Klarinet Archive - Posting 001142.txt from 1998/11

From: "Christina K. Loy" <secondtimearound@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Absolutes
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 10:27:35 -0500

Here! Here! Great job, Lelia!

LeliaLoban@-----.com wrote:

> Roger Garrett and Tony Pays both seem so articulate and reasonable that I
> wonder whether part of the disagreement between them results from "culture
> gap." I doubt that Roger Garrett stifles his students' creativity. I also
> doubt that Tony Pays turns students loose to do as they please with little
> instruction. The ease of international communication on the Internet may
> obscure the reality that Tony in England and Roger in the United States write
> in different idioms of the language. Also, they teach students from different
> cultures and different educational traditions, who may need (and expect)
> different things from their music teachers.
>
> Broad generalization is dangerous, but my impression (and it is only an
> impression, gleaned from the mass media) is that education in England was, on
> the whole, more authoritarian than education in the USA in the early 20th
> century, and that as time passed, educational experiments that made students
> more independent of their teachers at an earlier age, such as open classrooms
> and the self-esteem movement, found far greater acceptance (some of us think
> way too much acceptance) in the USA than in England. Perhaps Roger Garrett's
> responses reflect that (age differences aside, of course) students in the USA
> today really do need more structure and discipline than most of them have been
> getting; while perhaps Tony Pays's responses reflect that many students in
> England really do need more encouragement of their individual creativity than
> most of them have been getting. Aside from the nuances of interaction between
> individual teacher and individual student, cultural differences between
> students in England and the USA may mean that teaching methods that prove
> appropriate and effective in one country might work less well in the other.
> Thus some of the difference of opinion about "Absolutes" may simply mean that
> Roger Garrett and Tony Pays both know how to adapt their personal teaching
> styles to reinforce the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of their
> nations' educational systems.
>
> I think that TV and the Internet are evening things up, and that the cultural
> differences between students and teachers in England and the USA used to be
> far greater, but maybe I'm over-generalizing from vivid memories of my
> experience as a student of novelist David Lodge. He came to the University of
> California at Berkeley as a visiting professor from England, in the academic
> year 1968-69, when I took his creative writing seminar as one of seven upper
> division students he chose from writing samples and interviews. That year was
> the height of the campus unrest, including the People's Park riots and the
> Third World Liberation Front riots, along with the ongoing turmoil over the
> Vietnam War. With the campus out on strike, we met at night, in a classmate's
> home. Naturally this situation made all of us tense, produced culture shock
> for everyone involved and fostered misunderstandings galore. Professor Lodge
> later wrote some delightful, pointed social satires, including _Changing
> Places_ and its sequel, _Small World_, based on his experiences as an exchange
> professor. In their respective contexts, Roger Garrett and Tony Pays are
> probably both excellent teachers, to judge from the thoughtfulness (not to
> mention the intensity) of their dialogue, but it would be interesting to see
> how they'd adapt their methods if they, like Lodge's fictional American and
> English professors, Morris Zapp and Philip Swallow, changed places.
>
> Lelia
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> "The highest form of writing is of course a book of one's own, something that
> has to be prepared with tact, subtlety, and cunning, and sustained over many
> months, like an affair. But one cannot always be writing books...."
> --David Lodge, _Small World_ (Macmillan, 1984), p. 99.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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