Comments on: Mea Culpa http://www.apaceofchange.com/2008/08/29/mea-culpa/ in education, technology, and psychology Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:30:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Tracy Rosen http://www.apaceofchange.com/2008/08/29/mea-culpa/comment-page-1/#comment-370 Tracy Rosen Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:08:58 +0000 http://apaceofchange.edublogs.org/?p=112#comment-370 Hi Damian, I jumped at this topic as I prepare to teach Grade 11 English Language Arts this year. The year culminates in a provincial exam with a literary analysis essay worth 40% of their Grade 11 (final high school year in Quebec) mark. So the questions you ask are close to my heart. I haven't yet read the article and plan on reading it later today so I can look at these questions a bit deeper. Good post - so pertinent! Tracy Hi Damian,
I jumped at this topic as I prepare to teach Grade 11 English Language Arts this year. The year culminates in a provincial exam with a literary analysis essay worth 40% of their Grade 11 (final high school year in Quebec) mark.

So the questions you ask are close to my heart.

I haven’t yet read the article and plan on reading it later today so I can look at these questions a bit deeper.

Good post – so pertinent!
Tracy

]]> By: Dan Callahan http://www.apaceofchange.com/2008/08/29/mea-culpa/comment-page-1/#comment-371 Dan Callahan Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:47:48 +0000 http://apaceofchange.edublogs.org/?p=112#comment-371 ’ve seen this discussed a few other places (notably <a href="//uninspiredteacher.blogspot.com/2008/08/great-books-not-so-much.html”" rel="nofollow">here</a>, and the point seems to be that, besides a lack of interest, in our quest for HIGHER STANDARDS, we’re frequently pushing kids to read stuff before they’re actually mature enough to even understand the things they’ve read. I tried reading the Lord of the Rings at some point on my own early in high school, but just couldn’t get into it. When I gave it another shot in college, it completely blew my mind. I was ready for it in a way that I hadn’t been 4 years earlier. Sometimes we also don’t recognize that just because something is considered one of the great books, it doesn’t mean that it’s something for everybody. I had to slog my way through Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness three times and I hated it every single time. Since I was one of the few in my classes that refused to look at Cliff’s Notes, my essays on books were generally devoid of interesting content, since I had no clue what I was actually reading many of the books for (and most of my classmates did only because of the Notes…otherwise it would have been as over their heads as anything else). Honestly, when children are decreasingly interested in reading books, it’s time for us to actually consider how much it’s the fault of schools for making them dislike it so much. ’ve seen this discussed a few other places (notably here, and the point seems to be that, besides a lack of interest, in our quest for HIGHER STANDARDS, we’re frequently pushing kids to read stuff before they’re actually mature enough to even understand the things they’ve read. I tried reading the Lord of the Rings at some point on my own early in high school, but just couldn’t get into it. When I gave it another shot in college, it completely blew my mind. I was ready for it in a way that I hadn’t been 4 years earlier.

Sometimes we also don’t recognize that just because something is considered one of the great books, it doesn’t mean that it’s something for everybody. I had to slog my way through Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness three times and I hated it every single time. Since I was one of the few in my classes that refused to look at Cliff’s Notes, my essays on books were generally devoid of interesting content, since I had no clue what I was actually reading many of the books for (and most of my classmates did only because of the Notes…otherwise it would have been as over their heads as anything else).

Honestly, when children are decreasingly interested in reading books, it’s time for us to actually consider how much it’s the fault of schools for making them dislike it so much.

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