Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The English teacher conspiracy theory

The following was written by my sister, who apparently had way to much to drink before writing her english essay on Great Expectations. :-). Enjoy! Please comment, as she is so excited by this. I told her to start her own "anti-English teacher blog" but she decided she didn't feel like it- afterall- if you knew my sister, she'd much rather just be watching TV and eating chips- while she complains about how dumb the teachers are on TV- and then compares them with her teachers in school!

Hundreds of years ago, before the evil existed was a group of people more commonly known as "the losers." They were incapable of doing anything with there lives; they lacked in logic, creativity and in memorization skills and were therefore unable to have any jobs. They decided to make a convention which they called "The Loser Convention."

The convention was established. Together they decided that they needed to think of a way to manipulate society into thinking "The Losers" were valuable members. They came up with a curriculum on analyzing literature in terms of symbolism and characterization and all other forms of brainless activity. They called this curriculum language arts.

The question was, how would they get society to believe such a load of baloney? They thought about it and came up with the "Big Lie Technique." These losers used the idea of "persistence" to get what they wanted; they were constantly annoying people with their loser stupid ideas, and after a while, their ideas started gaining acceptance and "language arts" became a new subject in the towns curriculum. Over the years this subject was more and more accepted and eventually became a mandatory class in all schools. Sadly many people were lost to this horrible conspiracy.

I thought I'd let you in on the secret, these "losers" are our modern day English teachers. I thought it was only fair to warn you, that you should not believe all the trash English teachers tell you. If an author describes a hill as "smokey" it is probably because he felt like it. He's an author and he's entitled to write whatever the hell he wants. If he wanted the town to be smokey, its because he wanted it to be smokey. It's a rather clear concept.

When teaching Dickens, it is obvious that English teachers forget that he was paid per WORD. So when he describes a scene, there most likely isn't any symbolism, or any clear, specific images he was trying to portray. HE WAS TRYING TO GET CASH!! -especially in his later works for example Great Expectations-

When teachers discuss why Dickens created that atmosphere or why he made that certain scene lengthy its not because there is a meaning behind it, but is because he had other motives-CASH!

So next time you hear about someone saying..."OMG I'm so good in English" you know that they really mean "OMG I suck at everything! :-( I guess i must fall back on this loser-ish pile of garbage known as language arts".

(The loser convention was later changed to the ELA part of the board of education- and if you ask any English teacher, how much you wanna bet they won't tell you that the subject was started by a bunch of losers with no skills who decided to manipulate people into believing in their retarded cause).

28 comments:

Shain D. said...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! I could just imagine you saying this...creepy...I told you you should start your own blog, but not about our dearrr english teacher!! ;)

I like I like I like! You should guest post more often!

Shain D. said...

(don't mind me I'm slightly drunk as well...well I've done too many math problems...same difference)

frumskeptic said...

yente: LOL!! I told her to start her own blog, but she was like "I'll only talk about english teachers"

So I told her "SO?!"

Ookamikun said...

Ray Bradbury refused to go accept his pulitzer because of constant misinterpretation of Fahrenheit 451.
Full story here.

My english prof in college was analyzing the incest relationship between Luke and Leia in Star Wars.

Time Machine novel that most people read in school and which is considered a classic has a lot of inconsistencies and the author contradicts himself several times.

These are some that I remember off the top of my head.

Shain D. said...

FS - LOL!! Ehh I think she'd come up w/ other stuff to say, especially cuz we NEVER see our english teacher [/sarcasm]

Originally From Brooklyn said...

So when you said "HE WAS TRYING TO GET CASH!!" you really meant he was trying to acquire sustenance for life. And if sustenance for life is literary contribution then in effect you can analyze what he is saying in the context of furthering contributions for human development.
LOL.

Mikeinmidwood said...

The loser convention also writes all those books on subjects like math,History, etc.
Whoever cant get a job teaches whoever cant teach writes a book.

Ookamikun said...

Dude, just because you suck at math, don't blame the books. I've yet to see a math or chem or physics book that's been written badly.

Ookamikun said...

btw, you got the name of my blog wrong, though thanks for linking

frumskeptic said...

Moshe: "I've yet to see a math or chem or physics book that's been written badly."

I LOVE math. One of my favorite subjects. but the actual Sequential I book (yellow and purple) was TERRIBLY written. My math teachers in PS said the book wasn't good for anything by killing bugs and hurting kids backs. :)

Mikeinmidwood said...

Moshe
Im going to take it that you really like to argue. I like that though I have no clue of what you think of me Ill take it as a friendly slap on the back "Thanks"

Ookamikun said...

