English Teacher

[KayeG.]

I have come late to this party. I only heard about the podcast a few month ago, and I decided to start from the beginning and "binge listen" until I catch up. I am currently on episode 62. One thing I have noticed and heartily disliked in many of the 62 episodes I have listened to is the way the term "English teacher" is used in the sense of an ill-informed, rigid, surface-skimming, too-romantic person, who never will be smart enough or hip enough to really "get" Tolkien. I would venture to say most if not all of us came to Tolkien because some English teacher somewhere taught us to love literature, taught us what good writing sounded like. If they are rigid in the rules with beginning writers, that is only because beginners need parameters. I have never, ever had an English teacher or a professor tell me Tolkien or any other seasoned writer was a bad writer because they broke those rules. In order to break the rules, you need to know why the rules exist and how they can be manipulated. But that's not a job for a student writer. I have learned that people commenting on this podcast heartily dislike anything that they believe smacks of sentimentalism or viewing things in broad strokes. It is clear to me this course is led by someone who likes to dissect nearly every word and almost scientifically examine the plot, the characters, and the syntax. I have no problem with that, but not to the exclusion of any other way of looking at this work of art. There is room for a big-picture view. There is room for just enjoying the beauty of a turn of phrase or seeing Christian or other symbols -- not allegory -- in this writing. There is some of that in the discussion, but most of the time, when it is brought up, it is immediately shot down with an "English teacher" remark. While I am enjoying this almost word-by-word discussion, I am missing some of the beauty, some of the richness I find when I simply read the text and don't linger endlessly over a single word. There's room for both points of view, and so while I understand which point of view this podcast takes, and I accept it, I would ask, politely, if another term could be found for describing those you now describe as "English teachers". I am not an English teacher, but I would love to have been, to bring young minds to know the beauty and power of language and literature. It is demeaning the way you use that term. If you must say, "English teacher," at least qualify it with "some" or "poor" or some other adjective. But I would ask you, on behalf of all the English teachers and professors I have known and loved, please find another term.

 

[smithneil]

This is a common cognitive mistake of any person who believes that their experience applies to everyone. People who are unlucky with English teachers believe that all their colleagues are the same angry pedants. It is not pleasant to hear such statements from people who seem to know about literature. My English teacher was a wonderful person with whom we discussed Hanya Yanagihara and Theodore Dreiser. He loved literature and knew how to distinguish between the beauty of a text and an idea. I haven't listened to the podcast, but I was touched by your experience. Moreover, I'm currently helping my sister with her job search as an English teacher here https://aquinaseducation.co.uk/main/teaching-in-the-uk/teaching-jobs-london/. Such statements offend me for several reasons at once.