(or In Defence of Books And Condemnation of Literature Classes (in Slovenia...))
I'm sure everyone's been forced to suffer through a few books they would never have picked up if they hadn't been forced to do so by their teachers. Right? Right. So you'll understand why Sara went and wrote about here. If you don't feel like reading, let me just sum up her main points:
- our school system fears we wouldn't see the 'classics' as God-given gifts and tries to do all it can to make sure we do see them that way;
- it focuses on the authors too much;
- even poking trivial literature with a ten-foot pole seems to be a mortal sin;
- discussing books and expressing opinions is not encouraged (except in essays. The ones that get graded);
- literature is taught, not discussed;
- giving us the opportunity to express our own opinion would actually help people appreciate the works more.
This is what Oxford Dictionary says about classics:
Classic (adjective): Judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind:
a classic novel a classic car
Classic (noun): A work of art of recognized and established value:
his books have become classics
This two meanings alone are enough to cause trouble. The first one is pretty clear (though I do wonder who gets the right to decide what is of the highest quality...), but if we add the second one to it—well. At least I have a slight problem with this. Something of recognised and established value doesn't necessarily belong to the very best examples of a certain era. Also, what makes a book valuable? Maybe it's style. Okay. Maybe it's a very good representation of human psyche. But would that last thing alone include a work into the elite circle of 'classics'?
Some of the works we're taught about are, plainly speaking, boring, or tedious, or just so full of triggers it's really hard to get through them; I strongly agree with Sara on this. I don't know who chooses what we should know, but before I continue condemning everything, let me defend the 'classics' for a bit, too.
Just as there are some works that seem completely overrated, the are others that deserve their fame. It's often a question of taste, though. I think Shakespeare was a genius of human nature, Baudelaire's poetry might get gross, but it gets gross in style, Byron had the gall to go and make fun of the newly-dead king, and I'm absolutely in love with the way T. S. Elliot puts his metaphors together. There really is some good stuff in our textbooks.
But sometimes, I think, certain works are included not because of their amazing high quality, but because they offer something new, something that's never been done before. Think about Picasso. I can't imagine anyone would find cubism beautiful or exceptionally pleasing to look at. So why does everybody know him? Why is he so important? It really is that simple. He (as my art history teacher once said) did something completely different. That's his attribution to art, not the unquestionable beauty.
The theory can easily be applied to the books. The very first person who started writing sonnets might not have become famous, but the first person who wrote sonnets reasonably well and showed them to public would be known (might have been Dante if I'm not mistaken too much... but don't shoot me if I'm wrong), and after him, the one who perfected them (Petrarch). The recipe for fame? Do something (relatively) new and do it well enough (lack of competition might help). Change the sonnet into the English version. Write the first novel (Satyiricon, was it?), invent a new kind of humour for the comedies, or be the first to talk about personal love in your poems, and people will learn about you.
To sum this up, we learn about the really good and the really new (and some combination of the two). I understand we can't be taught about all of the world's literature; it's just too bad that what we don't learn about is
a) the really entertaining,
b) the not-so-European.
This might sound as if I'm contradicting myself. Maybe I am. A bit. Some classic works are a pleasure to read (never mind skipping some 20 pages when Tolstoy starts describing birches). Perhaps it's just my general prejudice and lack of brain-to-mouth filter conviction talking when I say they skip the entertaining books. Or perhaps my head's been stuffed too full of Slovene Realism. And Enlightenment. And Social Realism.
See, there's this problem with Slovene literature. For a really, really long time, Slovenes were, well, farmers. If the authors wanted to see their works read, they had to write for farmers (respect to Prešeren who said no to this). Preferably about farmers, too, because that was the one subject they knew really well. Sadly, there is only so much farmers do. Okay, only so many interesting things they do. How is literature supposed to stay interesting if it keeps on dwelling on the same motives that everyone could see in their home village anyway?
I don't see a reason why I would want to read more than a few such books. They show how people lived in the past, and that's all well and good, but I don't want a general representation of countryside life over and over again. I want individual stories, I want emotions, I want relationships explored, not five books about political situation in the same year. That's not entertaining.
Yes, awesome style and sense for rhythm and whatnot, new ideas—keep that. But please, somebody add "interesting" to the list of criteria for high-quality literature. Better yet, make that "unputdownable".
(Just to make it clear: I don't blame Slovene teachers for teaching the things they do. I blame the people who decide what should be taught in schools; the teachers have no choice but to do their darnedest to try and prepare us for matura—our final graduation exam. Because apparently that's the purpose of education. Passing an exam so we can go to universities. Never mind teaching us critical thinking or providing general knowledge.)
As far as trivial literature is concerned... It's not really mentioned in schools. At least, it wasn't in mine. Not taught, not shunned, not mentioned. It's true, though, that the general opinion all this creates it still that leisure reading is something to be avoided if you're trying to come across as educated and fancy and all. (Riiiight. Because not knowing books like Harry Potter or Game of Thrones would make somebody seem so very educated.)
All right. Now let me move on to the part about how literature is being taught. (Once again, teachers don't have much freedom. The critique here goes to those people in the government who think they know it all.)
Sara wrote the program focuses on authors too much. I can't agree with this completely. Of course, it does come down to the teacher a lot. After all, one thing they do get to choose is how much they're going to talk about the author and how much about the work(s). Maybe I got the better teacher...
Sometimes, there really is too much information about the author. Worse still, some people had to know all that stuff. Where somebody was born, what school he went to, when he got his first grey hair... With certain authors, though, their life really is important for their work. Take Hemingway, for example. His works practically tell his autobiography.
