hand about learning Shakespeare at a difficult time: I was 14, secondary II, my second year of "learning English". In the part of town I lived in, you NEVER heard any English spoken unless the tv was on, sometimes. So we did MacBeth. The teacher was an American import who didn't speak a word of French. At least 70% of the kids in the class were in the same position as me, little Frenchies new to the language with hardly any exposure outside of classtime. It wasn't easy is all I can say. Seriously. I don't regret it but I will say that I enjoyed Romeo and Juliet a lot more two years later, even if the story itself is less appealing to my tastes than MacBeth is. Here's a funny though. Teach had us reading parts out loud in class. Rule was, any questions = arm up and he would answer. So, we got to a line along the way that went "Mark my words.....". I immediately threw my arm up and in utter confusion I asked "Who's Mark"? I wasn't being a clown on purpose.
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Post by ~ / % ? * on Dec 13, 2021 23:54:06 GMT
Wow at 13 you were forced to learn English and it worked. The history of foreign languages in the US is its failure in high school. It is a parallel to forced piano lessons for a generation. Neither took hold, in fact they created an aversion to each.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Dec 14, 2021 0:04:07 GMT
Piano lessons! They'd have been more useful if the teacher had just told us to find something by banging about using our fingers, hands, whatever, wherever on the keys. I had to learn scales mechanically and got my hand slapped if I didn't curl my my thumb under to play the rest of the octave.
Idiot 'formalised' education
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