(13)…well, well Will
Stumbled across a post at Beyond School that, at first, made me smile, but now has me thinking …
And let’s not forget the sentimental favourite about a 12-year-old whose father is trying to marry her off to a prize bachelor of at least 25, and in which instead the 12-year-old heroine elopes with her maybe 14-year-old lover, and spends a night of tender love-making a few paces away from her iconic balcony. Their pillow-talk the morning after their love-making is something we have 13-year-olds recite by the millions in our annual, usually painful, front-of-the-classroom recital days. Yes, I’m talking about Romeo and Juliet. Juliet would be a middle-schooler today – and her father would be in jail for pandering her to his cellmate Paris, the noble pedophile.”
The discussion of texts to teach in English is one which, for me being totally honest, begins with the level of appropriateness for the audience and ends with a choice that will keep the kids engaged long enough to produce a semi-coherent piece of writing that demonstrates they have endured and survived another mind numbing school text. (oh and is actually in the incredibly miniscule collection of texts available to me as class sets)
I have in mind the kids in my Yr 9 English class who are currently studying “Romeo and Juliet”. I have to laugh at their early stubborn reactions to the text and their questioning of why Shakespeare and, of cause, the annual question “Why didn’t he write it in English?” (it’s always in my head then have them tell me how my secretly recorded tape of their lunchtime chats is an example of then talking using English … one day I should do just that)
Many of these same kids watch hours and hours of TV & DVD’s. They can discuss that dizzying array of texts and levels of language with amazing critical flexibility; they remember slabs of dialogue and use key phrases as part of their lunchtime mob mentality. (It’s not a new phenomenon; I did it myself at that age and can still quote the same stuff with others of my age now as we reminisce about the days when..) So why can’t they engage with Shakespeare?
A few of my Yr 9 class from last year encouraged me to watch a series of films … I investigated and the DVD covers made my blood run cold…picture this, me, at around 18yrs old watching the first “Friday the 13th” movie – at the drive-in – and it made me scream out loud so often my boyfriend was more frightened by me than the movie!! In fact, he got so agitated by my reactions that he finally said “Right, we’re going!” drove off in a hurry and pulled the speaker right out of its stand … there it was in the window, beheaded & bleeding wires all down the outside of the car – ugh!! (yes, yes, it was at the drive-in and it was a long time ago)
Our schoolmates laughed for weeks about it which was great because I was still having nightmares about it for that long!! Don’t think I am going to follow up on the recommendation of my students to watch the “SAW” movies in this lifetime!!
If I was to serialise the texts we “have” to study in class, in a similar way, would that be just dumbing down everything? Pandering to the masses with more mindless drivel? Surely I could still expose the kids to great works of literature in smaller, sugar-coated doses. Then again isn’t it a bit like me as a teenager spending absolutely (mindless) hours memorising the periodical table for science classes…or as a primary school kid memorising the rivers of NSW, in order from the Victorian border to the Queensland border? Very useful information on both accounts; I was able to help my daughter with her Science homework and could play “I know the name of the next river we’ll cross” when on a family driving holiday up the east coast.
So, now I sit here wondering if, even as only a bit of “publicity stunt”, if I shouldn’t adhere strictly to education department guidelines and send home the form letter about seeking parental permission to use material that is rated beyond the age group that I have in my Yr 9 English class?? And what reactions would I stir up if I were to borrow some of Clay Burell’s words (above) and explain to parents that this story of arranged & forced marriages, clandestine interference by the church and under-age sex is what I am about to expose their kids to?
Will they gatecrash the Principal’s office, waving flaming torches and shiny pointed pitchforks and demand I be publicly burned as a witch on a funeral pyre in the senior school quad?
Will they organise a vigilante gang and stake out my home when they realise that not only will we be reading this play but I will rub the kids’ noses in it by having them write about their reactions in short answers and extended prose??
Nah; they’ll just laugh it off when they realise it’s Shakespeare and say “well kid, suck it up, we had to study those plays when we were at school!”
…somewhere here I am still holding on to tiny threads of a teaching and learning process that will catapult my kids into the hypnotic deep, dark spaces of lifelong learning and thriving in the 21st century…seems like we a bit lost in the asteroid belt with our safety gear tangled around burnt out missiles of the past…
on April 21st, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Now that was an eye opener! I read with interest your post, and then read Clay’s as well. Some of those figures from the USA were frightening. I’d be interested to see how Australian statistics go too.
I never saw Friday 13th, but recall watching a film with Dobermans that had glowing red eyes and ate people, just can’t remember what it was called though. I watched it with my very pregnant sister who wanted something to “set her off” so to speak. That didnt work either. If you do ever want to watch Saw 1, 2, or 3 let me know. We have them all here somewhere. And no, I haven’t watched them either, but my Teenage boys have. Does that make me bad? I have no idea what they have watched when they ar enot here.
Again this all highlights the mixed up messages that we send our students by what is and isn’t acceptable to be taught. We teach them the good safe things, hide the above mentioned nasties in “Olde English” speak, and don’t teach them about real world issues that may very well affect them in the future. This includes being safe in the wider connected world that didn’t exist when we were at school.
I live daily (at the moment) with a past student that was involved in the disarming of a Crossbow & Molotov armed student at his School. He’s 22 now, and life is not what it should be, or could be for him. Was that normal behavior for schools in Australia? Nope. Did we know how to pick up the pieces afterwards? Nope.
As for the issue of sexual activity I would hope that our year 5 students are safe. Can we be sure?
That really is a scary thought.
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on April 21st, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I can quite honestly say that I have never read or memorised a single page of Shakespeare, but I can still recite some lines from Ode to a Grecian Urn and Ellergy in a Country Churchyard!! However, my secondary education occured in South Wales where the language is unpronounceable and the weather is worse. I remember trying to translate some Homer ….does that balance out my lack of bardy knowledge??
What is this focus on a “classical” education all about? Honestly, unless we get our syllabuses up-to-date and relevant, we can expect our customers to vote with their feet. To Shakespeare and Homer, I’d add algebra and calculus ……
Surely, memorising stuff (even the periodic table) is a nonsense. How creative is that as an educational pursuit? Why do we do it? Any of this trivia that might be entertaining at dinner parties but is hardly the way we want our kids using their valuable time is it? It is about time we modernised our syllabuses and had our kids focus on what is relevant and interesting. There must be hundreds of good books being overlooked in favour of the “classics”……. I can’t explain it, or why we perpetuate it.
And as for horror movies ……not this little black duck. I’m all for the chick flicks ….. Sleeplesss in Seattle, While you were sleeping, Pretty Woman etc. Yes I would rescue the princess from the tower, on a white charger ….and then she would rescue me right back! Oops, I must have memorised that bit!
Yeah I know…I’m a sad, sad case
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