A Detailed Anaysis of Two Classes. What is Wrong With Them,

[polutrope]

I like school. Really I do. And I like Latin, and in theory, English. Unfortunately, I've never had good experiences with English - like the second half of last year, in which my teacher decided there was Jesus in L'étranger. But this year, both Latin and English are very... flawed.


First, Latin, in part because my gripes are much more fully justified and sound less self-centered:

I am good at Latin. I have always been good at Latin, and especially now that I've been doing my work consistently, I would really like to do Latin in my Latin class. Sadly, the rest of my class does not want to do Latin. They want to talk, as we did today, about how awful a math teacher is, for twenty minutes of a forty-five minute class. Or about their stomach problems. Or how they were wait-listed for Brown, and whether they should try to get off the wait-list. That's wonderful, and I'm glad you have a good relationship with the teacher, but that is not appropriate for class. Not only is it wasting class-time, but I don't care, because I don't particularly like you. Nor is the teacher any better: he texts in class, and tells us about the class he's taking outside school. And I wouldn't mind once in a while, if we had classes like this, but it's all the time!

Even I don't want to work every day, but getting through five lines a day is pathetic. I don't care if Lucretius is hard. So is Homer, and we're not even good at Greek - and we do twenty lines a night, maybe fifteen in class, then sight-translate Herodotus. While having conversations about abusing people's hindquarters. And someone had the gall to complain about ten lines! Ten paltry, trifling lines! Lines that she will most likely not even look at before next class! And if she does, she'll say "Is this an accusative? What does the dative do?"

That's another thing. I know I'm just "good at languages," but we've been doing this for almost six years. One would think that the rudiments of the language would penetrate her thick skull. Like the cases that we've had pounded into our heads! The accusative was the second thing we learned. But that's another problem. So: to sum up: apathy and stupidity eat away at the heart of my class like a canker, and he to whom our guidance is entrusted lets decency fly to the winds. Time for a Bonfire of the Cellphones!


And now on to English. I hate Miss Miller. I think she can't write, and I hate the fact that she gave her badly-argued, badly-worded "essay", if I may call it that, to us and held it up as an example. I think that a junior/senior elective should have thematic unity; our class has none. Thus far we have read The Bacchae (and may I note that the title of the course was "Town and Country in English Literature"?), Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, some mystery and morality plays, and The Taming of the Shrew, and are currently reading Hard Times.

Now, of all Dickens, why this, I ask you? Further, what has become of the centuries that lie between Shakespear and Dickens? Surely you do not mean to tell me, O queen among pedagogues, that nothing of interest was written in the Century of Enlightenment? That Pope and Swift are the only people who wrote anything of interest? I admit, I can think of nothing off the top of my head, but surely that is your role - to edify our young and waiting minds, flexible as putty, open as the Montana sky?

Nor, much as I adore it, and much as its imagery is as vivid as mine is not, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner is hardly worth a week of our time. Coleridge's words are not particularly obscure: he does not hide "storm" behind "cyclone," nor use flowery Metaphor to conceal the reanimation of the Mariner's shipmates. No; the events may be dark and mysterious, but the language used to describe them is clear and plain as the blessèd Day.

Why did he kill the Albatross? I do not know, nor does the Master tell us. What can we infer, then, but that it is unimportant; only the Fact of the Bird's death matters to the tale, not petty Reasons - for indeed, le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point. A long tangent, perhaps, but this is the sort of thing we spend our time at. I have learned in that class - yes, I have learned - when, our of frustration with my lot and our speed, I flipped a few centuries forward, and learned that "bays," in the line "the bays burn deep and chafe," refers to nothing but the noble leaf of Apollo himself! Ah yes, the light of knowledge smote me then, and I knew that before I had but wandered in darkness! And there, my friends, lies the sum of the knowledge I have gain'd from that class.

I hate Miss Miller; Miss Miller hates me. (A perfect chiasmus, there!) I try not to show it in class; she should reciprocate. A prime example: "We greeted it as if it were a Christian soul". "Why," dixit Miller, "does he say 'as if'?"
"In Christian thought," spake I, "animals have no souls."
"Ah yes," replied the good teacher, "but how do we know the writer is Christian?"
The many times he invokes Our Lord, perhaps, thought I, but said, "Because at the end he is shriven by a hermit."
"But-" quotha, "but we have not read the end."
No, madam, in your tardy class we have not read the end, but does that mean it does not yet exist? I have read the end; I, therefore, can argue based on the end.

I hate to see my junior year end; I rejoice to see those classes go.

Ah, cathartic.