Here’s
a text from an English teacher like me.
Should schools prepare students for careers, future studies, or life in
general? Should schools try to teach
wisdom to students, or only skills? Can
students find it in their literature classes?
How? What are the negative and
positive effects of having government standards for curriculum on
a student’s experience?
Although the article refers only to the situation at American schools, according to my opinion, the situation regarding preparation for life and gaining wisdom in Slovakian schools is more or less quite the same.
ReplyDeleteIf I concentrate on literature or studying the maternal language in Slovakia, there is one important thing to mention, which is the fact that reading comprehension became the main aim for elementary schools. I know this from my own experience during preparation for Testing 9, which is a national test taken by all nine-grade students at elementary school. Tests from Slovak language usually contain 20 questions with multiple choices, from which at least half is dedicated to reading comprehension. Literature itself is not involved, except some theoretical questions, for example, which type of rhyme is used in the poem. It is obvious literature is unimportant for elementary schools, since it is not involved in curriculum. The similar situation is seen in America Mr. Godsey claimed: “They (the state) only test on reading skills, so teachers now prioritize these skills over content.”
I must admit high schools pay more attention to literature, not just to the comprehension of read texts. However, I do not consider literature as some kind of tool that offers a guaranteed source of wisdom for students. Therefore I must disagree with the author’s fear where students “learn” wisdom if they do not read Shakespeare or students’ parents do not have a time to talk with them about literature. I think the current society offers students a wide range of ways to learn the wisdom, from media to different discussions with politicians or scientists, even from the area of psychology. I chose to mention psychology due to psychological problems and suicidal temptations Hamlet had during his life. According to my opinion, to understand psychological problems or at least not to think Hamlet was only an insane person, a discussion with a psychologist can help more than guessing in the class why he was thinking about the suicide. Therefore, I would not be afraid our generation would be stupid if we did not read classic literature, as far as students would be provided with different possibilities to gain wisdom according to their personal taste, even if students were interested in studying religions or biblical books, although I agree with author’s sceptical statement: “I doubt religion is on most kids’ minds.”
Still, if I, personally, were a teacher as Mr. Godsey, or a person who decides what students should do in their reading or literature class, I would not omit literature. It is said, especially about Slovak students, even though I presume students in America are not so different, that they do not know how to think or how to solve elementary problems at work. I believe the reading and analyzing of literature could help students learn to think. However, it is needed to begin with analyzing literature already at elementary school as well as inspiring children to read books and not expect students at high school to “have a courageously deep discussion on Hamlet’s strangely reasonable musing on suicide” or Kollár’s strong desire to connect all Slavic nations with their brother, Russia, if they did not read anything since the fairy tale about Three Pigs.
I agree with Lucka that we should not expect from the students to analyze literature, if we hadn’t prepared them for it earlier. Indeed, it is clear that something is wrong with our system, as Slovak (and also American) students are said not to know how to solve real problems at work.
DeleteHowever, if I consider the example with Shakespeare, I must disagree with the argument that Hamlet’s inner mind processes are topic for other subject rather than literature, quite the opposite. I would say that even if these two things are taught on two different subjects, they are connected. This leads me to a problem: why should we separate two things if they are closely related? The thoughts of Mr. Godsey are said clearly: the main aim of a teacher is to “make sure that kids are ready for the next part of their lives”. THE part of their lives, where nobody will distinguish psychology from literature when it comes to a topic such as the one mentioned. Provided we followed them, isn’t our school system a bit contradictory? There must be another alternative though. I have recently read an article about a reform (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schools-subjects-are-out-and-topics-are-in-as-country-reforms-its-education-system-10123911.html), which is about to be passed in Finland, according to which students are taught topics instead of traditional subjects. Each of the topics would contain complex information on its subject matter, which would combine knowledge from several subjects. I consider this huge change in education as an idea, which could move us one step forward. Not even it would make it possible to teach (not only literature) in a wider context, but also prepare students more for working life, and that is what we want, isn’t it?
Regarding to author’s first idea, to evolve your wisdom by being English teacher, I would like to say that it is quite appropriate way to do so. Not just because general knowledge that teacher has to use his brain and concentrate constantly, but also what about choice of his subject. Literature is not an exact science and when you have a discussion about some book, you really have to think about it, you have to be acknowledged about author’s ideas, find what the main dispatch is and create your own opinion without losing your attention.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to say that there are two main types of subjects. The exact ones like for example math or physics which evolve mainly your logical thinking, and no exact ones, like for instance history, geography or literature, where there is highly appropriate to emphasize things like presenting yourself, making your own decisions, learning how to cooperate with others but also to be more self-reliant. In the first type of subjects there are usually not big problems with curriculum given by the state, or if there are, they are not as big as in second type. In no exact subjects discourse of teachers can fairly differ. And it is caused mainly by teacher’s will to give students something better than it is written in the curriculum.
