English at school..

Sophie,

What can I say, accept I agree with you. Congratulations on a very deeply felt and balanced response and great to hear from somebody, unlike me, who actually deals with schools on a regular basis.

In response to theory, some years ago S.L.Goldberg at Melbourne Uni wrote:””people are more likely than not to go on being interested in people – as much as they are in abstract theories and ideologies, or impersonal forces, or structural systems, or historical information, or even the play of signifiers. So it is more likely than not, I’d say, that people will go on valuing those writings that they judge best help them to realize what the world is and what people are, and to live with both as realistically and as fully as they can”

I also wish I had done more texts in the depth that I did Romeo & Juliet & T.H. White. As part of Romeo & Juliet, we each memorised a sequence from the play, I memorised the prologue and the Prince’s speech at the end. I learnt to love Romeo & Juliet. Yet there are so many great authors I was never taught in school: Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain, and those are only the ones I am aware of. I have tried to read these people by myself, but somethings are much harder to appreciate on your own, without the guidance and instruction of a teacher.

English should not be about values. Teach a seperate subject called “values” to deal with that. It should be about two things, the written and spoken word, and it should teach us to both appreciate and be proficient in each area. In thirteen years at school, we never studied oratory once, yet in the business world of presentation upon presentation, wouldn’t it be valuable not just to do “oral reports” but to actually be taught oratory? Instead, I didn’t learn this until I took a year off after school to do youth work, and even then, it was by the necessity of having to capture the attention of a room full of 70 excited twelve and thirteen year olds.

My two cents worth.

PS If the NSW curriculum document really DOES mean what I infer in using the term “transformations”, and if this is typical of the jargon-generated confusion, then maybe the solution to the whole mess is as simple as translating all the obscure po-mo jargon into plain English, and reassuring teachers that they actually ARE permitted (and expected) to teach plot, character, language and imagery etc in a way that unlocks the magic, mystery, inspiration and transformative (in a non-jargon sense) potential of literature.

There is a vital need to rethink where we are going in teaching the humanities and social sciences at school and at uni. However I anticipate that the outcome of any inquiry will be a mix of good, bad and bloody awful.
Teaching and learning need to be revitalised and re-regulated not by top-down means but by a bottom-up process of critical and imaginative thinking, drawing upon the best that old and new scholarship and learning have to offer. This could be a difficult process for the progressive left but if there is enough good will and good humour about then maybe we can all learn to enjoy it.
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Ken, you’re quite right. It’s gobbeldygook and I would question whether anyone–including the framers of the curriculum ‘explanatory’ notes themselves–would actually be able to explain what it means. A year ago, I was one of the speakers at a special HSC curriculum-explanation day run by Lateral learning, which specialises in sending writers into schools, and the whole idea was to help teachers understand one of the ‘themes’ in HSC English: Journeys. Anna Maria dell’Oso, Peter Skzynercki(oops I think I’ve mispelt his name) and myself were the speakers. (Peter’s poetry–which is very good, and not in the least bit theoretical– is actually set for the HSC). Now what interested me was that what the teachers really wanted from us were abstract frameworks, things they could fit over this onerous curriculum they had been given to teach; they needed ‘tools’, and as creative writers, all we could give them was inspiration–and a great deal of scepticism as to the wisdom of categorising work in the abstract way they were forced to do.
As I said, I am not against such things as comparing Shakespeare with Neighbours–or Emma with Clueless–you can see similarities of an obvious kind, such as popular audience, stories built around common human emotions–jealousy, love, hate, etc–but not only can one not just equate them and ignore the huge differences in quality and durability, but also, it’s all done in such a theoretical fashion that it quite negates any ‘fun’ aspect such a thing could have. But comparing an ad with The crucible–that’s an act of hatred, and of envy of creativity, and it makes me sick!
Kevin and Joel, I’m very glad for your comments, too. I absolutely agree that English should not be about ‘values’ but about loving, appreciating and understanding literature, about something that might introduce you to things you’d never have come to of your own accord–that was certainly the case for me–and to something you keep doing all your life. It’s also about intellectual freedom, and independence of thought; about thinking clearly. And yes, yes, Joel, I agree, oratory should be taught. And not only for the presentation of reports–though that is important too–but so people learn to love language again. Bring back the memorising and declaiming of poetry, I say! Learning to love poetry has to do with the oral as much as the literary–people often talk as if this were a visual culture but it’s not, it’s an abstract one, far too abstract. The oral needs to come back as much as the literary be reinforced. Loving language–the sound and feel of words–is also a great part of loving literature. And not only that, poetry might make a big comeback–and poets be invited into schools!
Thinking about that difference between drama and English too, I think perhaps one ofthe big differences is that most drama teachers–and drama teacher academics–have also been involved in a practical way in drama itself, often as actors. They understand better than most English teachers perhaps the actual hands-on thing. Not that there isn’t a lot of turgid and boring theory in Drama at university level–but the level of participation in actual performance is quite high in drama–and music–teachers. Unlike English, where the vast majority of classroom teachers–and I’d say 100 percent of teacher-academics–have had no experience as creative writers, on a public level, at all.

