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Comment on A bit of religion to spice things up. by Behold, my comments « Emo kids rejoice - The importance of “problem novels” in Young Adult Literature.

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 03:44:07 +0000

[...] five six [...]

Comment on A bit of religion to spice things up. by vis4lovers

vis4lovers — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:48:43 +0000

I took a class in my former life called “The Old Testament as Literature,” at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. Now, there were students taking this class because they were Christians and I think they thought they were going to challenge the teacher. The prof started the beginning of the semester by stating that we would be studying the Bible as Literature, not as a dogma. She also said that for the purposes of it being literature, we would not be taking it “literally.” Yeah, this caused a bit of a stir with a few students who did in fact take it literally. (Look, I’m a Christian and I don’t take it literally ok) She gave a brief example of “The Lord is my shepherd.” Ya know it ya love it. Anyway, she then said, “So God is literally a shepherd? Then that makes us sheep. Literally.” Response was, “Of course not, it’s a metaphor.” Her explanation was it’s all literal or it’s not, we can’t pick and choose. My favorite was when she said, “When they say 10,000 men stormed the city do you think someone was sitting there counting? Can we just assume it was a whole bunch of guys?” One guy in class had a hard time with this concept because he wanted to treat the Bible as the doctrine of his faith, not as literature. The problem was that he failed to realize that either way it still projects the same message. And for a Christian isn’t that the whole point? I learned a lot in that class. I learned a lot about the stories, the history of the time and it even boosted my own faith. I think a lot of people would either fear the idea because they think it’s propaganda, or love the idea for the wrong reasons. But, whatever the faith can’t we just agree that there is a good moral message? Add onto the fact that there are so many different styles of writing in it that it adds to the literary merit. I say go for it. Except for the book of numbers. That totally sucks.

Comment on The best storytellers always seem to exaggerate. by COMMENTS! « A Finely Crafted Run-on Sentence

COMMENTS! « A Finely Crafted Run-on Sentence — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 06:09:51 +0000

[...] SEVEN [...]

Comment on Technology Conference by My Comments Posting. « All right, now who brought the dog?

My Comments Posting. « All right, now who brought the dog? — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 05:46:00 +0000

[...] Teaching Conference [...]

Comment on A bit of religion to spice things up. by Jenny

Jenny — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 05:36:15 +0000

Ahh, but you’ve forgotten the Bible as a hostorical piece. This may be questionable, but there is that aspect of it.

More importantly, I think, is what my Brit Lit prof told us: no matter what you think about the Bible, you should read it if only to understand the frequent Biblical allusions and allegories found elsewhere in literature. There are Christ figures all over the place, for example, and writers like John Steinbeck use Biblical references in their work.

I haven’t heard of any schools around here reading the Bible as literature, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t. It means I haven’t heard of it. I would be interested in taking a course like that.

I think what you have to say about morals in literature is interesting. Who gets to decide what the value of the story is? The author, the reader, the teacher…? Teaching morals should not be a focus I don’t think, but that doesn’t mean that debates don’t have a place in the classroom, like about the tough decision George had to make about Lennie.

Comment on The best storytellers always seem to exaggerate. by Jenny

Jenny — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 05:29:04 +0000

The entire point of literature is that it is hypothetical, so I do agree that characters needn’t be “realistic” all the time; real people are boring! I like books that have those kinds of larger than life people and places.
All the time I hear people saying that characters need to be real for students to relate to them, but I guess that’s never been important to me. When characters are real and do silly things and make mistakes, I mentally wince when I’m reading the book.

However, back to the topic: I liked “To Kill A Mockingbird.” I think it does have a place in the literary canon. But that might not stop it from being an “adult” book. I know quite a few high school students who did not particularly appreciate it. I do not think this is because the students do not find the characters “real” enough, I think it is because the story is not compelling for the average 15 year old, and English teachers insist on being too Englishy about it.

Comment on Technology Conference by eboileau

eboileau — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 05:24:10 +0000

I’m sorry I missed the Pew Campus conference. It sounds like something that would have definitely been worth my time. I really like the idea of the ipodification of education which you mentioned. It seems fascinating to me that iPods have had such an explosion in the marketplace in the last few years, and I’m interested in what they can do for education. It seems that we spend so much time in travel these days that ipods should be a great means for education. Being able to listen to articles on a bus instead of spending time reading them at home and watching documentaries on the way to work instead of staying up until 5 am to do research seems like a good idea to me. Podcasting and ipods have a lot to offer the education community in a culture that is so media dependent like ours.

Comment on The Business of Education and Corruption by J. Angel

J. Angel — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 18:51:24 +0000

I agree that we must change the current way of things, but how can we start when everything we do in the public schools revolves around money? The future of education is in what we are doing right know, internet based learning. Soon textbooks might be obsolete.

Comment on The Business of Education and Corruption by What I had to say... « It’s Your Pulse, Your Heartbeat, and Your Rhythm of Life

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 17:36:12 +0000

[...] Comment #5 to Chris’ “The Business of Education and Corruption” [...]

Comment on The Business of Education and Corruption by orra

orra — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 14:12:49 +0000

Chris,

I argee with you, it seems like the article is lacking the educator viewpoint. For some reason when I was reading your post, it was reminded of my own blog on standardized testing. President Bush seems to think that the best way to improve education is to standardize EVERYTHING! Textbooks, curricula, tests… I wish Mr. Bush could come to my educational psychology class and learn about a guy named Gardner, who has a theory that most educators buy into, called MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES! Of course, I’m doing a bit of “Bush Bashing” right now, but I just find it hard to believe that he and his administration honestly believe that all students learn the same! Ughh, it really bothers me.

To continue on with your point, I agree that it seems like this publishing company has more say in students’ education than we do as educators. Something isn’t right with that picture. President Bush isn’t an educator major, neither are the publishers of this anthology…yet we are, and we will probably get very little say in what works of literature get anthologized.

Hopefully sometime during our teaching careers all this will change. Either us teachers will bond together across the nation in a protest so large that something radically changes–OR–one of our fellow education students will just have to run for president of the US These are equally difficult tasks…