Okay, I think I can finally move on to the way literature is being taught. Taught, yes, not discussed—Sara was completely right here. We learn about books instead of trying to see what the books themselves could teach us. There is so much more to stories (or poetry. Don't think I'm discriminating against poetry) than the style they're written in or even the lives of people they describe. Not that books aren't an amazing way to learn about history; it's just that some things were true for people who lived in certain times, and some things are true for humanity as a whole. To illustrate: women have only worn corsets in the past (generalising here. I know some still wear them today because let's face it, nowadays' corsets are cool), but they have felt emotions in the past and they (we) still do now. That's what I meant—those stories, those works, they can teach us about us.
Shakespeare, for example. He knew human nature, but is this what gets pointed out when we learn about him? Why isn't there anyone who would ask, "So what can you learn about jumping to conclusions from Othello?"
Speaking of psyche and personalities, I think Agatha Christie also knew her stuff. It's just—trivial literature, right? Or how about Sherlock Holmes? How about teaching pupils they can achieve so much by just thinking carefully enough?
It doesn't happen. Some analysis may get done in the last class before the essay, and then some more, and somewhat more detailed, before matura. Discussion? Please. Let me tell you something. When I was in the last year of primary school (that would make me 14), our teachers decided that we should—*le gasp*—have a group discussion about a book for the first time ever. They told me and one of my classmates to lead it. I asked the teacher what to do because I had no idea whatsoever. I don't remember what she said, but I know I still had no idea afterwards. What happened in the end? Nothing. We—me and my class—all just sat there, nobody knowing what to do or say. How would we if we'd never seen, let alone had, a discussion before?!
(Just to make it clear: I don't blame Slovene teachers for teaching the things they do. I blame the people who decide what should be taught in schools; the teachers have no choice but to do their darnedest to try and prepare us for matura—our final graduation exam. Because apparently that's the purpose of education. Passing an exam so we can go to universities. Never mind teaching us critical thinking or providing general knowledge.)
As far as trivial literature is concerned... It's not really mentioned in schools. At least, it wasn't in mine. Not taught, not shunned, not mentioned. It's true, though, that the general opinion all this creates it still that leisure reading is something to be avoided if you're trying to come across as educated and fancy and all. (Riiiight. Because not knowing books like Harry Potter or Game of Thrones would make somebody seem so very educated.)
All right. Now let me move on to the part about how literature is being taught. (Once again, teachers don't have much freedom. The critique here goes to those people in the government who think they know it all.)
Sara wrote the program focuses on authors too much. I can't agree with this completely. Of course, it does come down to the teacher a lot. After all, one thing they do get to choose is how much they're going to talk about the author and how much about the work(s). Maybe I got the better teacher...
Sometimes, there really is too much information about the author. Worse still, some people had to know all that stuff. Where somebody was born, what school he went to, when he got his first grey hair... With certain authors, though, their life really is important for their work. Take Hemingway, for example. His works practically tell his autobiography.
Okay, I think I can finally move on to the way literature is being taught. Taught, yes, not discussed—Sara was completely right here. We learn about books instead of trying to see what the books themselves could teach us. There is so much more to stories (or poetry. Don't think I'm discriminating against poetry) than the style they're written in or even the lives of people they describe. Not that books aren't an amazing way to learn about history; it's just that some things were true for people who lived in certain times, and some things are true for humanity as a whole. To illustrate: women have only worn corsets in the past (generalising here. I know some still wear them today because let's face it, nowadays' corsets are cool), but they have felt emotions in the past and they (we) still do now. That's what I meant—those stories, those works, they can teach us about us.
Shakespeare, for example. He knew human nature, but is this what gets pointed out when we learn about him? Why isn't there anyone who would ask, "So what can you learn about jumping to conclusions from Othello?"
Speaking of psyche and personalities, I think Agatha Christie also knew her stuff. It's just—trivial literature, right? Or how about Sherlock Holmes? How about teaching pupils they can achieve so much by just thinking carefully enough?
It doesn't happen. Some analysis may get done in the last class before the essay, and then some more, and somewhat more detailed, before matura. Discussion? Please. Let me tell you something. When I was in the last year of primary school (that would make me 14), our teachers decided that we should—*le gasp*—have a group discussion about a book for the first time ever. They told me and one of my classmates to lead it. I asked the teacher what to do because I had no idea whatsoever. I don't remember what she said, but I know I still had no idea afterwards. What happened in the end? Nothing. We—me and my class—all just sat there, nobody knowing what to do or say. How would we if we'd never seen, let alone had, a discussion before?!
I've learnt how to discuss books since, but it still took me all four years of high school to realise what people wanted to see when they told us to write an essay, and I suspect tumblr had a lot to do with that, as well. Be that as it may, at least I've learnt something, so apparently, not everything about literature in high school sucks.
Primary school is much worse, though. At least we learn things chronologically in high school, short overviews of historical periods included (also, there are better History classes), which allows us to draw connections. In primary school, there is no such order. No historical or cultural background, as far as I remember. If I don't understand why and how Romanticism came to be, what does it help me to hear that Lermontov's The Sail is a Romantic poem?
Something I am sure of, however, is that we were forced to read certain works much too early. I still despise this one Slovene book (Ivan Tavčar, Visoška kronika, in case anyone here knows a bit about Slovene literature), and only school is to be blamed for that. There are topics appropriate for children, and then there are topics that aren't, period. It doesn't matter how 'high-quality' the book is supposed to be.
There. *exhales* I'm done with this. Sure, there are countless more arguments against our literature-teaching ways, and probably just as many for it, but I'm letting somebody else come up with those.
Stay awesome.
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