« Marn is cool. | Main | PromoGuy's Monday Mission 3.06 »
February 08, 2003
Education
Man.
This article boggles my mind. Go read and come back to read my comments, ok? Clicking on links is good exercise.
Anyway.
Of course myths don't qualify as nonfiction even though they teach us about ourselves. Hell, reading Shakespeare teaches me about myself, that doesn't mean he's nonfiction. Schools exist to educate students about their world. Parents exist to educate students about themselves, their familial history, their family relgion, etc. Parents can't shunt all the effort of educating their children onto schools. Sheesh.
File under: Rantings
Posted by Ealasaid at February 8, 2003 04:53 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://65.181.180.173/mt/mt-tb.cgi/757
Comments
I would agree with that. Myths are valuable, and interesting, but not nonfiction. If the book had been about the cultures, with myths as more of a sidenote, maybe that could have counted. But myths themselves are fiction.
Posted by: Rave at February 9, 2003 01:06 PM
Hmmnnnn.....I wonder why the library classified the mythology book as "non-fiction," then? Maybe the telling phrase in the article is "introductions to the cultural situations from which each myth had sprung." The nine-volume set of world history books my stepfather forced me to read during my summer vacations from grade school (20 pages a day, pop quiz possible any evening he felt like tormenting me; I *loathed* those books, but I still own them) had the mythologies of ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian culture included as part of the history lesson; maybe the kid's book report would have been more about history and comparative religion than about the myths themselves, but we'll never know. A budding folklorist, squashed in the making, or just a kid who'd like to have the backstory on why Xena, Warrior Princess was such a popular show? I don't think the teacher should have told her to choose a different book, but not for the same reasons her dad had. Yes, parents exist to educate children about themselves, family religion, etc., but few parents know much about explaining the effects of cross-cultural and historical influences on the world around us. Would the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial look as they do, had not their builders been familiar with "Classical" mythology and history? The kid picked a non-fiction topic that probably seemed more palatable to her than a drier subject, a creative solution to an unpleasant task. Friends of mine in college, math-impaired non-traditional students who were studying Greek and Latin, managed to wrangle a math credit for themselves by translating Euclid from the original Greek instead of taking plane geometry, a marvelous feat of academic hair-splitting and thinking outside the box. It's too much, probably, to expect a grade-school teacher to keep one child on track with a book report that could be a tricky line between writing a report about myths as stories (fiction) or about myths as cultural artifacts (non-fiction), and there's only so much time in the day, but a blanket "go pick out another book because myths are fiction" doesn't sit well with me, either. But I was a pop culture major, so what the hell do I know? :)
Posted by: jackdaw at February 9, 2003 01:10 PM
It sounded to me from the article like the book was mostly about myths, and not about their cultural location/importance. However, the columnist seemed to me to be bitching more about the fact that the teacher was calling myths themselves fiction.Which they are. Useful fiction, enlightening fiction, but fiction. :)
Posted by: Ealasaid at February 10, 2003 03:39 PM
Graphics from works 