The Evolution of Education (What Evolution?)
Nobody Reports
Today, I was rummaging through my old Shakespeare book, and read this at the beginning. Read what Shakespeare had to go through in school:
“From grammar the boys progressed to studying works of classical and neo-classical literature. They might read anthologies of Latin sayings and Aesop’s Fables, followed by the fairly easy plays of Terence and Plautus. They might even act scenes from Latin plays. As they progressed they would improve their command of language by translating from Latin into English and back, by imitating approved models of style, and by studying manuals of composition, the ancient rules of rhetoric, and modern rules of letter writing. Putting their training into practice they would compose formal epistles, orations, and declamations. Their efforts at composition would be stimulated too by their reading of the most admired authors. Works that Shakespeare wrote throughout his career show the abiding influence of Virgil’s Aeneid and of Ovid’s Metamorphoses Certainly he developed a taste for books both classical and modern; his plays show that he continued to read seriously and imaginably for the whole of his working life. “
Imagine our children getting that kind of education today? They didn’t even do this when I was a kid. I remember how much trouble I had learning to read. In the first grade my teacher wrote my mother and told her she was worried about me. I simply could not catch up with the other kids. Then one day, she took an hour out of her day, and explained it all to me. (Imagine that happening today.) I had dyslexia, but back then, they didn’t really know about that. I didn’t find out until late in life, that my brother had it, as does my son.
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To this day I spell many words backwards. And even when I read it, if there is a mistake, and the spell checker misses it, my brain says it’s right. Luckily, that teacher gave me a gift, the love of reading. Once she explained it to me, I was off and flying. But, what if I had learned REAL grammar? The proclivity I have finally found as an adult, wanting to write, might have developed when I was even younger.
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At this stage, I feel like I’m still in second grade.
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As you can see, what Shakespeare and his fellow classmates learned went even beyond our English majors in college.
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Getting A and B’s were easy the rest of my life, and I was smart enough to know what I wasn’t being taught. When I got to high school, I LOVED Shakespeare, and understood him as easy as breathing. Finally, I thought. Something worth reading. My essays, if I may say so myself, outdid many of the things I write today. But all the A’s on my essays were downgraded when I refused to take off my makeup in drama class. My teacher was FURIOUS. (a man) I had the worst case of acne, and I just would not do it, and so therefore, I got a C. I started to hate school.
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My last year in high school, I was so bored I wanted to quit. My dad, talked me out of it, and that was that, I stayed in. But I have NEVER had a love for schools of any kind. I’m afraid I didn’t do much better in college. Oh, I got A’s, but I was furious with the teachers, the systems, the whole set up. I wanted MORE not less. When I read the Education of Henry Adams, I felt like I’d come home–okay, this contempt for the educational system runs in the family. I forgave myself, or should I say, Henry forgave me.
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Thank goodness, I was tired of blaming myself.
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But I almost dropped out of high school, which would have been a disaster. And now, 6.2 million kids a year drop out of high school in the United States. Kids are frustrated….and bored. They introduced John Dewey and the rest is sad history.
Reading, writing, and arithmetic are old rhymes in a old book.
Reading, writing, and arithmetic are old rhymes in a old book.
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The biggest mistake our schools do, is put the brightest of their students out to pasture, while they spent countless hours trying to keep the slow ones “equal.” Is it any wonder so many of them turn to video games?
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The United States is 17th among nations in education. Even in the land of Shakespeare, most of their population is right along with us. What does this mean?
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I have no idea. Only that, we have come a long way baby when it comes to teaching the minds of the young, the evolution of education in America, is going back to B.S. —Before Shakespears.***
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Say about…two thousand years.
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I am a nobody. If the different classes of America were color-coded, I would be in the yucky brown, one rung up from the bottom. I grew up in Naples, Florida and live near the Mississippi River now with my husband and two dogs. I am part of the slowly disappearing middle-class. I was a musician most of my life: drummer/singer/keyboards—but I retired before the plastic surgery flu hit. I have no degrees, which could be a good thing…depending on how you view our educational system. I do have three patents…but that really doesn’t make me a somebody. The one thing that is constant in my life is my OPINIONS, which i have more than perhaps even Carl Sagan could have imagined…mostly political. (yes…my ancestors were crabby buggers)
Hopefully other nobody’s will put their opinions on my site. But, if you happen to be a somebody, you’re more than welcomed to help out.
It’s my Nobody Opinion that Nobody’s Perfect, and Nobody Cares, that Nobody Knows why Nobody Wins, and when that happens, Nobody Wonders, why Nobody Flashes, why Nobody’s Fooled, but then Nobody remembers that Nobody ALWAYS Reports the truth.
You can email me at joyanna_adams@yahoo.com
Joyanna Adams
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Thanks for all the info amfortas. I would have LOVED to have had that education..
Nevertheless, we both know that it takes more than degrees to be intelligent, and I’m honored to have just such an intelligent reader/writer putting his opinions here every day.
We all learn from you sir.
Here in America, the best grammer schools are Catholic, and they are disappearing fast.
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The entrance exam for 10 year old into Eton ( a Charity School at the time) in the late 19C would challenge and likely defeat a Uni undergrad today.
I am far better educated than my children.
I left school at 16 after three years of almost constant truanting. A very naughty boy! They went on until 18. I went to a Catholic Grammar School, run by Priests. I had muslim, protestant, jewish and even buddhist peers in the same class. We did Latin and French and German and Greek. And Physics and Chemistry, Geography, English – Lang and Lit – Mathematics, Biology. That was for starters.
My children went to private schools (high fees too) with a Baptist and a CofE bent. They were both indoctrinated in ‘social justice’ and secular values. My daughter came in the top 15% in the State.
I am far better educated than my children.
What happened?
Modern teaching and social engineering. That’s what happened.
In 1900 0.07% of the Oz population went to Uni. A terrible 0.04 male and 0.03 female. How sexually discriminatory.!! That is to say, 99.6% of chaps did NOT go to Uni, and 99.7% of chapesses didn’t either. It demanded REVOLUTION in attitudes and vast taxpayer and legal ‘help’ given to women.
Now almost half go to Uni at around 18, and the gender split is 45% male and 55% female. Not sexists at all it seems.
I paid for my Uni. All three degrees. My children had theirs paid for by me and the State. My daughter dropped-out after 6 months. My son waited until 35 before doing a BSc, so he could be sufficiently worldly-wise to overcome the sheer feminist agitprop nonsense that accompanies the student daily life and infiltrates every course.
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