Ken, as I recall correctly the connection between Emma and Clueless was much closer than you make it out to be. Clueless was not only broadly similarly-themed, it was deliberately based on the earlier work. In fact, more than a few commentators gave the 1996 Hollywood adaptation of Emma (Clueless was released in 1995) the tongue-in-cheek tag of the “remake of Clueless”. So, essentially, we’re comparing the “original” (that was doubtless inspired by other works) with a modern take on the same tale.
I don’t know where you went to school, but trying to convince a bunch of year 12’s whose plans range from Schoolies to O Week of the literary merits of Emma, in isolation, is probably a hiding to nothing. Sure, they’ll study enough to get a reasonable mark, but actually learn anything? I doubt it. With an approach like this (once you strip out the frippery and get to the core of what the BOS is on about) they might have some chance of seeing the relevance of the original work. And seeing how the same stories are told in different ways over time is surely of merit in itself?

By the way, Sophie, it’s great to hear about your visits to high schools. That’s a wonderful thing to do.

cs (and Robert)

I had it vaguely in the dim recesses of my mind somewhere that Clueless was based on Emma, but I wasn’t sure so I didn’t discuss it. That does throw a bit more light on the use of the term “transformations” in the curriculum document, but it doesn’t affect the force of my observations (or Sophie’s). If you look at almost any part of the curriculum document, you’ll see how its jargon tends to dessicate the study of English and strip it of any joy in creativity and imagination.

As for your point about business jargon, its certainly true of the NT’s primary schools teaching framework documents, but it doesn’t seem to be true of the NSW HSC English curriculum. Have a look for yourself. That’s why I gave the URL in my previous comment. I can see lots of half-baked po-mo jargon, but can’t readily identify any business management-speak.

In any event, whether the jargon emanates from po-mo or business management theory doesn’t really affect my concerns. It’s a stupid and counterproductive accretion on the subject of teaching kids to appreciate, study and analyse English literature. Ironically again (and something I didn’t realise until recently), deconstruction as originally conceived (by Heidegger) didn’t involve the search for/imposition of hidden meanings, agndas, values etc in texts. Rtaher it involved something akin to what i think now needs to eb done to the high school English curriculum: strip the crap out of it:

“The popular epithet “deconstruction” comes from hermeneutics. “Dekonstruction”, as originated by Heidegger, did not, contrary to its current popular usage, mean “destructive criticism”. The term was popularized by Derrida, but in a context where it was accompanied by destructive criticism. Heidegger was very interested in reading philosophy in the original Greek, and noticed that translators tended to add their own interpretations as they translate. These interpretations accumulate as “constructions”, and a doctrine, whether translated or reinterpreted in some other manner (for example, a law reinterpreted by a judge), accumulates these constructions over time, becoming a new doctrine. Heidegger, desiring to unearth the original Greek thinkers, set about to remove such constructions.
Deconstruction in its “postmodern” construction is usually applied to ferret out a bias one wants to remove, and has tended to get mixed up in the literature alongside criticism of those biases. So guess what, deconstruction has acquired an new interpretation, a new construction, “destructive criticism”. But deconstruction in its original sense is not a criticism at all, it is simply a theory about how traditions evolve, namely via the accumulation of constructions, along with a methodology for ferreting out constructions that have for some other reason been deemed to be undesired. ”

(from an article by Nick Szabo at http://szabo.best.vwh.net/hermeneutics.html)

Incidentally, a bit more Googling uncovered the provenance of the jargon “transformations” in an essay by Richard E. Palmer on hermeneutics at http://www.mac.edu/faculty/richardpalmer/relevance.html . It derives from the writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer (initially a disciple of Heidegger and, with him, one of the formative influences on the emergence of post-structuralism) concerning “relevance” in interpretation:

“The third dimension of relevance is that of transformation. A thing or text we encounter may be relevant if it redefines what we are doing, such that we understand it and ourselves in a new light, a new way. We begin to place different requirements on what we do. We do things differently. We see the value and goals of our work differently. It may smash our present horizon and force us to form a new one, to become more aware of ourselves. In this case, relevance is not just the relevance of critique. It offers an alternative possibility for seeing and doing. It may change our self-understanding, and the self-understanding we have as interpreters. This is the transformative dimension.

