You might gather two things from the title of this post--that I've been much engaged of late with teaching, and that the experience has been less-than-pleasant. The first assumption would be correct; the second, well, you'll see. . .
I am wrapping up the second major work on the syllabus, after the introductory foray into poetry that always begins my lit classes. I love teaching poetry, but it has to be done early in the semester to allow time for the poetry paper-and-presentation combo that I generally assign. They can't work on those without some basic understanding of form, meter, and some basic steps of interpretation. Having wrapped up "Goblin Market" last week, we have been covering William Morris's utopia News from Nowhere because I just couldn't talk about feminism in a serious, unbiased way with Herland. I had a difficult time convincing students that the "it takes a village" method of parenting promoted in Gilman's book had any benefits. "No really!" I said, "Doesn't it make sense that the most competent women should be raising the children?" "Well yes," I said, "It would depend on your criteria for judging competency." And "Yes," I said, "that would be a rather difficult line to draw." And, "Oh by the way," I said, "Gilman was a big proponent of Eugenics." "Why, yes, the concepts are very complimentary, aren't they?" Besides, I'm a poster child for motherhood right about now. Talking about it theoretically gets to feeling a little, um, disingenuous. So I decided to tackle socialism instead. Well, not really.
Because, you see, Morris was a socialist politically, but his utopia basically does away with any form of economics. There is no "economy," just a willingness to share--a communalism (I don't want to say "commune" or "communism") that resembles a large-scale monastic existence (only the economics of it--for want of a better word) more than any other model. Marxists, socialists--they don't really want to see an end to economics. Money stays, private property goes. It may not have started that way--just ask Marx and Lenin. . .
What's interesting about this utopia are Morris's aesthetic ideas, including ideas about the aesthetic value of work. Well, this can be hard to impress upon a group of students whose self-stated purpose in life is to compete and to work to acquire "things." If this sounds harsh, I wish you could see the class discussion boards. I had someone grudgingly acknowledge that there are people who work because they enjoy their jobs, but most can't see why anyone in Morris's utopia would be inclined to work. They suggest instead that the mindset would, in reality, be more like those who "mooch" (my word--their sentiment) off of Welfare. Ooof. Well, considering the financial backgrounds of a lot of these students, I'm not all that surprised.
What is surprising to me is the way they harp on reality. I guess Morris's utopia is realistic enough and yet idealistic enough that the main question in their heads seems to be, "Could this really work?" With the implied answer being, "No, because people are. . ." (nasty, cruel, lazy, competitive--enter negative adjective of choice.) And many of these students are self-described Christians. I must say that it pains me to see students so young who are so cynical. I consider myself a pretty cynical person, but I realize more and more that I have a kind of idealism that runs pretty deep. At any rate, I do believe that there should be more to choosing a profession than the money one will make and the things that one will acquire by working in that particular job! And I do believe that there is a dignity in just knowing that one has a job and that there is a kind of despair that goes along with not believing that a job will ever come along--and that the despair leads people (not all, but some) to rely on social services. Why bother, when the world seems against us? Where I differ from many others who profess similar philosophies is in the solution--namely, that I don't claim to have one. I believe that the individual is the key--not the mass, and so to help the general, we must look for the one person who needs encouragement, then another, then another. My job here is just to get them to look beyond their social situations and their conceptions of reality and say, "Well, yes. . . I guess it would be better if people could do what work appealed to them and still be just as comfortable as the next person." Perhaps the next question might be, "Well, why isn't it like that, anyway?" At any rate, I actually mentioned the term "dignity of work" on the discussion boards, and pointed out that many people work who have no hope of ever gaining a Lexus, or even owning their own home--which so many people take for granted. And I asked why that might be, when many of the people in question do not enjoy what they do.
I guess this brings me to what a wonderful thing discussion boards can be if used correctly. Not that I'm a master by any means. I have modified how I moderate and assign the discussion boards from the beginning of the semester, and I have tried this in semesters past. Basically, I have to have them write questions about certain topics on certain days, and on alternate days, they answer others' questions. Then, depending on where their questions lead, I either use them as discussion-starters in class, or start my own discussion board and have them answer my thematic questions. The result is that they actually say more about the literature--when properly prompted, and when they don't get stuck on "how people really are" or "how the society works"! At any rate, the discussion can evolve much more naturally, and I like having the students set the agenda, since I'm not really trying to promote one (contrary to their expectations--when they saw the term "socialism," they expected the worst from me, I'm sure!!). I'm not a socialist, but at this point, you might have a hard time convincing them of that!
