My English Teacher

[Danneskjold]

Man, this guy is truly unbelieveable. The normal english teacher shpiel is alright by me, but this is just ridiculous. I was complaining in class about the utter hopelessness of the book Kite Runner and how it makes it seem as if happiness is unattainable. Then, to my utter suprise because he seems like such a generally happy guy, he tells me that it is that way because it is meant to be realistic. Now, this is the first time I have ever been told by anyone that happiness is anywhere near unattainable. It really caught me off guard. Happiness to me has never been anything but a guarantee in the future. That holds true to this day because I know that I will work for it. To see someone that considers everything hopeless was just...a shock.

Now it's one thing when people "know" that I will never play major league baseball or go to college on a basebal scholarship. Most would consider these unrealistic goals. But to call life futile as was implied by my teacher's comment was astounding. One of the few times in my life I have ever been utterly incapable of speaking (speaking is something I do in large volumes).

I'm sure I will have more rants later on. This should be enough for now though.

Err...that word in the title was supposed to be dedicate, not contribute. I guess that's what I get for writing at two in the morning. Brains'r all fried.

Edited January 12, 2007 by Jeff Kremer

[Chris Grieb]

Jeff; I'm not familiar with Kite Runner. The impression I get is that lots of modern serious literature is about futility so your teacher is just part of the crowd. Judging only from what you post here your goals sound possible to me. Major league baseball is difficult but if does not sound impossible for you. Your college plans sound very doable. This clown reached his acme so don't worry about him. As I have said before thanks for your postings. They brighten my life.

[BAMF]

I would feel pretty damn hopeless if I was a teacher at MY school.

Sounds like you're unlucky. My english teachers have always been awesome. Oddly enough, english is my worst subject.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is a good point. With the state of modern high schools, how can a high school teacher possibly believe in happiness, knowing that he will probably be there for the rest of his professional life?

Dayaamm!

That's a dismal thought.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

Happiness to me has never been anything but a guarantee in the future. That holds true to this day because I know that I will work for it.

As usual, I offer a link.

I have a young Objectivist friend who was a star ball player in high school, then lost an eye in a car accident, which ended his baseball career. In my own experience, I worked my way up in Hollywood, starting as an outsider with no connections, and after enormous effort spanning a decade, I landed my first feature. It was a huge break for a young filmmaker. Big A-list cast and crew, a first class debut. Halfway through the shooting schedule, it was revealed that the producer had embezzled most of the production money. The shooting stopped. To cover his butt, the producer blamed me in press reports, alleging that I was such a rotten director that cast and crew quit. My reputation was destroyed. I had to go back to television, then corporate video. There were other offers to direct features, but only genre rubbish, which I detested and refused.

The point is: no guarantees. Working for it is only part of the equation.

Edited January 13, 2007 by Wolf DeVoon

[Danneskjold]

If I don't have baseball, I have other things. I have contingency plans, I am just unwilling to use them.

[Wolf DeVoon]

If I don't have baseball, I have other things. I have contingency plans, I am just unwilling to use them.

That´s exactly the right attitude, Jeff. Stick to your guns and fight for what you want in life. Win, lose, or draw, give it your best shot and keep at it. Push the envelope. Make it happen.

W.

[VogonFord]

Man, this guy is truly unbelieveable. The normal english teacher shpiel is alright by me, but this is just ridiculous. I was complaining in class about the utter hopelessness of the book Kite Runner and how it makes it seem as if happiness is unattainable. Then, to my utter suprise because he seems like such a generally happy guy, he tells me that it is that way because it is meant to be realistic. Now, this is the first time I have ever been told by anyone that happiness is anywhere near unattainable. It really caught me off guard. Happiness to me has never been anything but a guarantee in the future. That holds true to this day because I know that I will work for it. To see someone that considers everything hopeless was just...a shock.

Now it's one thing when people "know" that I will never play major league baseball or go to college on a basebal scholarship. Most would consider these unrealistic goals. But to call life futile as was implied by my teacher's comment was astounding. One of the few times in my life I have ever been utterly incapable of speaking (speaking is something I do in large volumes).