It is like author says. Principal has usually different opinion from his point of view than a teacher has. Principal sees mainly numbers. However, teacher uses to want to give students something with real worth. It is actually why somebody becomes a teacher. Moreover, in case you are teaching literature, you can really adapt your lessons in a way you want to. You can debate about your feelings, speculations, estimations; you can teach how to see things from different viewing angles, how to work with the intuition or create a good criticism. In the other words, this teacher can teach his students how to think, so they will not get lost in real life in the sense of spreading something with deeper worth.
Concerning a solution of problems mentioned, I would say that the most important thing especially in this type of teacher is his own viewpoint. Therefore the key to improve this education system is in very education of future teachers as such. So they can see that they really have something to offer and so they are motivated to teach something at the heart of which they see the real value.
This reply is from Diana Luptakova:
DeleteFirst of all, I have to say I agree with Mišo, that he has chosen very well to share the wisdom. He is truly working with the thoughts and certain messages as a teacher of literature and wants to retell them to his students.
Secondly, I also agree with his point about different people’s opinions. It is natural that different person will have a different opinion about the same think because no one thinks the same and no one behaves the same. That is the reason why only the message is told and the students understand it only the way they want.
In addition, I would like to say that it is truly marvelous that a single person is fascinated with the wisdom. But more valuable that the person wants everyone else what he knows and even though he already knows enough, he is not sure what actually wisdom is.
In conclusion, I agreed with Mišo at all points and that it is wonderful that and ordinary person wants to know as much as he can and that he wants everyone around him to know even more than he knows. I would say that it is the case when we can only say – “The more you learn, the more you realize how much you don’t know.”
This comment is from Sona Langova:
ReplyDeletehis question is very actual for me since I am a student and I have been noticing that literature teaching is not as it should be since the elementary school. Literature has always been a part of my life, but unfortunately it is not thanks to the teachers leading me to read, accept and understand literature. I have just always had a close relationship to books. But I know quite a lot of people that do not particularly like reading books, because their parents did not lead them to read in their very young age and they became uninterested in reading. And that’s why since the elementary school we’ve all had a subject called “Slovak language and literature”, not just “Slovak language”. Approximately one third of this subject should be dedicated to reading and analyzing literature. However it is not like it should be. From what I remember from the elementary school, we were dealing with literature a very little time. My classmates were not interested in it at all and I even noticed that also the teachers are listless to teaching us something deeper than just reading comprehension. We were reading just the obligatory literature and doing just the exercises from the book, without the real understanding what we read about, and all this in so stodgy way that I am not even surprised everybody was so apathetic. Therefore what happened was that the vast majority of our class ended up with a big disgust to literature. And not just from our class or our school. The same situation is almost in all elementary schools, I suppose not only in Slovakia, but also in America and many other countries.
But why is the situation about literature so bad? I wonder why the teachers in elementary schools have such an attitude towards teaching literature. I think that literature knowledge is the same as geography or history knowledge. It is not necessary for our lives, but it enriches our view of the world in all ways, not just from the point of vocabulary, but also from the point of interesting ideas and opinions. People get bigger overview of the world (not only from books but also from newspapers) and get to know other’s points of view, so they are able to form their own opinions better and improve their logical thinking. It also encourages our creative thinking and the passion to explore things that we read about. However, teaching literature is not like teaching geography. Literature is highly individual, so everyone understands it in his own way and take something else from it.
And that is what teachers, also in elementary schools, should be teaching us. Of course, if you study on a good high school, teachers there have a completely different attitude than those in elementary schools. But still a lot of young people have an aversion to literature which was created in elementary school and is enlarging constantly. Therefore I agree with Lucia that mainly teachers in elementary schools should change their way of teaching literature. They should make greater effort in leading children to read, analyze and understand. Otherwise the child, not lead to read books even from his parents, will always have this negative approach to literature, not knowing that it is a beautiful complex art in which everybody can find what he likes.
Firstly, I want to say that I agree with Soňa that literature is necessary for our lives and we should be connected with it from the very beggining of our lives. That’s why I am happy that I was lead to read books from my early age. However, unlike Soňas, our elementary school tought us to read books and develop relationships with them. On our literature lessons, which we had every week, we were writing our diaries about the books we read at home. We could have chosen any book we wanted to and then shorly rewrite the story and write something about the main characters. Then on another lessons we would get into pairs, read our diaries to each other and talk about these great books we have read. It was really interesting and we learned many things by it. The most important one, I think, is that we were able to express our opinions. For example, if I didn't like some character, I would say that I don't like him. But as you know, kids would immediately ask why. That means that then we had to explain it by providing some informations like what he did, how did he behave and so on. So we didn't just learn to say our opinions but also to justify them. Also, by listening to others we were expanding our wisdom and falling in love with another types of books than just the ones we knew about before. Also, another great thing about our school was that we were just around the corner from the library, so we went there very often and that even strenghtened our excitement about book. To conclude,I believe that literature is important for our thinking and development and schools that don't dedicate much attention to it should make some changes.
