Look closely: he's reading a book called "Enemy Pie"My current career path towards a glamorous and financially rewarding life as a high school English teacher occasionally gives me pause. While I'm conflicted on how to continue my long-running heroin addiction while teaching and moonlighting as a whale poacher, I think I'm most concerned by the fact that there is a significant portion of the so-called "classics" of literature that I've never read.
I stumbled upon a list of books that all high school students should read, and that got me thinking about all of the "traditional" books that have, for one reason or another, failed to be inserted into my scrambled brain. I've never read any of these:
Moby Dick
The Grapes of Wrath
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Anything by T.S. Eliot, Henry James, or James Joyce (though I once attempted Ulysses and failed spectacularly)
Catch-22 (despite two attempts to get through it)
The Divine Comedy
Anything by Dickens (except A Christmas Carol)
Little Women
Pride and Prejudice
Most of Faulkner
Anything by Mark Twain (except Huckleberry Finn)
The last one really irritates me because Mark Twain is full of win. His essays still bring chuckles even if they're only taking acerbic potshots at opponents of the Knights of Labor or Freemasonry.
I'm a product of a literary education that emphasized a more varied approach to teaching literature. In high school we read things like Cry the Beloved Country and The Joy Luck Club - books that would never have been assigned 50 years ago. Of course, if my English degree is worth even slightly more than the paper it's printed on (and that's a dubious claim even now), I can say with some certainty that the traditional or "canonical" works of literature are not necessarily required anymore. A lot of different stuff is available to teach, and I think it would make class more interesting because you get to read material written by folks who may not have been as respected in their time.
I know that anyone who hires me will understand if I haven't read one book or another. Administrators can't possibly expect for their candidates to have read every single book in the literary canon. But I worry that students and parents may not be so understanding. Suppose some ambitious student read Moby Dick the previous year and wants to blab about it in class. My knowledge is limited to a phenomenal summary a guy at grad school came up with, ("They killed a whale... it took awhile") and Khan growling to nobody, "From hell's heart I stab at thee!!!" in Star Trek II. How am I supposed to look like an authority when I haven't read some of the most well-known "Englishy" books out there.
I will say in my favor that I have an unnatural affection for Shakespeare. And that has nothing to do with the eyepatch-wearing, Shakespeare-quoting, bald Klingon from Star Trek VI. In fact, I even know quite a bit about some of the plays I never even read (Thanks Wikipedia!!). I'm a big fan of bombastic theatrics, and nobody does theatrics quite like Billy S. (Save perhaps Gilbert and Sullivan, but I still have some masculine pride). Shakespeare is still the tops. Nobody fucketh with thy Bard!
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Three Star Trek references (including an obscure one) in a post that has nothing to do with Star Trek! I've outdone myself! (And I'm never getting laid again.)
5 comments:
Don't worry about it. Most of what I taught this year I hadn't ever read or it had been so long since I'd read them that I couldn't remember them anyway. You don't have to stay ahead of the students as much as you think because compared to college you move at a snail's pace, and as long as you have a plot summary of the novel before you start reading it in class, you'll be good to go.
The one that I'm ashamed to admit I've never read is To Kill a Mockingbird. I mean, of all the weird shit I've read (especially in graduate school), how the hell did I manage to escape that classic novel? I still have a goal to read as many "books that all high school teachers should know" as possible in a short amount of time. Maybe this summer. We'll see.
-LD
You'll be fine. That happens at the college level, too. The PhD's here get to teach "the short story" or "the novel" or "American lit until 1800!!", and they haven't read most of the stuff. You can't have read *everything*. And I know you think this is the "big" stuff, but honestly, even if you'd read it in high school -- you'd have to read it again anyway, because your grasp of it then compared to now would be very different. .... or maybe not....
BatMite: You're right. I need to brush up on my Klingonese.
LD: I'm sure the likelihood of anyone calling me out on my ignorance is somewhere around .001%, but I'm a worrier from way back, and I have plenty of time to indulge that habit.
And To Kill a Mockingbird would be right up your alley. I highly recommend it. Atticus Finch is like a Jack McCoy without the anger issues.
Contemplator: I am probably being overly dramatic, but there's a reason I like my plays that way too. :) I remember two of my professors in undergrad telling me that it took them years before they really got over the constant worry that their students would one day discover them to be frauds. That always made me feel better.
(And every time I think to try to call you again to plan my Mo-town visit, it's always at some bad time of day. I need to put up some post-it reminders.)
It's called Imposter Syndrome. :) Google it.
Yeah, same here with the phone calls. What's worse is that I have the number & note right by my phone.
June 10 Dante flies to Florida; El Hijo's parents are coming two days after that for the weekend. So, after that time would be ideal.
Wow! That Google search hit close to home. Apparently I need to be more secure in my dazzling intellectual superiority. :)
I'll look into the weekend of June 19-21. My younger brother is having his bachelor party at some point in June or early July, but they haven't settled on a date just yet.
I'll still call anyway. As fashion designer, personal tutor, and puberty expert, you are clearly leading the interesting life. :)
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