‘Where are we now’, deals with the current status of the English teacher, his or hers method of teaching, the students and their mindset toward the class. The normal course of things includes the reading, analysis and written exegesis of a classical piece. Hill says that this type of academic study of English is a dead end. Students are burnt out and resort to cheating and plagiarism to succeed at their English assignments.
In ‘Where we should be’, Hill suggests that this should be a world where you are able to teach writing and literature to students who master the material and use it in creative and innovative ways. Developmental, economic and political issues; time constraints and simple adolescent contrariness each present challenges to this ideal.
‘How can we get there’, gives some guidelines to reaching ‘Where we could be’. Because teachers lack the motivation to fight the struggle they tend to get cynical. This is the first blemish they have to rid themselves of. But, according to the article, the most important things to do are the following:
- Recognize what’s important about what we do, and what isn’t.
- Cross- pollinate
- Cross- train
- Create more interdisciplinary courses with the additional perspective of all that cross-pollination and cross-training.
What is needed is a new model, the teacher as creative professional. Teachers have to be willing to make the change. Some teachers are accustom to how things are at present and have settled down into mediocre type of work. However, Hill is seeing an opportunity to broaden the English teacher’s perspective. He suggests that teachers should study other subject areas to learn different teaching techniques, so that they can apply it to teach English literature.
In looking for supporting views for my research, dealing with the value of contemporary literature, I came across this article. It was interesting to note that Jeremiah Hill shared certain views that some English teachers today would find revolutionary. It would take a huge wave of change before we could hope for a successful change of direction as Hill suggested. It’s the ‘where should we be’ section that caught my attention. It sounded like such an unattainable goal but Hill made it appear possible by outline several steps that could take us there as English Literature teachers. The most important point that was mentioned again and again is that the teachers have to change the way they do things. They have to help bring about the change so that their students could model themselves appropriately.
Works Cited
Graham, P. (2004, September). The Age of the Essay. Retrieved June 7th, 2007, from
http://paulgraham.com/essay.html