While this is a frustrating experience in some ways, it is also inspiring in a way. Here, I actually do have an opportunity to get them to imagine the world in a different way--which is, indeed, the point of a utopia, and the value of fantasy. C. S. Lewis once wrote that one who reads fantasy “does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted." Tolkien takes this a quite a bit further in his (much more scholarly) "On Fairy Stories," which promises to provide for a lot of good discussion in the coming week(s), by theorizing the nature of the enchantment (in a Christian context, which might inform some of the discussion board topics, but will probably not enter into class discussion).
As we wind down William Morris, who it seems we have barely started, and prepare to meet Tolkien, which meeting I look forward to eagerly, we have ongoing contemplation of poetry on an individual level as they prepare to write their poetry explications (with a fantasy twist). Today I met with a student who was so petrified of poetry that she was literally only reading words on paper, and wasn't really sure how they strung together to make meaning. This sounds harsh, but it is accurate. I have never seen such anxiety with regard to literature before. She was literally shaking as she answered my "What is this poem about? What's going on in this poem?" with a timid, "Well, it could be about . . . death?" I believe that answer seemed as likely as one of the other "Themes of Literature" she undoubtedly learned about in high school. But the beauty of assigning an explication paper is that it really allows the student a true opportunity to discover the meaning of the poem for him or herself--in this case, guided by me, but it was a good teaching opportunity. I believe I did "lead her to literature," and she does indeed understand this poem--and perhaps, by extension, all poems--better.
In short, I really love this syllabus. I hope that wherever I go next, I am able to continue my thematic course on fantasy. Maybe one day I will even be able to edit an anthology of British fantasy literature that can be used for such a course--you know, the Norton Anthology of British Fantasy or some such thing. . .
It's the idealist in me, perhaps (you know, the one I keep hidden like Boober fraggle and Sidebottom), but I think there might be some value in this reading and teaching literature thing after all. At any rate, this semester is giving me that feeling.
9 comments:
I'm sure you being a (real) Lit person are already familiar with these, but your talk of work made me think of two poems that I like: To Be of Use and My Work.
Also, have you heard of the book, The Renaissance Soul? I've just started reading it and it's *absolutely* refreshing. It takes the idea that we have to work one-track (or even have a one-track mind) and turns it around, suggesting that some people (like me) have too much of a desire for newness and challenge to fit a "regular" plan of what we'll do the rest of our lives after college.
I get it from my father, who is on his third *real* career-- and he's been excellent at all of them (Youth pastor, Auto mechanic, elementary Music teacher).
My mom, who works at our local university used him as an example to a freaked uptight sophomore who couldn't decide if she still wanted to be doing *this* track she's on when she's 30 or 40.
"You don't have to," my mother pointed out. "It's America. You get to choose, and you get to choose again." Dad was in his 40s when he started teaching.
That's old-age to a lot of these college students. That should be encouraging. ;o)
Maybe for some students it isn't just the working that's distasteful. What if it's the trapped sense of sameness and lack of choice that they don't know how to acclimate themselves to?
What is it with students and realism? I've been teaching short stories by southern women writers, and nearly every class discussion has at some point turned to the question of realism. It really drives me crazy!
I really want to take this course from you now! One of my great frustrations with my education is that I didn't have a teacher with the courage and knowledge to teach poetry until college - and I only had that gentleman for one semester. It was such an enlightenment to learn the things about meter and scansion that were once usually taught in elementary school! (My Dad attended a one room school house in the country as a kid and he has a wonderful understanding of such things. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that a person's appreciation of poetry was not enriched by knowing what a 'dactyl' is, so my education in poetry was always reduced to 'and what does this poem mean to you? There are no wrong answers.'