These last three–current meaningfulness, critique, and transformation–are dimensions that I have in mind in relation to defining the meaning of “relevance” in my title,”The Relevance of Hermeneutics,” for to study hermeneutics, I believe, is ;look for what is meaningful now, not yesterday; it is not antiquarian. It puts our present approaches in question by its critique of our present horizon. And it transforms the basic way we see things. It is not just something that supports a given point of view-not that kind of relevance at all-but that changes it. One could call this the therapeutic dimension. It does not just criticize, it offers an alternative to the present perspective. I call this the transformative dimension of the relevance of hermeneutics. “

“Lear is an incantation, a reflection of the ancient truth (far, far older than Foucault) that language is power; not in his sense, but in a real, physical sense, the sense of spells or prayers.”

Rob,

I can’t tell whether your post is a denunciation the po-mo style (in form, at least) or a parody of it. Can you clarify that?

Cheers
ab

Fair enough. The mistake reflects more on my abilities than on yours, I’m sure!

Cheers
ab

Joel,

I’m pretty sure that capacity to contract is a purely common law issue in Queensland.

Generally, contracts for the supply ‘necessaries’ such as food and clothing are enforceable against a minor. Contracts of service that are benficial to the minor are also generally enforceable (the classic example is an apprenticeship).

Sometimes, a contract to which a minor is a party is merely ‘voidable’ in the sense that the the parties are bound by it until that minor resiles from it (ie. ‘voids’ it). These are typically ongoing contracts like shareholdings and mortgages.

Having said all that, there may be some wacky Queensland statute that applies to minors’ IP or allows the Education Department to enforce such assignments. Any Queensland IP lawyers out there?

Good on you Sophie.

This is only tangentially on point. But I recall my (what was then) 6th form science class (perhaps it was 5th form). In it the teacher went through a lot of the (Newtonian) things we’d learned one by one and said “remember that one?” Well it was wrong too.

The idea I guess was that one had to have learnt a certain amount before learning a bit about relativity and quantum mechanics actually had any meaning. Construction comes before deconstruction.

I don’t much like the way most of the people in this post speak in a derogatory way about ‘po-mo’. Without going into ‘po-mo’ too heavily (apart from which I’d be out of my depth!) I actually found many of the central themes of ‘po-mo’ fascinating. Reading texts against the grain, debating hidden content. The idea that some important aspect of a piece might be hidden even from its author was exhilarating. At ANU there was a quite conservative history teacher – Bill Craven. His ‘Ren and Ref’ lectures were about what other historians had said about the Renaissance. When the eventual challenge came, “When are you going to tell us what happenned and not what others said happenned” Bill just shrugged his shoulders and let people figure it out for themselves.

But that was toward the end of an undergraduate history degree. One might give exercises in po-mo themes and one could do it in English. One might hint and get people interested in them. But to orient the whole English curriculum around them – even at uni is absurd. At high school AAAAGGGHHH!!

An excellent post and some fine comments.

I was lucky enough to do my English major before they started this business of separating English from Literature. While Literature is the ‘Art’ branch of language, it still involves the most creative and brilliant uses of language, from which most other usages derive.

I gather from this thread that Dickens is now off the curriculum in most English courses. More’s the pity. It’s hard to think of any more profound influences than Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens, or how any course on English attempting to be comprehensive can be, without use of some of their works.

Some on this thread have deplored the the use of values in English. I suppose it depends on what you mean by values. If you’re referring to social, cultural, political or religious values, I’d be inclined to agree.

If, however, you’re referring to humanitarian and spiritual values, I’d have to disagree. The best writers very clearly have values and passions which show through. And they have quite a bit to say on the condition of humanity.

“…the biggest influence on curriculum language is not po-mo, but business jargon.” – CS

I’d certainly be very worried if that were the case, Chris. (And I fear it is getting close.) It’ll be time to man the barricades and/or head for the hills when they start talking about Mission Statements.

