CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff: #3 Knowing Stuff Is Useful

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff: #3 Knowing Stuff Is Useful

Why Teach Literature Stuff: #3 Knowing Stuff Is Useful

When I was teaching, and I had extra time on my hands, I would reflect on the work--the whys and hows and whats. So in solidarity with my former colleagues, I'm going to write a series about every English teacher's favorite thing-- teaching literature, and why we do it. There will be some number of posts (I don't have a plan here).

Also, it would be nice to write and read about something positive, and I don't know anything much more positive than what teachers do and why they do it.

It is easy to fall into the habit of thinking that school is about taking material in so that one can just spit it out again on command, like some bites of vegetable that one holds in ones mouth but neither chews nor swallows.

But it is useful to know stuff. Not in a get a good score on the test way, but in a live your life way. Yes, it's useful because it helps you understand the world and how to be in it (see #2). But there's more to it.

You can see patterns, and see that this thing over here is a lot like that thing over there. You can see that events over here are unfolding much like those events way back then. In my years in the classroom, I taught an awful lot by analogy, by examples. The foundation for that was my old-fashioned liberal arts education; I know a little bit about a lot of things, but not everything about anything. And to be able to pull in connections that meant something to my students, I read up on current youth cultury stuff (for a while I knew waaaayyyy more than I wanted to about The Hills).

I know a little bit about a lot of things the only way someone can-- I read. And that has made a difference in my ability to see patterns and similarities and differences, which are all things you CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff: #3 Knowing Stuff Is Useful