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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is indeed making me think. Or, at least, remember. I'm at the part where the recollection of Phaedrus is asking his students in an English class, "What is Quality?".
What I'm remembering are two things from my own English classes. I was good at English, and got a relatively rare A1 in the Leaving Certificate in it. Why in the hells I went into science, I'll never know. Ideas planted in childhood and never really considered, I suppose.
The first one was the first time I ever cracked a poem, the first time I ever realised "This is what this poem is about!", without the aid of the teacher. I did realise that that was the point of the class, for us to gain that ability. But I could not explain that to anyone else in the class. The teacher sort of shrugged, and said, "of course", without noticing that I had realised something the rest of the class apparently didn't.
The second thing is that we were taught this particular essay-question form, "compare and contrast". This is obviously not the point of the question; it's just a method of getting in and examining two poems, using one as a sort of mirror to see the other better. But I know - because I held the belief myself, and because many of the others in the class held it until the end of the curriculum and possibly beyond - that there was some inherent worth in the comparition of and contrast between two poems.
This leads me to conclude that there was something very odd about the class, or possibly about the curriculum. It was never made clear to us that we were being taught these things so that we could understand them. We were being taught them as though comparing two poems were a valuable skill, like tying your laces, or making bread. It's not, it's just a widget, a way to get into the meaning of a poem. The contrast doesn't bloody matter.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if the teachers knew that. I think the English teacher did; he was a good bloke, if jaded by years of trying to teach uncomprehending uninterested teenagers. But I wonder about the Irish teacher who made us rote-learn huge chunks of text, the history teacher who never compared any event in the past with any event in the present - even though we were dealing with both in the class, and the whole missing of the point that there seemed to be. I'm not 100% certain that we were never told "you're here to learn to understand", but if we were, it didn't sink in, or we were told it once on the first day, when we were still staring at the masses of people.
I can't help but wonder if I would have done better if I'd known that.
What I'm remembering are two things from my own English classes. I was good at English, and got a relatively rare A1 in the Leaving Certificate in it. Why in the hells I went into science, I'll never know. Ideas planted in childhood and never really considered, I suppose.
The first one was the first time I ever cracked a poem, the first time I ever realised "This is what this poem is about!", without the aid of the teacher. I did realise that that was the point of the class, for us to gain that ability. But I could not explain that to anyone else in the class. The teacher sort of shrugged, and said, "of course", without noticing that I had realised something the rest of the class apparently didn't.
The second thing is that we were taught this particular essay-question form, "compare and contrast". This is obviously not the point of the question; it's just a method of getting in and examining two poems, using one as a sort of mirror to see the other better. But I know - because I held the belief myself, and because many of the others in the class held it until the end of the curriculum and possibly beyond - that there was some inherent worth in the comparition of and contrast between two poems.
This leads me to conclude that there was something very odd about the class, or possibly about the curriculum. It was never made clear to us that we were being taught these things so that we could understand them. We were being taught them as though comparing two poems were a valuable skill, like tying your laces, or making bread. It's not, it's just a widget, a way to get into the meaning of a poem. The contrast doesn't bloody matter.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if the teachers knew that. I think the English teacher did; he was a good bloke, if jaded by years of trying to teach uncomprehending uninterested teenagers. But I wonder about the Irish teacher who made us rote-learn huge chunks of text, the history teacher who never compared any event in the past with any event in the present - even though we were dealing with both in the class, and the whole missing of the point that there seemed to be. I'm not 100% certain that we were never told "you're here to learn to understand", but if we were, it didn't sink in, or we were told it once on the first day, when we were still staring at the masses of people.
I can't help but wonder if I would have done better if I'd known that.
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no subject
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I was genuinely angry over having to memorise that one. It wasn't even a real weather forecast, it was just some nonsense the teacher strung together, supposedly to teach us the terms. But she never checked to see if we could understand it, only that we could parrot it back.
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I come from a Gaeltacht - honest, breac if you insist. It's the people who turn a simple minor gramatic error into a diatraibe against the demise of the irish language, or worse, into a insulting lesson in the diclensions (sp?) of that word, or stop talking to you in irish because you evidently don't understand, or talk above your head. I love Irish I just don't love some of the Gael Nazis.
Then there's the IRA problem - the situation we're in where the IRA have shanghied our nationalism, our language, our sense of pride in being irish. We can't even have an independence day without idiots bearing flags and balaclavas! We have lost our roots because people can't be seen to be invoking those senses of pride without the RA getting there bloody (literally) mitts involved.
Rant over.
On a side note my english teacher told my mother at a parent teacher meeting that "Deirdre needed to read more"!! My mother, gods bless her cotton socks, laughed in her face
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"What is Quality?"
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no subject
Apparently, there was a football game with some people from Cork, and my friend's coach brightened considerably, pointing out that since my friend's team spoke Irish pretty much natively, they would have an advantage over the Cork people by talking to each other on the field.
Apparently, when the game started, they couldn't understand a single word the Cork people were saying either, so the advantage was not so significant. :)
Still, I find it interesting that this language still has a hold on people- even though the majority of Irish people I've met simply hate it. Mostly because of the way it's taught.
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As someone who is good at and loves literature and humanities, your questions strike a deep chord, and present something really hard to answer. I teach developmental (High-school equivalency) English and Reading, and as the teacher, I struggle every semester with how to convey the importance of understanding, of reflection, and of real learning, not regurgitation. Speaking personally, I learned little from classes in which I merely had to memorize, not understand. They were a waste of time and money. I came through 2 semesters of World Civilizations, and I rememer "Hishitga." But the classes where we had to work for our answers, analyze, seek out, understand -- in a way practice intellectual, literary-historical sicence -- those classes gave me things I can carry with me.
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I spent school
It might have been better if there hadn't been a court order to keep us in the school we hated until we were 16.
A.
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no subject
I told them today that while test scores are important, what's more significant to me is if I can help them appreciate Shakespeare and understand why he's considered so good. I told them that the government cares about test scores; I care about them being able to see that Shakespeare is more than some guy that writes plays in a language they have trouble understanding. I want them to crack the code and see that the language really is beautiful -- once they figure out to understand it. I want to help them crack the code.
I told them that when I was a teen, I thought Shakespeare was highly overrated. I still remember this one teacher basically making us worship Shakespeare, but I didn't understand why. It wasn't until I was 17 and had a teacher who was more down-to-earth that I started to figure it all out.
And I told them that while I can't promise them a money-back guarantee (mostly because they haven't given me any money ;), that my goal is to help them crack the Shakespeare code and help them understand.
So, yes, I do know.
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