A visit from a teacher; and a disturbing trend

View 781 Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Today I had a visit from Paul Schindler, former Editor of BYTE when I was the lead columnist, and we had a long walk and a good talk. Paul is retired now, and having paid his tribute to the worthless teacher education program is now a qualified teacher of history and civics in a high school near the Bay area. I learned a good bit about the new California high school mandates. When I mentioned the lines about a village Cromwell unsullied by his country’s blood to try to get some of the flavor of Grey’s Elegy, he pointed out that in order to enjoy that you would need to know who Cromwell was. I replied that it is impossible to understand the US Constitution without knowing who Cromwell was; that the English Revolution in which they killed the king, followed by Cromwell’s Commonwealth, had so marked the English conscience that they recalled the King rather than have another rule like that – even though, as the liberal Macaulay would say, they then “threw into the Thames the bones of the noblest prince ever to rule England.”

“May be,” he said, “but the curriculum mandates what they will know on the test and if they don’t know it teachers are rated badly, and principals are upset, and terrible things happen, so unless Cromwell is in the master curriculum he’s not likely to be in the lessons”. I pleaded that this was madness, but then we were interrupted and the subject went to other things.

I’m going to think on that one for a while.

I’m trying to work on my introduction to the public domain California Sixth Year Reader, which I more and more believe is vital to education of students in the 5^th to 7^th year of schooling: it contains materials they ought to have read, and some of the tools they will need to learn one of the great pleasures of life, which is reading good poetry. That is an acquired taste, and those who never acquired it don’t know what it is they are missing. Of course many of the words in the Sixth Year Reader, considered necessary and proper for California students from 1914 until about World War II, are now considered too hard for them. which is a terrible pity.

I was reminded of all that because I was reminded of the Grey’s Elegy, a poem I did not care for when I first encountered it, but learned to love as I grew older, partly because of the story of the young General Wolfe who conquered Quebec and insured that North America would be English, and not French. He took his troops up the St. Lawrence River past the French sentinels at Quebec where they deployed at night on the Plains of Abraham. The battle the next morning decided the fate of Canada. Whilst they were being rowed upriver, Wolfe recited Grey’s Elegy to those in his small boat. When he came to the lines

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

he paused in his recitation and said, “Gentlemen, I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec tomorrow.”

It took me weeks to learn to read that poem sometime back in my teen years during World War II, and why I took the trouble to read it over and over until I understood it I can’t say. I can only say it was worth it in the enjoyment of other poetry over the years of my life. There is something about great poetry that can’t be duplicated in rock music or overly precious prose, or – to me anyway – the stuff that is often presented as poetry in modern poetry magazine where rime is forbidden, rhythm is seldom found, and meter is avoided as a plague. But that’s another essay.

What I am looking for is some way to induce young people to make the investment at their age that will have a major payoff when they are older. Not a payoff in cash, but in enjoyment and understanding. But that too is another essay.

“Sometimes the character of the opposition defines why something ought to be the most politically viable thing in the world.”

<http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/%E2%80%9Cwhy_did_you_shoot_me_i_was_reading_a_book_the_new_warrior_cop_is_out_of_control/>

This is a long read, but is an important article, IMHO.

—-

Roland Dobbins

Even the first part which only tells the story is worth reading. This has gone much farther than we predicted even a few years ago. And the trend continues.

Salve sclave.

It was in fact memory of Cromwell who protected the English people from Christmas and other vices as he understood vice which cause our Framers a hundred years later to limit the powers of the Federal government.  But of course Cromwell is no longer remembered.

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/Elegy.htm