Fragment of a larger work as yet unwritten
Jan. 4th, 2014 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerMoving along the corridor, we came to another door, and I peered through its glass. About twenty or thirty young people were sitting in rows before a raised dais, upon which stood a slightly older woman in spectacles, a black dress and a pink fluffy cardigan. She was engaged in emitting a series of inchoate, guttural sounds, while moving her arms in broad, indefinite gestures. The audience watched intently, some of them making notes.
"What is going on in there?" I asked my companion.
"Ah," he said, "we are singularly fortunate. That, my friend, is one of our most enlightened and accomplished scholars, and she is inducting a class of student teachers into the most modern and correct methods of teaching the English language."
"By making those--those noises?" I gasped.
My guide peered at me sorrowfully. "I perceive," he said, "that you are sadly retrograde in your thinking on this matter. Allow me to correct you. You will agree, I hope, that language is in a constant state of flux and evolution?"
"Of course," I said.
"And you would also not deny that it is a cardinal rule, when educating the young, that no child should be made to feel inferior due to his or her lack of knowledge?"
"It should certainly be avoided."
"Well, then, we are agreed that one thing a teacher must never do is to indicate, either directly or by implication, that she is better informed than her students. And therefore a teacher's command of English, when she is before her class, must always be seen to be less than that of the least competent English speaker among her charges. The children must be encouraged to discover English for themselves, without ruinous intervention either by teacher or book."
"But surely," I suggested tentatively, "the inculcation of a few basic principles--"
"Nonsense," my interlocutor said briskly. "Where language is concerned, there are no basic principles; that is an illusion caused by the proliferation of textbooks and primers which give the erroneous impression of stability. Any atom of information that a teacher or a book might impart is already completely out of date, five minutes after the book is written or the teacher completes her own education. Imposing such antiquated shibboleths on the young mind is a twofold error; firstly, it is misinformation of the most egregious kind; and secondly, if they attempt to use their outmoded language in public, it might have a most deleterious effect on the pure evolution of the language itself, which must on no account be interfered with."
"But then," I said, "if there are no books, and the teacher herself does not use English but merely grunts and gesticulates, how are the children to learn English at all?"
"They will evolve it," said my companion, "by the natural process of thought. Education, you know, is a drawing out, rather than a putting in. In the absence of any intelligible communication, the children will arrive at English from first principles; or, if what they arrive at is not English, it will do just as well for any purpose for which they require language. We tried a similar experiment a little while ago, on the plain of Shinar, and you surely cannot mean to suggest that any harm resulted from that."
"And is everyone to be taught English in this manner?"
"A few," said my guide, "those for whom it is necessary, will be accommodated in the old-fashioned way, on payment of extra fees...which I admit are substantial, but you have to remember that this method of teaching, under our new system, will become very much a minority activity. But for most people, who require no more English than is necessary for them to perform certain basic functions, the new method will be entirely adequate, and far more in keeping with the latest thinking on linguistic development."
We moved on, passing through a set of double doors, from which I was obliged to extricate my companion's tail, whose barbs had embedded themselves in the wood, and came to a section whose signboard read "HISTORY."
"Now here," said my guide...
"What is going on in there?" I asked my companion.
"Ah," he said, "we are singularly fortunate. That, my friend, is one of our most enlightened and accomplished scholars, and she is inducting a class of student teachers into the most modern and correct methods of teaching the English language."
"By making those--those noises?" I gasped.
My guide peered at me sorrowfully. "I perceive," he said, "that you are sadly retrograde in your thinking on this matter. Allow me to correct you. You will agree, I hope, that language is in a constant state of flux and evolution?"
"Of course," I said.
"And you would also not deny that it is a cardinal rule, when educating the young, that no child should be made to feel inferior due to his or her lack of knowledge?"
"It should certainly be avoided."
"Well, then, we are agreed that one thing a teacher must never do is to indicate, either directly or by implication, that she is better informed than her students. And therefore a teacher's command of English, when she is before her class, must always be seen to be less than that of the least competent English speaker among her charges. The children must be encouraged to discover English for themselves, without ruinous intervention either by teacher or book."
"But surely," I suggested tentatively, "the inculcation of a few basic principles--"
"Nonsense," my interlocutor said briskly. "Where language is concerned, there are no basic principles; that is an illusion caused by the proliferation of textbooks and primers which give the erroneous impression of stability. Any atom of information that a teacher or a book might impart is already completely out of date, five minutes after the book is written or the teacher completes her own education. Imposing such antiquated shibboleths on the young mind is a twofold error; firstly, it is misinformation of the most egregious kind; and secondly, if they attempt to use their outmoded language in public, it might have a most deleterious effect on the pure evolution of the language itself, which must on no account be interfered with."
"But then," I said, "if there are no books, and the teacher herself does not use English but merely grunts and gesticulates, how are the children to learn English at all?"
"They will evolve it," said my companion, "by the natural process of thought. Education, you know, is a drawing out, rather than a putting in. In the absence of any intelligible communication, the children will arrive at English from first principles; or, if what they arrive at is not English, it will do just as well for any purpose for which they require language. We tried a similar experiment a little while ago, on the plain of Shinar, and you surely cannot mean to suggest that any harm resulted from that."
"And is everyone to be taught English in this manner?"
"A few," said my guide, "those for whom it is necessary, will be accommodated in the old-fashioned way, on payment of extra fees...which I admit are substantial, but you have to remember that this method of teaching, under our new system, will become very much a minority activity. But for most people, who require no more English than is necessary for them to perform certain basic functions, the new method will be entirely adequate, and far more in keeping with the latest thinking on linguistic development."
We moved on, passing through a set of double doors, from which I was obliged to extricate my companion's tail, whose barbs had embedded themselves in the wood, and came to a section whose signboard read "HISTORY."
"Now here," said my guide...
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no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 01:03 pm (UTC)But funny.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 08:20 pm (UTC)The history teacher squeezes out from the door right then dressed from chin to toe in Kevlar padding with an enormous helmet on her head. She takes it off to acknowledge the protagonist and guide, announcing she is going to the lounge for a cuppa while her students engage in discussion about the proposed event she submitted to the children for verification as fact. A heavy blood spatter across the pane of glass on the door discourages the protagonist and guide from entering into the classroom. This is to demonstrate the inclusion of multiple ethnic, familial, and individually contrived points of view regarding the event to the conclusion that regardless of the actual truth of the matter, in the end it is might makes right.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 03:04 am (UTC)Sadly, once the wrong sort of teacher has done the latter to a child, it becomes virtually impossible for anyone to do the former to that same child without the latter happening more or less automatically.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 04:33 am (UTC)You may (or may not) want to look up "inchoate".