I'm sure I will have more rants later on. This should be enough for now though.

Err...that word in the title was supposed to be dedicate, not contribute. I guess that's what I get for writing at two in the morning. Brains'r all fried.

I enjoy how you fail to mention that this is realism in Afghanistan. I'm sure that all Afghanis have the same access to luxuries you do, Jeff, seeing as you live in Lake Oswego. You're the one who keeps on butting into my face about logical fallacies, maybe you should think about your own. You're ignoring the picture in its reality, especially about the story. Is the story taking place in a country that has an easy-going lifestyle without many worries? Yeah. Does the story come out from the beginning that something is going to go really, REALLY wrong? Yeah. Does the story have much hope when it comes to evading the bad guys? Yeah. One and two are because it is reality IN AFGHANISTAN. Your realities are INCREDIBLY different from the realities there. The book is realistic, just not the reality you're used to.

[Danneskjold]

For the time that the main character was in Afghanistan his life was easy-going. He drove a black mustang, a car that is not afforded by much of the lower class today, and was among the first to have access to just about everything. His father supplied three kites a year for him and his servant for a kite fight, no work on his part necessary. He lived in the nice district, what is called a mansion.

As is iterated later on in the book by a major supporting character, Amir was always a tourist in Afghanistan. He never got the experience. He then had a rough month in which he was moved from Afghanistan to America, at which point his father got a job at a gas station and continued to supply everything for him. So tell me, taking that part as true, how much of the book was actually IN Afghanistan. No more than the last fifty pages.

He never had a hard-knock life. He easily could have made more of the life he did leave. Finally, once he does start to improve his conditions, he is met with time after time of despair. Not to mention the fact that the novel ties together inordinantly well (as you will learn once you read the rest of the book). I assume you have not read the rest of the book because you hold the position you did. Either that or you never really thought about it whilst you did read it.

By the way, don't tell Mr. Parris I have a thread dedicated to him.

P.S. To those of you who haven't figured it out yet, VogonFord is a classmate of mine. He describes himself as a "1912 progressivist". We enjoy needling each other.

[Charles R. Anderson]

I had 3 daughters attend high school and middle school in Montgomery County, MD, a supposedly good and progressive school system. The books assigned to them in their English classes were heavily weighted with novels about minorities and the disabled, while major literary works were ignored. These books were clearly chosen to prove to the kids that society was basically unfair, which serves very well as fodder for the notion that government should be given more power and more tax money to provide basic just to those society has been unfair to. Heroes are remarkably absent from this literature. Everyday people are supposedly enshrined, with all of their uncertainties and self-doubts. The mood is gloomy and hopeless most of the time.

Many of these books are used as a form of propaganda for the views of socialists. Most people are to be seen as helpless and oppressed. Then the feeling socialist or progressive will use the power of government to sustain them in this hopeless vale of tears we call life. Heck, some demi-god like Theodore Roosevelt or Slick Willy will vigorously and colorfully proclaim himself their champion and sustain these many poor ineffectual unfortunates.

How such literature is supposed to encourage children to want to read is beyond me. My kids could hardly stand many of these books. They wanted to scream at these kids that they should take charge of their own lives and pay less attention to what others thought of them. But, mostly, they just found many of these books to be boring.

Occasionally, there was something good. Two of them read Huckelberry Finn. The books of Mark Twain are vanishing from many schools, but they always provide some interesting ideas to think about. Among them, there is usually something heroic about his characters and they always do some thinking outside the box.

[Fran]

After I graduated from my Biology degree I took a one-year A-Level English evening class ('98-'99), as I had always wanted to do English. I had a teacher who picked books that I found life-alienating rather than life-affirming. His response to my protests that we weren't reading any positive books, was that positive books are just unrealistic. He was a smart guy too - graduated from Oxford.

