I always cherished English classes in high school, especially since I usually ended up with good teachers. In 9th grade there was Mrs. Saunders and Mrs. Dasovich. In 10th grade, Mrs. Labs. In 11th grade, Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Hedstrom. And in 12th grade, there was Mrs. Sinkler and Mrs. Saunders again for AP Composition. I was lucky to have these women teach me English; I was lucky that they were good teachers as well. I would be lucky to have such good teachers for the rest of college.
People seem pretty split on the teaching of English. You don’t meet people who are “just okay” with English classes. You meet people who either adore it or loathe it. On my part, I never really understood why people loathed English class. Granted, I was a semi-neurotic who checked out his weight in books from the library every week; nonetheless, it seemed to me inconceivable that anyone would have hated this subject. The only reason I could surmise for a legitimate hatred of English would be someone having had a bad teacher, which can ruin any class.
I was especially befuddled with people’s common explanations for hating English class: “It’s too much work,” “I don’t like being told what to think,” “All that damn analysis!” Worst of all was the explanation that people liked reading, just not for English class. And in many ways this is unfair. You wouldn’t protest your history teacher if they told you X happened in year Y, or if your math teacher gave you a proof, or your science teacher a chemical equation or theory.
For a long while I had a mindless aversion to math and science. I figured (as anyone might) that because they dealt with numbers and otherwise realistic calculations, they were the diametric opposite of what I was interested in (mainly reading fiction). So I shut myself up in books and aspired to never take such classes again.
However, over the course of last semester, I had a change of heart. I had come in undeclared, entertaining an English major if nothing else came up, but I quickly became enamored with Environmental Studies. For me this wasn’t some whim, this was a real desire. It was a real enough desire that I declared Environmental Studies as my second major (along with English). So of course, doing science (be it biology or other physical sciences) will be an inevitable, integral part of understanding the environment.
And I don’t mind it. I understand that if I want to complete this major, I have to take science courses. Certainly it’s a shift from what I’m used to, but I’m not going to blame my professors just because it isn’t my favorite course. They will receive just as much respect as my professors in other classes, a practice, unfortunately, I’ve never been particularly adherent to in the past.
It’s a teacher’s job to teach, even a class as subjective and seemingly “soft” (compared to math and science) as English. All those English teachers you had in high school, or will have in college, were paid to make you read and analyze and think about literary works. It’s no different from a history teacher teaching history, a math teacher teaching math, and so on and so forth.
In this way, I understand why people don’t like a particular class, and why English may be a focal point of disgust or derision. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. But the adequate response is not loudly proclaiming it and rushing headlong in that direction. Be conscious of why you don’t like it. And consider that behind all the literary analysis (and the historical explanations and theorems and zenith-angle calculations) there are real, working people. Try not to be so dismissive; you might actually learn something.
Did your high school English teacher ruin your formative literary years? Tell Sean at sreichard@wisc.edu.