I just completed the HSC last year, and I have to say – I agree with every damn word you say. I loved English before then, I still love to read and to write, but that syllabus took every good thing out of reading and writing and replaced it with hideous farces where we were repeatedly asked to do the ridiculous, and for no true valuable purpose. We were asked to do the same things again and again in slightly altered formats, with slightly different examples, and it was demanded that we have a “fresh, original” approach each time. English became a trial, hideous beyond belief, where nonsensical values and requirements were thrust upon us, which we were told we had to embrace in order to succeed. It was, in short, a nightmare. The only times when I ever enjoyed it was when I shucked the ridiculousness we were expected to embrace and read the novel for itself, took on my own theories and used original thought to dissect them. I had to follow their ridiculous doctrine for exams, but cursed if I’d let their narrowminded idiot approach be the only thing I took away from my senior years of English.

And as for your comments on Extension II English – been there, done that. The further problem there is that it’s all the same teachers who teach the boring advanced and standard syllabus who mark them, and while some are undoubtedly talented, others have no clue. I achieved quite a high mark in the class, not as high as I’d hoped, and on my telling this to a family friend who was also a teacher, his automatic assumption was that my writing had gone over the heads of the people marking. These people give our senior students what is for many their last taste of literature in education. I find that terrifying.

This is at onlineopinion as well, but there’s a different audience here :)

Hi Sophie + others,

I’m currently studying HSC English at Extension 2 level, and basically, you’ve taken the words right out of my mouth. And many of my peers’ mouths. I must say that the problem lies more in the 2-unit course than in either of the extensions, and here’s why.

Our last HSC-level assessment task based on the topic area of ‘Imaginative Journeys’ (which was an angle taken on a couple of the poems of S.T. Coleridge), we had to design a pamphlet for Year 11 students who are studying the same course next year. The purpose of this task was to make sure that we knew how to manipulate text into a specific text type and at the same time write about the ‘techniques’ used by the composers of various texts.

I wouldn’t mind this kind of task, but this is the kind of thing we are constantly fed. Let me explain.

Firstly, I have not written an essay in about a year. It has not been asked of me.

Secondly, ‘techniques’ such as simile, metaphor, irony, parody, juxtaposition as well as film techniques (lighting, costuming), visual techniques (shadow, composition) and poetic techniques (rhythm and metre) are the only thing that we write about. “The way the composer shapes meaning”, apparently. We no longer write or learn about plot, character or the beauty of stories; rarely about the culture of production and almost never about the author themselves. We are awarded points for how many techniques we can mention in a paragraph, and frankly, a lot of us want to write about the meaning of things as opposed to how the meaning is conveyed. The idea behind it all is that once we learn how to do it, we can not only understand texts better but also create them. Sadly, when half of Advanced English has little grasp on spelling, punctuation or grammar, the ideal fails dismally. Not to mention the fact that we have no idea what to write about, seeing as we rarely study this aspect of texts.

Caught up in a sea of jargon presented to us by the BOS (“organise, develop and express ideas in the speaking mode using language appropriate to audience, purpose and form”) that attributes specific and lengthly new definitions to common verbs like ‘discuss’, many students find themselves unable to understand what is expected of them on their notifications.

The emphasis on theory assumes the basic knowledge and understanding of literature, which many students lack. Though instead of drawing on this knowledge, the syllabus shuns it and allows a new sense of ‘equality’ in teaching english, where no student has an advantage over another from previous education. Basically, there’s enough bullshit to confuse even the smartest of kids, and you could probably put an adult in the class and they’d be no better off.

I fear that we’re being primed to work in the advertising industry as we constantly analyse the ways in which a composer can affect a responder subliminally. What is missing from our course is what someone once described to me as “falling in love with a book”; students no longer are taught that texts are valuable because they stir emotion or are profound – texts are now valuable in a strictly po-mo sense of the word. They are valuable in that they use techniques to convey meaning, which is why your son studied an ad. We are recommended to watch The Simpsons and analyse women’s magazine covers.

Sometimes I wonder – if everything is a text, what isn’t a text? I can take a photo of anything I like – a street scene, my bathroom, my bookcase – and will be able to tell you the visual techniques used to create a message about .. well, about whatever the hell I decide my stupid random photo is now commenting on. And in my logic, if everything is valuable, then suddenly nothing is valuable. Watch out for my photos in the next paper.

Thankyou for writing this article. Although we as students can’t change the system, at least we now have the motivation to keep on bullshitting with the secret knowledge that someone understands.

-Amelia