These are the books we read:

King Lear (Shakespeare, but a tragedy nonetheless)

Frankenstein (not what you would call a happy, uplifting book)

Things Fall Apart (pretty tragic)

Talking Heads (loathed, despised and detested this book - full of tragic monologues about everyday people)

Murmuring Judges (a play - similarly as life-detesting as the above book)

Modern Poetry (I found this very dull - I thought that I disliked poetry until I read some classic stuff. Annoyingly my teacher had the option of choosing between modern and classic stuff and he chose modern. Also, if it doesn't rhyme it ain't poetry it's prose)

God, they were depressing to read. I really needed something more uplifting. There are loads of great classics out there - like 'Cold Comfort Farm' an off-the-wall favourite of mine - why couldn't we have read some of them??!

[Chris Grieb]

Fran; I only know the first two. It's nice to know the teachers includes two books from the canon. Was only one Shakespeare play available. Did you read any of his love poetry? One thing there are libraries so you can find other writers.

[Danneskjold]

It never ceases to amaze me how people insist that you cannot actually become happy.

[Charles R. Anderson]

It is a truly deadening message to give to a child. I heard today on the news that teenage suicides were up 20% in 2004. Now maybe teenagers suddenly changed their diets and stopped getting exercise in 2004 and that explains the increase. But it strikes me as a good thing to study the effects of curricula that insist that in real life adults and children can only look forward to misery and tragedy and the life of the anti-hero, to see if there is a correlation between what kids are being given to read in school and the suicide rate. We also note that depression is generally being diagnosed more commonly in teenagers, though that could simply be due to paying more attention to depression or becoming better at diagnosing it. Counting the number of suicides per 100,000 however is pretty straightforward. A jump of 20% in teenage suicides should hit parents and any real professional educators very hard. It is a clear sign that current school policies are critically in need of examination.

In addition to the curricula being anti-life, some of the schools I have been in project the sense that the children are under lock-down and the school is a prison. I find visiting some of our local high schools to be very depressing and actually threatening. My middle daughter went to such a school and I believe it had a very bad effect on her.

[Wrighty]

Chilling reading and depressing reading.....educators everywhere have such a responsibility, but what about their accountability? It seems that exposure to balanced curricula would give all pupils a fair chance to draw what they will out of every subject, including literature. But when it comes to opinions, teachers become manipulators......or worse....?

I have just been studying articles and information on bullying, child suicides et al, and that too is chilling reading and depressing reading. The statistics of sufferers demands further study and I would invite you all to investigate further.

So where does this leave that "english teacher".........is he/she not purveying a kind of intellectual bullying? Should there not be some accountability here?

I subscribe to the theory that we all have our own power for our own destiny which we can choose to keep or give away to others in varying proportions. But children have less choice, fewer choices, greater dependence on others from home, school, authorities and society on general.

We would readily protect the children from paedophilia.....from disease.....from physical harm.....but what about damage to the intellect?

[Chris Grieb]

Charles; I once went by a high school and a minimum security prison. I couldn't tell the difference.

[Charles R. Anderson]

Peter,

I agree with you completely. The humanities in schools seem to work very hard at isolating children within a constructed world which is not rational. In this world, rationality is not very efficacious, which I have to suspect is what the "educators" often want.

In the US school systems used to be very much smaller and a substantial fraction of the children's parents actually sat on school boards or you had a neighbor who did. Parents have lost more and more control of the schools as the school districts have grown larger and their populations have grown greatly. This means that most school board members now are those endorsed by the teacher's unions and are no longer personally known to the parents. Well, it is hardly surprising that they serve the teacher's unions primarily now and have little interest in the parents.

[Charles R. Anderson]

Chris,

The first time I had that same thought strongly was in the early 1970s when I would pass by John Hay High School in a poor black neighborhood off Euclid Avenue next to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland where I was a graduate student. The kids were constantly hanging out the windows and shouting. It did not at all seem to be a brief between-classes phenomena. I realized that there could be no teaching and no learning going on there. The school's only purpose was as a holding pen to keep the kids off the streets, temporarily.

