Making peace with the ignorance of the masses, or something equally pretentious yet desireable.
These last few weeks, I've graded mindless student essay after mindless student essay. I wonder how many more self-righteous, ignorant, lazy 18-year-olds who drive around SUVs that daddy bought them will tell me that some of the best literature ever produced in the English language is "dumb," "stupid," or, my favorite, "gay," before I lose it completely. Fortunately, as I'm sure many of you know (if, in fact, some of the people I know really read this), I don't plan to stay in my bust-your-ass-for-nothing line of work much longer. But while I'm still here doing adjunct faculty slave-wage work for three different colleges and universities, I can really get into Sideways. That film portrays sympathetically, and perhaps even glamorizes, the pathetic and sad yet beautiful and necessary existence of those who teach English.
Of course, the fact that Miles is an English teacher might escape many who watch the film. It's not a central part of the plot or even of Miles's character. But there's a gorgeous scene very near the end of the film in which we see Miles in the classroom. In it, the boys in the obviously private school all wear khaki pants and sit quietly with blank looks on their faces as one of them reads from the moving, sad scene of Phineas' funeral in John Knowles' novel A Seperate Peace. In the golden light, the camera moves in to focus on Miles as he savors Knowles' words and their clear implications concerning his own life. When the student finishes that infamous passage about how you do not cry at your own funeral and asks if he should continue, Miles says "No. No; we'll pick up there Monday." When he asks Miles if he should continue, the student refers to him as Mr. England or something like that (it's difficult to discern). With that disorienting Mr. something, Miles' alienation in that environment is rendered complete and understandable. Those kids have no idea who he is and most likely don't care.
In my own case, it seems to me that most of my students don't really think of me as a real person, and they often seem shocked when I relate to them some anecdote from my own life that happens to be relevant to what we're reading. Presumably, the shocking part to them is that I am human, a real person with real experiences sometimes similar to theirs, not some kind of anomaly who exists only in their English classroom for three hours each week. At any rate, as much as I am able to relate with and be liked by my students more so than many of my colleagues, those students, by virtue of their treatment of the classroom environment and the ways in which they speak to me (or don't), sometimes seem less than the real people I know they are, the real people who would make teaching an extraordinary thing. Thus, they create an appropriately alienating environment. The way in which the camera moves in on Miles as one of his students reads from A Seperate Peace mirrors for me exactly what I go through every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I can see it now--one of my students reads aloud from a Scott Silsbe poem and looks up blankly. No, I think, not wanting to ruin the beauty of the poem with the inevitable classroom bullshit, we'll pick up there on Monday. And so will we.
Of course, the fact that Miles is an English teacher might escape many who watch the film. It's not a central part of the plot or even of Miles's character. But there's a gorgeous scene very near the end of the film in which we see Miles in the classroom. In it, the boys in the obviously private school all wear khaki pants and sit quietly with blank looks on their faces as one of them reads from the moving, sad scene of Phineas' funeral in John Knowles' novel A Seperate Peace. In the golden light, the camera moves in to focus on Miles as he savors Knowles' words and their clear implications concerning his own life. When the student finishes that infamous passage about how you do not cry at your own funeral and asks if he should continue, Miles says "No. No; we'll pick up there Monday." When he asks Miles if he should continue, the student refers to him as Mr. England or something like that (it's difficult to discern). With that disorienting Mr. something, Miles' alienation in that environment is rendered complete and understandable. Those kids have no idea who he is and most likely don't care.
In my own case, it seems to me that most of my students don't really think of me as a real person, and they often seem shocked when I relate to them some anecdote from my own life that happens to be relevant to what we're reading. Presumably, the shocking part to them is that I am human, a real person with real experiences sometimes similar to theirs, not some kind of anomaly who exists only in their English classroom for three hours each week. At any rate, as much as I am able to relate with and be liked by my students more so than many of my colleagues, those students, by virtue of their treatment of the classroom environment and the ways in which they speak to me (or don't), sometimes seem less than the real people I know they are, the real people who would make teaching an extraordinary thing. Thus, they create an appropriately alienating environment. The way in which the camera moves in on Miles as one of his students reads from A Seperate Peace mirrors for me exactly what I go through every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I can see it now--one of my students reads aloud from a Scott Silsbe poem and looks up blankly. No, I think, not wanting to ruin the beauty of the poem with the inevitable classroom bullshit, we'll pick up there on Monday. And so will we.
Labels: A Seperate Peace, John Knowles, Sideways, teaching
posted by Brian at 10:45 PM
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