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-UE
English (the class, not the language)
[rant] Here's a rundown of my En. 12 teacher's curriculum:
- BEGINNING OF SEMESTER -
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Short Stories!
(because we didn't get enough of this in English 9/10/11)
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The Entire History Of English Literature!
(separated into "Beowulf" and "Not Beowulf")
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Holocaust Studies!
(because Mr. I hasn't shoehorned in his Social Justice course enough)
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- END OF SEMESTER -
Interspersed with some generic grammar and essay-writing stuff. And generic life lesson. Yes, lesson, singular. It's the same thing, over and over. Mr. Tandram, Mr. Nilson, Walter Mitty, blah blah blah we get it. I have learned very little in this course, because we've spent so much time going over things I already know. Yes, we're all wasting our lives. Yes, we know the "right" thing to do and never do it. Yes, normal people do terrible things to other people. We know. Enough with the philosophizing. Teach us something else every once in a while.
Preferably more lit history, since that unit was so rushed. A day or two talking about a specific era, read one or two poems (preferably ones that give him an excuse to prattle on about social justice and the human condition), repeat like clockwork until we stop abruptly in the turn of the 20th century. If this stuff is so life-altering (though it's not like he doesn't say that about everything), then why are we only getting to this now (in the tail end of senior year), and why are we spending so little time on it? Oh, that's right, we need to spend the last month learning about genocide, as if we haven't done so already in every other class. Because social justice.
Did I mention the social justice thing? I swear, if I hear the phrase "the nature of our species" one more time... [/rant]
Comments
Is it based in the olden idea of everyone taking a course in reading works of great literature and famous philosophers?
Which would be fine and dandy, but we don't do that in any of our English classes. Not even skimming the surface.
What do your English classes teach you then?
Lessee...
9/10/11: the Obligatory Short Story Unit, one Shakespeare play (in our case Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth), one novel (in our case Feed, The Kite Runner, I forget what was in 9), and a boatload of grammar.
12: two months of the Obligatory Short Story Unit, then a month of the Entire History Of English Literature (condensed into one segment of Beowulf, one passage of the prologue of the Canterbury Tales, three Shakespeare sonnets, a synopsis of the Rape of the Lock, two poems from Wordsworth, one poem each from Blake and Byron, and Ulysses, along with brief notes on each time period), then a month of Holocaust Studies (because I was unlucky enough to get the Social Justice teacher as my English teacher this year).
The Holocaust Studies thing is really odd. It's like, everyone knows the Holocaust was a Very Bad Thing, and while there's no real issue with studying it in depth, wouldn't a social justice teacher better spend their time teaching about contemporary issues? Like how the church of Scientology is a front for tax evasion as a lead-in for abuses of religion in the modern world, or how racism is adapting to new social standards while providing the illusion of mostly dying out.
From the looks of it, we'll also get token mentions of Neo-Nazis and goings-on in Africa (Congo, Darfur), just to hammer home how terrible we are as a species.
Because, obviously, not giving a shit about the bad stuff going on in the world is the right way to go.
Depends, it sounds like there's a dedicated class (or how do you call it) for that, but they still cram it into English. When it comes to hammering home, it depends too. When I heard of that People's History of the United States thing, I thought it's gonna be an interesting change of perspective. But when I looked up a summary of covered topics, it looked more and more as if they wanted you feel ashamed for existing.
That's exactly it. The guy who teaches said dedicated class crams it into his English class. The package we received yesterday contained the following, for analysis in the coming weeks:
Okay, now I don't blame you.
Mhhhh-hmmm, thrice the rape, thrice the Nazis, genocide for flavour. Plus a Holocaust survivor story, I don't know why, in this kind of company it sounds like a reminder there's still some work to do.