Re: where is fiction going
Posted by:
calonlan (IP Logged)
Date: 5 December, 2005 08:47AM
On a National level, the kids are not being exposed to these writers - except, rarely, as you suggest in honors classes -- In this I speak from direct classroom experience in the public schools in several states both as teacher and consultant. Where I presently live, almost any child who is seriously supported in his education by literate parents, can succeed - but "universal free education", has lost its sense of direction.
Today in many schools you cannot say that one thing is better than another - In a recent situation in South Carolina, a teacher resigned rather than continue to be subjected to profanity and sexually demeaning behavior from 7th and 8th grade black kids -- the administration of her school system told her she had to put up with it because "that's their culture" which must be repected in the name of "diversity". Nothing could really be a worse stereotype by the very people who ought to be recognizing the need to pull children out of ignorance and poverty.
On the subject of Harry Potter, I have to disagree with my friend Ludde on its quality.
It is first and foremost a morality play using a delightful satirical take-off on the English public school -- the first book teaches the kids that a seemingly harmless adult can be "two-faced" (literally). In book two, innocence can be lured into destructive behavior which requires heroic efforts to save; book three, chocolate turns out to be the cure for depression! - charming (obviously written by a woman lol)
The clever use of names and situations by this author provides a level of delight that can help beginning readers begin to prepare to read more profoundly. I find a sense in these stories very similar to Dr. Lewis avowed purposes behind the "Chronicles of Narnia" - a children's work he hoped would provide a foundation of experience which the reading in mature works on the same subject would find the same concepts familiar to them. Isn't one of the great delights of CAS to be thrust into place which intoxicates the mind with newness and strangeness (even including revulsion as in La mere des Crapauds"), yet the return to the real world after reading finds the world more interesting, more mysterious and wonderful than before? As a standard, I frequently review in my mind what kinds of books call me back to re-read - CAS has always been that way for me. The same is true in film - I have seen a few good films in recent years that have been entertaining, and occasionally moving, but if "Casablanca" comes on, though I know every word of the dialogue, I will watch it.
The books or films whose content continues to invade the mind, and which each reading or viewing reveals something I had not seen before, or I hear an implication or inference I had somehow missed. That's where real quality lies; true works of genius will continue to feed you intellectually and spiritually as you yourself age, mature, and grow. Dr Arthur Bestor in 1954 wrote in his book "educational wastelands", that at the end of 30 years there are two kinds of folk (in any field): those who have indeed had 30 years of experience, and those who have had one experience thirty times.
It is so nice to see you back on the forum.