Surprised by Envy
I read Surprised by Joy the other night. Some reactions:
- We learn nothing at school. Lewis went to university knowing Greek, Latin, French, German and Italian. It sounds like he didn't learn many of the sciences, but I would happily swap my knowledge of chemistry to be able to read The Divine Comedy in the original.
- Lewis hated algebra. Score!
- He dreaded the postman's knock. I wonder what he would have thought of email.
- His "perfect day" only included about six hours of work. This work was uninterrupted (hah!), and punctuated by a leisurely lunch, a lengthy walk and tea. I wonder if he ever got away with it.
- The past in a foreign country is a foreigner country.
posted by jml @ 5:42 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
A question that occurs to me is whether the difference in schooling is related to:
a. the increased Year 12 retention rate overall and the likely lower average intelligence of Year 12 graduates now
or, more disturbingly
b. the vastly increased retention rate among specific demographics (ie lower classes, women)
By b I don't mean "actually lower classes and women are dumb" but... I'm not sure what I mean. Is this something that was traded off as something that only wealthy lads could possibly have a use for? (The high school I know that still produces graduates with a couple more reading languages than they entered with happens to be one of the most expensive in the country and has an admission test and only admits boys, not helpful in distinguishing a and b.)
Actually, part of what would be going on would be that the people who can teach the kinds of things you are talking about have disappeared and that is related to the feminisation of teaching. Not so much that women couldn't teach that as that the feminisation of teaching went hand-in-hand with significantly lower salaries and respect for teaching as a profession. (Very common historically as women enter a profession.)
It's also related to the removal of drilling as a pedagogical technique. I'm conflicted on the question of drilling. For some reason, in spite of having an excellent memory and a superb high school academic performance, whenever I imagine a drilling education I see myself as the one being rapped over the knuckles with a ruler for screwing up yet another conjugation.
Do you mean that to educate more people (e.g. lower classes, women) one simply has to provide subjects that said people are actually interested in? Again, not saying that women and lower class people are philistines, just that most people live their whole lives never regretting for a single moment their ignorance of classical Greek.
The "feminisation" point is a good one. I wonder if a related thing is that teachers now do more work. I wonder if teachers of yore had more time to pursue their own interests, more closely matching the academics of today. Without that carrot, I can see why the people who can teach such things would disappear.
I have more thoughts, but need more time to put them in words. Thanks for the good comment.
I mean not only that there might be a push away from, say, classical Greek among students (although that too) but that if told "design a curriculum for gentleman of leisure" and "design a curriculum for the great unwashed masses" that, independent of student demand, a different curriculum may result.
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