mothwing | Entries tagged with didactics

People.

I know that you're all super busy with all your lesson plans and stuff, and I know that most of you sit through their didactics seminars pretty much on autopilot, but I'd like to point out something.

"The boys should focus on Romeo and the girls on Juliet, because all girls can identify with lusting after the forbidden guy."

Think about this for more than five seconds and you'll see that this is a dumb task with a dumber explanation for its existence. It's factually wrong. This is not PC-ness gone wild, this is a factual error that you're making. I think we all agree about the fact that you shouldn't teach kids wrong things. So get a clue, teacher. Especially given the fact that you feel comfortable saying this to me shows such incredible levels of idiocy I don't even know where to start.

I know that you'll say that you can't pay attention to these things all of the time, because the vast majority of people are straight and ID as either of the two, but seriously, do you also not pay attention to misspelt words if students only get one letter wrong because the vast majority of letters in the word are fine?

I know that there is a reason why I'm made so damn uncomfortable by the fact that everybody loves Romeo and Juliet and other straight institutions so damn much, but really, people, there's a fucking limit.

Courtesy to SparkNotes, of course.

Recognise this?

" The question is: is it better to be alive or dead?
Is it nobler to put up with all the nasty things that luck throws your way, or to fight against all those troubles by simply putting an end to them once and for all?
Dying, sleeping—that's all dying is—a sleep that ends all the heartache and shocks that life on earth gives us—that's an achievement to wish for. To die, to sleep—to sleep, maybe to dream. Ah, but there's the catch: in death's sleep who knows what kind of dreams might come, after we've put the noise and commotion of life behind us. That's certainly something to worry about. That's the consideration that makes us stretch out our sufferings so long. After all, who would put up with all life's humiliations—the abuse from superiors, the insults of arrogant men, the pangs of unrequited love, the inefficiency of the legal system, the rudeness of people in office, and the mistreatment good people have to take from bad—when you could simply take out your knife and call it quits?
Who would choose to grunt and sweat through an exhausting life, unless they were afraid of something dreadful after death, the undiscovered country from which no visitor returns, which we wonder about without getting any answers from and which makes us stick to the evils we know rather than rush off to seek the ones we don't?
Fear of death makes us all cowards, and our natural boldness becomes weak with too much thinking. Actions that should be carried out at once get misdirected, and stop being actions at all.
But shh, here comes the beautiful Ophelia. Pretty lady, please remember me when you pray."

Or this?

"I only worship what's natural, not what's manmade.
Why should I let myself be tortured by manmade social customs that deprive me of my rights simply because I was born twelve or fourteen months later than my older brother? Why do they call me “bastard” and “lowlife” when I'm just as gifted in mind and body as legitimate children? Why do they call us bastards “lowlifes”? Always “lowlife,” “bastard,” “lowlife,” “lowlife.”
At least we bastards were conceived in a moment of passionate lust rather than in a dull, tired marriage bed, where half-sleeping parents monotonously churn out a bunch of sissy kids.
All right then, legitimate brother Edgar, I have to have your lands. Our father loves me just as much as the legitimate Edgar. What a nice word that is, “legitimate”! Well, my legitimate Edgar, if this letter works and my plan succeeds, Edmund the lowlife will beat the legitimate.
Look out, I'm on my way up.
Three cheers for bastards!"
(From here. )

The question is- is this really better?

This is designed to help US Highschool students, by the way, not University students, although I know a fair number of Uni students who still resort to SparkNotes when confronted with an unknown text they find puzzling.
While I am all for making it easier for the students to understand old texts, I don't think that these things are really that helpful for learning how to read and understand older language on your own. I know that even I will often rather read the translation rather than the foreign language if both are available on the same page. It is very likely students would read the simplified version of the text only rather than the original text.
That would defeat the purpose of the original text, really, and it does terrible things to the language. Making the students write their own translation would be much more useful, if time consuming.
While selected passages from this might be a good introduction to the play, and maybe a couple of scenes might be handed to the students to allow them a slow intro to the course, it doesn't seem sensible to have them read the entirety of Hamlet in this simplified version.

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Roads to Safe Places

Uton we hycgan hwær we ham agen, ond þonne geþencan hu we þider cumen

Entries tagged with didactics

People.

Simplified Shakespeare

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January 2022

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