DeleteI have to admit I share the same opinion in some points Sona provided us with, but I also disagree with some of them. First of all, I agree with her argument that literature is not the same as geography or history since these subjects are mostly about memorizing things rather than analyzing them. On the other hand, literature, as she stated, is a unique thing which everyone understands in a different way. However, this leads me to a disagreement with Sona´s ideas. If literature is so individually comprehended by people, it should not be a subject graded in school. I think it is very unfair to evaluate a student on what he understood from a book he has read or to give a grade to students based on how they perceive the book, simply because everybody might a have a different opinion on it and that should not be compared with ideas of other people. Therefore I would suggest that all the assessments should be equal for all students and thus contain questions that should be answered with the same piece of information. Another point I don´t agree with is that pupils in elementary school should be taught to analyze a piece of literature. My personal opinion is that they are too young and don´t have enough life experience to understand a deeper meaning of a book. For this reason I believe that students at this age should be just introduced to the world of fantasy or asked only to state the genre or briefly rewrite the content of the book to learn to go trough and summarize something they have read.
DeleteSchool, in my opinion, is the most important institution in our lives. You meet your first friends, your new leaders - teachers and begin to build habits. Actually, school affected me in such a way, that I'm decided to become a teacher one day. Thats why I can fully understand what the author of this article was trying to tell us.
ReplyDeleteSchools should prepare us more for real life, than just forcing us to study tons of stuff by heart to get grades good enough for the average. I personally agree with this statement from article: " It all amounts to an alphabet soup of bureaucratic expectations and what can feel like soul-less instruction. " They - government, just wants us to fulfill their expectations and then take care of ourselves in full range of life situations. But are their expectations helping us in any possible way? I would say no. I think the point of view of the author of the article is completely right. He is forced to teach kids to understand literature in only one way. Which is crazy, because literature is art, everyone should understand it and feel it in their individual way. We should be taught in schools about options, finding them, discovering them. Not seeing things from one point, just because according to government it is the right one.
Students should be motivated to become hunters of wisdom, thus facts, that our teachers may teach us. Teachers should support our talents or following our dreams, not demotivate us just because we aren't good enough for certain things, again according to government's statistics...
As author says, we should know how Hamlet felt, how to overcome sadness and loneliness. Not what artistic figures did Shakespeare used while writing it. I'm pretty sure that wasn't his goal with his piece. To wrap-up my thoughts, I would like to add, that it's my dream to change Slovakian educational system and schools. Because I believe we can get more from school. More chances, more support, more "wisdom".
From Diana Luptakova:
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I would like to say that his explanation of teaching literature at American’s high school is in principle the same.
If I were to think about the way how is literature in our native language in Slovakia taught before reading this article, I would say that there is no doubt about it being taught well. More recently I have to admit that our teacher focus on understanding the author’s thoughts and all the commonly misunderstood rhetorical tropes and figures. Before we are introduced to new literary work, we have a huge portfolio about the history connected with the work. To summarize this point, also in the one of the best schools in the Slovakia we did not truly talk about the message of certain literary work but on the other hand, we were acknowledged about the history of certain part of the history when the work was written which lead to our ability of finding out the story behind.
In my opinion, students should be prepared for future life. This may be fulfilled only in one way. This way is separated into two parts, when one is the knowledge the government wants the students to have and the second part is a reflection of life experiences. I think if these are equally given to the students in the schools, only then they will be at least a bit prepared for their future lives and only this way will provide them with intelligence but also with natural humanity.
Secondly, the students can find this knowledge of intelligence and humanity in their social life with friends, which is obviously the most influencing part of their life, but also in the school. The time students spend in school is almost the third of their teenage life and this is the reason why schools should be educative also in the wisdom part of the studies. Of course, literature is one of the subjects where life can be discussed since many authors wrote about the typical problem of their own or of their societies. Hence, I think the literature should not be only about government standards but also about life.
Lastly, the people, not only students, can get their wisdom from anywhere as it was mentioned in the article. They may get it from the family, from the literature, from the religion. But is that truly relevant wisdom? People are the most vulnerable while they are teenagers and this is the reason why this part of the life is the most voluminous in our memories and life experiences and for me these are the ones that give students the natural attitude towards wisdom that is shown to them in schools, churches or families.
In conclusion, students should be prepared in school not only for the career and money, but also for the true values of life. Moreover, the school should be able to provide them with good teachers that do not only care about the government standards but also look at the natural life part and happiness of students.