"At a book launch in Canberra this month, Prime Minister John Howard said approaches to teaching literature, where graffiti and SMS messages shared centre stage with Shakespeare, robbed students of their cultural heritage and that much of the curriculum had been dumbed down and made politically correct"
“Imagine … English courses where great literature is on the same footing as Australian Idol, SMS messages, graffiti and movie posters” (Donnelly, 2007, p. 6).
“ … subjects like history and literature have been dumbed down and made politically correct” (Donnelly, 2007, p. 115).
It seems to me that Donnelly is a ventriloquist.
Besides, "a book launch" was actually Donnelly's book launch. Good on you John - you read the intro and said all the stuff you were meant to. And I love the free advertisement of the book, as well as its launch by Howard, at the end of your column, Kevin.
I'm also wondering if we could now change the three Rs to "recycle, recycle, recycle"??
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Seems ironic to me that all this fuss is being made about Shakespeare who is now considered 'high art'. Why ironic? Because in his day he appealed to the masses - he was popular and current. I would imagine that if he were around today he would be utilising sms text types and anything else he could appropriate.
Perhaps if our current leaders and others harking back to the past in the education debates understood the nature of problematic knowledge as well as the nature of the information explosion (for want of a better term) they might have more sympathy and empathy for today's teachers. Then again, maybe they'd like us to toss our dictionaries and retrieve Samuel Johnson's original and then we call all pretend that even our language is fixed in time and space.
Hmm, now if only Einstein could have a few words or perhaps the quantum physicists...
I like you argument, DebraPoet!
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