On Literature and Teaching

  ‘The old can talk till they’re blue in the face about the spiritual satisfaction to be found in art and literature, but when you’re young there’s a lot more fun to be got out of being with a girl than by listening to a sonata’ (S. Maugham, in the 1920s) When it comes to selecting texts for class, teachers always face the same dilemmas: should we choose books the learners will like? Books that learners will relate to? Books that are educational, say, of the historical type? Books that have a pedagogical bend, for example about racism or bullying? Books that are well-known, books that have won a prize, books from famous authors, books from the canon? Or should we, perhaps, let the learners themselves decide what to read? From their own choice, or from a list compiled by a teacher, usually comprising dozens of titles if not many more?  All those aspects of the ‘text-selection dilemma’ are problematic for one or another reason. All of them require further differences being made, wh

A rush of thoughts is the only conceivable prosperity that can come to us (Emerson) In the numerous debates around AI that have been taking place lately, we have all heard ‘ tout et son contraire ’, as we say – we heard everything in all directions, for all arguments. Some say it will save the world, some that it will destroy it; some claim AI will make us better, or freer, or more creative, or more intelligent, while others will claim the exact opposite – time gained will be spent on scrawling, not learning, we will forget simple stuff, we will lose ourselves and what makes us who we are. Bertrand Russell wrote (I think in the 30s?) a little book on how we would all benefit from having 4-hour work- days: instead of slaving away behind a desk or at a machine for eight hours each day, let’s work less and create time for ourselves. Russell’s hope was that we’d use that time to educate ourselves so as to become better people. A claim many AI-supporters replicate today, in all shapes a

  ‘ The aim of literary study is not to amuse the hours of leisure; it is to awake oneself, it is to be alive, to intensify one’s capacity for pleasure, for sympathy, and for comprehension. It is not to affect one hour, but twenty-four hours. It is to change utterly one’s relations with the world. Not isolated and unconnected parts of life, but all of life’ (Arnold Bennett, 1901).   ‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach’. How many times have we heard that old saw? Because, really, can you teach something you can’t do? Well, yes, there is a way: by theorising that very thing you can’t do, or would like to do, or, well, that thing you teach. Or by canonising it, so you don’t have to engage with it. And here it is important to remember what happened to literature as an object of study. Despite arguments about who – and when – was the first, it is clear that there was no English Degree until late in the 19 th Century – that is, a university degree entirely dedicated to English

  There sometimes seems to be a misconception around the use of literature (= fiction) in class as regards the time needed, the nature of the texts used, the activities organised around it, and the way we teachers can work on citizenship-related issues. Very broadly speaking (as I know for a fact that many teachers devote hours and hours of their own time to devise a curriculum), we could say that many schools: ·        See fiction as an example of a time-period or a context, where a text becomes a fact ( who, when, what about ), an exemplar – the text is not discussed because essentially it is a label and a cultural-historical object (for example: Byron was a romantic, we’re having a project on Romanticism, so Byron’s name is mentioned as one of the romantic poets; nothing further is done with his texts than showing one of them). ·        See literature classes as isolated from the rest of the world, and therefore the curriculum (this week, we’re having a literature project! Aft

  Fiction as a safe place The great, late French historian Paul Veyne, having shown that the ancient Greeks both believed and did not believe in their own myths, asks a question: what was the use of those myths for the Greeks then? Why did senators routinely use mythical references and examples in their speech to their fellow politicians? Veyne’s answers is that it enabled them to discuss actual political matters in a roundabout way, so that political sensibilities would not be hurt by hearing a particular problem discussed openly. In other words, senators would use a myth to introduce a question at play in Athens’ society, but which was too sensitive to some to be aired directly: it needed to be metaphorised , in a way – it needed to be about problem A but discussed in terms of Myth B. This Fiction-as-a-safe-place is one of the great advantages of using literature in class to discuss citizenship-related issues. The Council of Europe (2018), among others, breaks down Citizenshi