The Onion has taken up the subject of teaching literature to disengaged high school students:

BANGOR, MEóBishop Kelly High School English teacher Christine Niles believes in her students' ability to grow intellectually and achieve success, the naÔve 24-year-old told reporters Monday.

"Teenagers need to be engaged as equals, not talked down to," Niles said, scrubbing the words "Miss Niles is a kunt" from the surface of her desk. "A heavy-handed approach takes the joy out of learning. Some teachers give out detention, but I praise my students for the times they don't skip class, rather than dwell on the days they do."

A recent graduate of the George Washington University education program, Niles came to Bangor last August with the childlike belief that she could somehow inspire a passion for literature in her uninterested students, who see her as a pushover.

"The standard curriculumóMelville, Hemingway, Steinbeckófocuses so heavily on the works of dead white men," Niles said. "Who can relate to that? The tides of multiculturalism have reached every corner of America. Get real! These kids know Tupac, not Tennyson. I need to speak their language to get them interested in learning."
It was her interest in engaging the students in something from their world that led Niles to invite them to interpret contemporary music lyrics as poetry Monday. The class spent the period listening to songs like "Freak Me Slow" by Kelis and "Just Don't Give A Fuck" by Eminem.

"Yes, some of the songs they played had adult themes, but Shakespeare is filled with sex and violence, too," Niles said. "I do wish they had put more thought into the follow-up exercise, though. Only two students handed in their essays."

Niles' students rarely complete their assignments. They also throw things, talk back, and take cell-phone calls during class. Three fights have broken out in her classroom since the beginning of the year, and students have threatened Niles with physical harm multiple times and twice stolen money from her purse.

"Overall, the poetry exercise was a success," Niles said. "We had a particularly rousing discussion about which words in the songs might have a negative impact. The students really seemed to enjoy making that list on the board. I think it did a lot to help them understand that dialogue needs to be conducted in a way that doesn't degrade."

Hat tip: Jonathan Winkler

I didn't notice the "onion" reference at first, and was taking it seriously...doesn't seem that different from many of the things that actually *do* happen.

On a related note, I recently saw the film "O," which is a takeoff on "Othello" (with the title character as a high school basketball star instead of a Moorish general). I was surprised how well it worked. Wonder if anyone has tried showing kids the film and the having them read Othello..if so, how did it work out?

This actually was eerily reminiscent of my own experiences teaching high school English. My classes weren't THAT bad, but the teacher who used my classroom during my conference period (a man) had probably a worse experience than what this post describes.

I actually majored in English and took the extra courses to get my teaching certificate. Neither the English courses nor the education courses prepared me in any way for teaching in the classroom. We were supposed to have a mentoring program, where an experienced teacher would advise you for the first year, but in practice I never met with my mentor (who was also my department chairperson) even once.

I loved the teaching part of teaching, and the second year I actually was able to teach, but I wasn't doing it as well as I wanted to, and I saw no means of improvement. I did take a two-week seminar in the summer between my two years of teaching, and it was a total joke. It was supposed to be about teaching writing, but it was completely focused on creative writing, urging us never to correct the students or provide guidance or templates of any kind to assist them. I was teaching 10th graders who had never written a well structured paragraph and who must write a five-paragraph essay in March in order to graduate. They needed templates and guidelines, not touchy feeling exercises, and it was those touchy-feely, non-judgmental techniques used in all their previous years that had sent them to me fully unprepared for high school work. The teachers of the seminar eventually banished me to the library because I was telling all the elementary teachers who would listen that this was all utter nonsense.

I did lots of reading on my own about teaching methodologies and classroom management, and found it unhelpful as well. I needed some hands-on guidance, which I wasn't likely to get.

My biggest frustration was the institutional obstacles: lax enforcement of campus rules, requirement that most students pass no matter their performance, constant changing of campus-wide educational philosophies, apathy of other instructors, etc. Those weren't going to change even if I improved my skills.

Now that I've worked in the "real world" and had children of my own, I could probably be a better teacher. I'll be homeschooling my own children rather than teaching in a classroom again.

I must say that I had a teacher who was the exact opposite of Kathy Livingston. She had just graduated with a degree in Education and was hired to teach high school English. The first class of the day consisted of 24 young men who were on probation at the court, 2 girls who were intimidated by them and me. I was the highest scoring student in my class by far and the only one in that class who was the least bit interested. The teacher did not know her subject and was so totally over her head in a class that she used to send the guys to the principal's office and then send me there to check that they actually went to the office. Her second class consisted of all the jocks in the senior class. Luckily for us all she quit after 6 weeks and we got an old line teacher who took no prisoners. The class settled down and we actually learned something.

Whatever possesses schools to put new teachers in the worst possible situations and then doesn't bother to check on them. The mind boggles. Some people might actually be able to function under those circumstances but not many and not well. The students deserve better and so do the new teachers. With a little guidance the situation can be salvaged and both the teachers and the students can learn.

I read Othello and watched the movie O in my freshman english class at Santa Monica College. I thought it was good at bringing a more natural level of communication to the class. Burying ideas beneath antiquated scenarios and dialog can be a real barrier to understanding and identifying. That being said students must also learn literary history proper if only for recognizing its influence on the present.

My professor, Stephan Mattesich, did a good job of integrating the present and past through music, literature, art, and film. You can read a brief description of his class here.

"O" was far better conceived and executed than theaterrible "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with Keanu Reeves (which I unfortunately saw in high school).

This is one article where the reality has gotten so absurd that it becomes beyond parody or satire - there are so many real situations that are even worse that the attempts at pardoy or satire are undone.

I taught high school English for a year and it was a nightmare. Out of 188 students, only 12 tested at or above grade level. The majority were in the 2-6 grade range. As the newbie I was given the worst classes. My school was roughly 30% white, 30% black, 30% Latino, and 10% Asian or "other." However, MY classes were over 80% black. I was told that all the scheduling was done by computer and that classes were not constructed by hand. However, I began 3 weeks into the semester. By then the other teachers had been able to shuffle out the problem kids, stacking my classes with them. (Roving subs had been babysitting the classes since the original teacher quit a few days before the school year started.) My VP did one evaluation visit a month after I started. It was not favorable but he offered no help. Since I didn't have a credential yet I didn't qualify for a peer coach or BTSA training. The entire school was a mess. My VP was arrested the following month for having an ongoing affair with a student. We were operating under state sanctions for failure to improve our API. My students were uninterested, lazy, disrespectful, disruptive, and sometimes violent. The parents were useless. Teachers were powerless. I was bitter and burned out by the end of the year. I will NEVER go back.

I hate the hippie-skippy, touchy-feely approach to education and classroom management. And the disease has spread beyond k-12. As an undergrad I was appalled by some of my professors.

Sadly, I see absolutely no hope for improvement.