Personally, don't remember any of the math books being bad. I guess my teachers had more say in picking books than yours.
Anyway, if the teacher knows how to teach and makes up the homework himself, you don't even need to use the book.

mike, I love to argue. As far as what I think of you...considering your last post on your blog...dude...

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

FrumSkeptic's sister: that was very clever. Actually one of my English teachers did tell us that Dickens or whichever author it was, god paid per word which explains why there are a lot of adjectives. But I agree with you that an author can right anything and there's not necessarily a meaning why they picked specifically that word. But then again, an author could have worked really hard in coming up with exact words that have certain meanings and it would defeat the whole purpose if no one looked into why they chose those words, it would take away from all their hard work. But then again, that's usually by poems where authors put thought into choosing specific words, which is why I never really understood poetry.

FrumSkeptic: "...the book wasn't good for anything... hurting kids backs." That was a great line. Its true, sometimes that's all they accomplished. I remember parents asking that pages in the book be photo copied and taken home so we didn't have to shlep a big fat heavy book for one page of homework, but they never did that. But then it keeps the backpacks/looseleafs industry busy trying to come up with the newest most convenient way to carry books.

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of that scene in Anne Hall where this pompous guy is expounding on some novel, so Woody pulls the author out who tells the guy he has no idea what the books about.

Ookamikun said...

And then there's modern art.

frumskeptic said...

lol!!

modern art is awesome. What else is there that you can spend hours making fun of and still be considered cultured?

Jessica said...

lol. sounds like me in high school. i always used to use the 'Great Expectations' example.

Yehudi Hilchati said...

Literary anaalysis may sometimes get overenthusiastic in ascribing motivation and symbolism far beyond anything the author ever intended. However, that isn't all that English teachers do. The best of them educate students to communicate effectively in a world where clear communication is not just a valuable skill in the working world, but a way to make one's mark on society.

Yehudi Hilchati said...

but the actual Sequential I book (yellow and purple) was TERRIBLY written.

I think they switched to that system right after I finished HS.
The old system of

9th Grade: Algebra
10th Grade: Geometry
11th Grade: Trigonometry

worked much better, based on what I've seen of the sequential system.

(Yes, I know I'm dating myself here)

frumskeptic said...

Yehuda: thats what speech/public speaking teachers do. English teachers make you "find the meaning behind the sentence" in books, and teach you to BS in your writing.

At the end of the day you really don't need an English teacher past like the 5th grade. after that yo need a class in public speaking and a philosphy teacher to teach you to write normal papers.

Aristotles writing technique thing is the best one out there

Yehudi Hilchati said...

FS,

It all depends on how you define "English Teacher". My wife used to be an English teacher, and yes, she taught some literature, but the focus was on using the literatire as a springboard for writing and re-writing essays till the students coommunicated what they wanted to say clearly. The focus was on communication, not analyzing the literature to death.

Anonymous said...

Yehudi Hilchati - Wow, you're older then me. I was the last class that had Algebra/Geometry/Trig. Then they went for Sequencial 1 and 2. Which was bad enough, but now they are in Math A/Math B.

Besically the whole point of Math A is to make students hate math so much that they will never dream of taking again. Math B is for those who were taught real math on a side and weren't conditioned to associated it with stamach aches.

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

FrumSkeptic: by my HS English had a bunch of parts to it. There was spelling, grammar, writing, literature, vocabulary and public speaking, every day of the week was dedicated to a different part. Although grammar was less frequent.

I never heard of sequential math before. I know my grade was the first to take Math A and B and now their going back to 1, 2 and 3. A lot of girls in my HS didn't want to take Math B so they took Business math instead which was adding long columns of numbers without a calculator. But then they got a lessor of a degree.

Mikeinmidwood said...

Moshe

You crack me up

Holy Hyrax said...

I guess you think the same of our "Losers" too: Chazal!

But instead of language arts they had Midrash.

Anonymous said...

She is so cute, I can even imagine her voice squeaking at certain time, and talking really fast :)

favorite anony :)

Shain D. said...

LOL yuppp fave anony!! I'm picturing her now... :)

הצעיר שלמה בן רפאל לבית שריקי ס"ט said...

"The following was written by my sister, who apparently had way to much to drink before writing her english essay on Great Expectations"-

Anybody see the 'Great Expectations' movie with Gwyneth Paltro from '98? I saw it in 7th grade, it was a cool movie, and a cool remake of the book (albeit a bit too sexual for a 13 year old!)

(There was also a very cool song at the end of the movie which is seemingly NOT available on itunes! They're supposed to have everything! ...it's only available on the soundtrack..so maybe I'll do that..)