In retrospect, my eleventh and twelfth grade English classes had more merits than I thought. Books like The Great Gatsby and Beowulf are titles that I probably wouldn’t have ever picked up otherwise. However, discussions with friends about classics like these always yield the same overused cliché when comparing their theatric counterparts: the book was better.
This is a statement that constantly gets under my skin. Only for the simple reason that I seem to be the only person on Earth who sees that the book is never better than the movie. The movie was and everybody knows they enjoyed the film more than reading through a turgid translation of The Odyssey. It seems obvious that a book could never possibly measure up to the worth of the film for two reasons. First of all, the movie only takes two hours to finish, and secondly the movie isn’t filled with solemn twenty page tangents that have nothing to do with moving the plot of the story forward.
With the upcoming release of the remake of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby I expect everybody I know to come forward saying how much the book spoke to them and that Hollywood will inevitably butcher the feel of the roaring 20’s. But all I ever really hear when people claim the book was better is insecurity. Underneath their words, what they are really saying would sound a little bit like “ Hey, I’m a cultured citizen with posh intellectual taste capable of appreciating literature too.” Or much more simply, it is as if they are the first grader exclaiming, “look mom, I read a book!”
Anthropologists would tell us this statement is made out of status anxiety, a fear that drives individuals to assert our prestige over the others in a manner intended to provoke distinction. But in reality as civilized as society has gotten in America with our 90% literacy rate (not fact checked) there should be no reason for anyone to need to brag at his or her ability to finish a simple J.R.R. Tolkien novel.
Stop saying the book was better.
Teaching in America
1. The formative years of my educational career were laced with hilarity that can only be discovered in hindsight. Teachers rewarded me for doing almost nothing, the idiots who slowed our class down and the inflexibility of the administration bastardized my educational experience. With American students falling on the low end of the distribution tail in worldwide standardized testing, now is a better time than ever to consider revamping the atrocious system we have in place.
2A. Government programs like TEACH and other incentives are an excellent starting point for the analysis of our educational institution. By examining the education of our educators we can see the flaws of where our system begins. TEACH offers full payment of tuition to anyone interested in teaching for four years of their life following graduation. Literally anyone who says they will teach at public school is allowed to dip into this money. The apathetic youth not interested in teaching, the inappropriate drug addict who wants a free education or the failed engineer can all turn to teaching as a career. The phrase if you cant do, teach takes on a whole different meaning as an increasing number of confused youth turns to teacher when they can’t decide what they want to do with their life.
3. Social studies in primary and middle grades was quite possibly the most turgid waste of time ever. American children reflect the most common (mis)conception of our society: we do not give two shits about the rest of the world. Ignoring the more archetypal examples like soccer and the metric system I can list several examples off the top of my head: driving on the right side of the road, not calling fries “chips,” caring about the environment, not having messed up teeth, jersey shore, going to war, etc. The list could get very exhaustive. However, through the American educational system, I learned almost nothing about these exo communites. Social studies, I believe, should in fact be social studies; entailing a high degree of social education. Fostering communication, an emphasis on norms and eliminating social ineptitude(read: awkwardness, weirdos, etc.).
4. Teachers SUCK. At least most American teachers do. My experience in the school system tells me that all teachers face a few similar grievances: A) they do not get paid enough B) they don’t care about their job C) because of the latter, they are not particularly good at their job. Let’s take a step back and taxonomize those who become teachers: eager young adult girls who want to save the world, people who get history/English degrees then realize they cant do shit with them. Economists claim financial illiteracy is one of the main contributors to debt in our country. The fact that many people do not know how money works; when to save up for a rainy day. Many people don’t even know how balancing a checkbook works. Regardless, completing a useless education is a riskier gamble than simply being ill informed.
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