Arrrrgh. So my last semester in college I took the very first course I ever took that introduced me to any of the basics of poetic structure (a course on Hopkins and Newman, which I took because I was on a John Henry Newman kick, and left with an enduring love of Gerard Manley Hopkins).
More to say on the topic of work, utopias, and cynicism in the young, but my son wants my attention so it'll have to wait.
"a group of students whose self-stated purpose in life is to compete and to work to acquire 'things.'"
My students express the same sentiments. I wonder if its because these students haven't been taught (or have yet found out) that there is more purpose to life than the acquisition of stuff. Where do we learn this lesson? I mean, really, living in this society, what is the purpose of living? What makes one a success? Money. And how do we show we have money? Stuff. Where do we learn that there is more purpose than that? Faith? But even in Catholic school, faith is a word and not really a way of life. I wonder if Jen is on to something with her idea of a contraceptive society...
Perhaps with maturity and experience, students will find out that there is more to life than "stuff." But, sadly, some will never reach that stage, some will reach it too late, and some will never have the opportunity to learn it because they need to acquire money to purchase opportunity. I guess if opportunity could be achieved without money there would be hope for a less materialistic-centered generation.
By the way, just the fact that you're asking the questions you are asking makes you one of those "liberal" professors. Hence, the liberal bias in education. I think this is why there is doubt to whether the bias actually exists.
Liberal in the classical sense, perhaps, which is not what is meant by the phrase "liberal bias." I see myself as a humanist--I don't care how they vote, as long as they think. But there are plenty of real examples out there--different post.
Amy Jane--I am not familiar with the poems you mention. Job flexibility is rare and undervalued. My husband can do a number of things, but without the years of experience, he is either consider "underqualified" or "overqualified." We're actually rewarded for pigeonholing ourselves. It's a shrewd career move to most people, and misery is just part of the bargain. I've felt pretty trapped by the academic career myself, but I'm rediscovering (as I do from time to time--generally when I teach) that I do like this stuff after all!
Supadiscomama--I pointed out to the students that they weren't asking "could this happen" when we were talking about "Goblin Market"!!! But actually, there was still a discussion about how realistic the ending was. I guess I heard it as "believable," which is a valid question in fantasy, but it may well be a symptom of the same thing. :P Sometimes I feel like bringing in episodes of children's TV shows for them: there's an episode of "Arthur" (PBS) where Arthur & Buster are pretending to make music videos, and Arthur's sister D.W. starts asking why they're doing it if it's not real. Arthur replies, "What's so great about being real?" What, indeed?
Kate--Thanks for the compliment!! Yes, I do spend quite a bit of time on scansion. I enjoy it--much more than they do, unfortunately. I did not understand it well in high school, but one of my earliest college professors who is also a poet taught it well, and something "clicked." Many of my own poems were formal, and I enjoyed the scansion and explications exercises--the "figuring out" of why the particular meter was used in a particular way. So I try to demonstrate to them that it's not all accidental, although a regular meter is less likely to be saying something than an irregular meter--say, Arnold's "The Foresaken Merman," which is the poem I was helping the student with last evening. I would recommend an anthology that I have used in previous classes--intended for creative writers, but I have used it for lit with much success: The Making of a Poem
http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/spring01/032178.htm
Looking forward to more comments about "work, utopias, and cynicism in the young"! :)
Thanks for the recommendation! I'll put it on my wishlist. The professor (also a poet, he ran a great poetry circle for a few months that year) lent me Fussell's "Poetic Meter and Poetic Form" which was very rich...and which I've been intending, but neglecting, to purchase as well. One of these days I'll dive back into it again.
As for my other insightful comments...they've flown out of my head completely! Except for the observation that it is pretty sad when college students are no longer idealists. To paraphrase an old saw, if you are under thirty and a cynic, you have no heart. If you are over 30 and an idealist, you have...well, to tell the truth, I think losing sight of the ideal (however remote you admit it to be) is always a tragedy. But I'm platonic that way.
So what about a cynical idealist? ;) Evidently, I've always been one...
There's a line from the TV show Daria about how she has pretty high ideals and not everyone can live up to them. Daria replies, "And that's what's wrong with the world."
(I'm all about popular culture--well, cartoons at any rate!)
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