Okay, obviousely not literally, we all know shakespear died about four hundred years ago, and since his death, we have all come to know and love his works of art. Each year, second year students learn collectivly one shakespearian play for thier junior cert course, and this year, my year, we have been assigned the play "Merchant of Venice".
Now this is not the first time I have read/watched/audienced this play. I've seen it on stage and watched the movie starring Al Pacino as Shylock and Jeremy Irons as Antonio. My mother is an qualified english teacher and explained the whole story while we watched it, helping me to understand the meaning of shakespearian language and see through the complicated verds and adjectives to the true meaning being expressed. I liked this play, once upon a time.
Then my teacher started teaching it to us. Now, you must understand, this is our full time teacher, not any H-Dip or anything. This is our fully qualified teacher.
She started out asking if anyone knew the play already. Obviously my hand shot up, and i may have explained the whole thing in the space of five minutes.
She spent three full classes explaining to us how jewish people in those times ended up lending money. THREE CLASSES! and it wasn't even new stuff each class, it was the same stuff again and again and again! how the jewish people starting pawning merchendise, jacking up prices and so on. she explained how they were the only ones who could lend money by usury. Over and over.
by week three, we had gotten to page two in the play and those who hadn't really been pushed about the play now hated it.
And that's not all. after we got to about page ten and were pretty much half way through the year, she had us write down our first impressions of the characters. we had learned of bassanio's wish to borrow from antonio and go to belmont in search of portia's hand in marriage.
i wrote that bassanio was a lazy, disorganised fool who couldn't keep track of money and was only intrested in porchia because of her money. My teacher shot this down, saying that we had found out from portia that she and bassanio were flirting with eachother. But as i seem to recall, it was only portia who ever seemed to truely fall in love, and we girls so easily fall in and out of that, i hardly think it means bassanio loves her. But my teacher didn't want to hear it. Bassanio loved Portia and that was final. Forcing thier opinions on us is NOT a way to teach. We're suppose to form our own opinions, are we not.
Sometimes i wonder if teachers really want us to learn, to be able to answer questions from our own minds, or if they simply want us to have one idea so that they only have to find how that idea is worded in order to correct the work. Its like thier too lazy to try and think about something deeper then the surface, like they couldn't be bothered to try and understand our point of view. Shakespear would be ashamed.
I agree. Actually, I was talking about this to my mum like five minutes ago.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was stupid of her to tell us the plot and everything before we even started reading it. Now that we know what happens, what's the point in even reading it? It's a great play when read outside any kind of formal explanation. I think her whole mentality is; it's almost blasphemy to have fun with Shakespeare. But why? I think Shakespeare would have appreciated people having fun with his work, enjoying it, not sitting rigid and bored listening to something being explained for the hundredth time that has little relevance to the point of the play.
On top of that, the whole English syllabus is basically, read difficult things that you will never understand fully (I disagree with this, but I think that is what they tell us), the teacher explains them (subjectively), won't answer questions unless they are what she wants to answer, and then tells us the "right," answer for the JC, all the while telling us that we have to have our own opinions. It's enough to make you sick.
It's all a big joke! How is that an eduction, when the most important tests are simply whether you can regurgitate what the teachers tell you is true.
I was gratified when I wrote a derogatory book review and it was marked highly by our other English teacher, something I would never expect to come from this one.
yes, i totally agree. and so does my mom! ha ha, we're both mommy's girls! lol! but your right, what they want to hear is thier own ideas and opinions, which to be honest, are probably the ideas and opinions thier teachers put in thier heads. Shakespear was not ment to be read out like a book, it was meant to be acted, to have the feelings and emotions that you can only get from a stage performance. thats the only way and kid can actually get the atmosphere, the ideas and the pictures that shakespears colourful language is suppose to produce. sitting and watchin some lady tell you the whole story is not intresting and wont keep the attention of the students.
ReplyDeletenow admitedly, some kids are just never going to get it. Shakespearian language can be difficult if you can't get in the right frame of mind, and for some people, that just isn't part of thier make up. But some of us actually want to learn and want to understand what images lie behind the adjectives and metaphors that shakespear uses to bring his actors to life. and i just dont think we'd ever understand it fully (or even want to) if we're not getting the enthusiams from the teacher.