I heard something very chilling on the local news yesterday. Prince George's County, the county next to mine and the other MD suburb county to Washington, D.C., announced that it intends to put tracking devices on children who are chronically absent from school. The report did not say whether these devices were the irremovable ankle devices now put on criminals or whether they were planning to implant RFIDs. I suspect this is the start of a trend to start with the ankle devices and later move to the RFIDs. Yes, very chilling!

[Danneskjold]

The real problem in today's world with teachers are the unions. Now, I have nothing against unions in general, but the power which some have attained, especially in the state of Oregon, is far too much. New York is another incredible example, I am not sure where to find it but there is a giant web of a process that must be gone through to fire a teacher for any reason. This includes a teacher that was a pedophile, who it took a LOOONG time to fire.

The problem has become that teachers are now completely in control of the administration. If someone is the principle of the school he has very little actual power over the teachers. Because of that teachers can do whatever they want.

I'm lucky, I got the less outlandishly socialist of the english teachers. The one that teaches next door has been described to me as a teacher with fundamental Christian values (that she feels the need to impose on everyone else), a feminazi (very fitting term for many feminists), and a pure socialist. I actually initially had that class but my counselor made an exception (my school refuses to switch kids out of classes due to their teachers) for me and changed my teacher. Unfortunately, that also kept me from taking the Honors English course. That teacher was so bad my sister debated with her and was actually right (two things that rarely happen ). The teacher offers extra credit for attending demonstrations that advocate higher taxes, refuses to grade papers that she deems sexist (my friend wrote a story about testicles the hero of the Ovarian Wars), and goes on anti-Republican and anti-Bush rants during classes. My situation could be worse.

[Judith]

I'm lucky, I got the less outlandishly socialist of the english teachers. The one that teaches next door has been described to me as a teacher with fundamental Christian values (that she feels the need to impose on everyone else), a feminazi (very fitting term for many feminists), and a pure socialist. I actually initially had that class but my counselor made an exception (my school refuses to switch kids out of classes due to their teachers) for me and changed my teacher. Unfortunately, that also kept me from taking the Honors English course. That teacher was so bad my sister debated with her and was actually right (two things that rarely happen ). The teacher offers extra credit for attending demonstrations that advocate higher taxes, refuses to grade papers that she deems sexist (my friend wrote a story about testicles the hero of the Ovarian Wars), and goes on anti-Republican and anti-Bush rants during classes. My situation could be worse.

This is unbelievable. Lake O is probably the wealthiest suburb of Portland. I can't believe that all the Republican parents aren't protesting left and right about this teacher.

Judith

[Danneskjold]

Kids are a bunch of idiots running around thinking that they are intellectuals because they run around with Che Guevara on their shirts. They don't complain, so the parents don't know. Plus, the unions make it IMPOSSIBLE to fire anyone.

[BAMF]

This is unbelievable. Lake O is probably the wealthiest suburb of Portland. I can't believe that all the Republican parents aren't protesting left and right about this teacher.

Judith

I don't think a lot of the parents actually give a shit.

And yeah, it's quite hard to fire a teacher. There's some ungodly amount of paperwork or something. That's a damn shame too, 'cause there are so many awful "teachers."

[Danneskjold]

Rich white suburb=parents give a shit.

[BAMF]

I guess I wouldn't know. My school is a big mixture, but is mostly filled with kids who come from fairly poor families. I don't know though, mayne, I always wonder why the parents care so damn much about the kids' grades, yet seem to know nothing about their children.

[Judith]

Rich white suburb=parents give a shit.

Oh, count on it. Many of my colleagues have kids your age. They choose where they live based on the quality of the schools. They do mucho research when they move. I know someone who moved to your area about 6 years ago and ended up in West Linn, where the AVERAGE house was about $350,000, solely because of the schools, and someone else who ended up in Lake O for similar reasons. A friend who moved to my area asked his daughter what kind of school she wanted to attend; she said she wanted a large, high quality public school as opposed to a small one; he chose his neighboorhood accordingly. The quality of their kids' schools is probably the single most important thing in many parents' lives.

Judith