How do we fix highschool English so it stops producing plebs?

How do we fix highschool English so it stops producing plebs?

We could stop teaching symbolism, as if that were the be-all, end-all of literary meaning, for one.

Remove all YA fiction, start teaching philosophy and theology again, also latin and greek. Oh that won't happen, well guess we're stuck with plebs.

>government schools
>ever producing anything other than plebs and drones

nuke america

This happens outside America too.

so does mcdonalds

I'm aware. The newest American thing to appear here has been Hersheys. It's in all the stores now.

I worry about the day Wal-marts start cropping up.

>Hershey's
Holy shit did the Jews actually get non Americans to eat bar shaped shit?

Yes. They've even got us in on the weird flavors, like "candycane" flavor.

That said, the only Hersheys I've ever eaten was the stuff my parents brought back from Hawaii, which was before it started cropping up in our stores.

I feel bad for non Americans and how they experience America, they always get the cheapest and blandest parts of the culture shoved down their throats and assume it's all that terrible.

You should see the television.

I really fucking miss the days when I could turn the television on and watch the national sheep dog trials because that was an important part of our culture.

And I am sick to death of the movies. Too many that look and feel like American propaganda, and which are just bizarre and alienating to a non-American (but still first world Western) country.

>the national sheep dog trials
Wtf? Where is that? Wales?

I get to enjoy American music and movies without having to live in a country that will elect Clinton/Trump, without having to deal with shitty far left movements like BLM, without being surrounded by obese people. Honestly the best way to enjoy America is to be a foreigner.

don't worry, every American with a brain and an ounce of perspective (so maybe .03% of us) are sick to death of our shitty films and their foreign derivatives too.

I love American and being American but I hate our cultural stranglehold on the world. However it's not really up to us to loosen our grip, it's up to you to free yourselves from it.

In the UK, bring back grammar schools. Atmosphere of intelligence incentivises people to not be plebs. They even teach latin to a good standard

>Remove all YA fiction, start teaching philosophy
just these two would be absolutely fucking massive

American culture isn't that bad elsewhere. In some countries the movies and fast food are American, but it typically ends there. Actual food isn't American, the TV isn't American, the culture and crony capitalism isn't to the levels of America and the language usually isn't American English.


Though American culture penetrates other cultures, it's difficult for those from the outside to see just how different those cultures are from America - almost no country has the same lack of history as America, so naturally their cultures would be a more complex amalgamation that the 'freedom from state control' combined with its status as international top dog that defines the US today.

Yes, I mean this is the obvious solution when educational attainment in areas with grammar schools is low and the areas which do best are those with totally undifferentiated schools, certainly grammar schools don't simply act as a fast track to mediocre middle class kids.
Read some cunting statistics on education before you opine.

>Too many that look and feel like American propaganda

As a non-American, I'm quite sick of superhero movies. They kinda remind me of western movie from the 50s. It's already clear who you should support after 5 minutes.

>Fast track to mediocre middle class kids

Of course, hence why a higher proportion of disadvantaged non-white kids make up a grammar school than a comprehensive. Grammar schools would not have any issue of being oversaturated with the middle class if a higher proportion were built and lower classes didn't adopt a neglectful and dismissive attitude towards education.

I've read some cunting statistics, and grammar schools are underfunded, produce top students and are a positive and productive learning environment, as long as parents encourage their kids going in and the state supports them on the way through.

I went to a school that taught philosophy, theology (they called it something different) and Latin AND Greek, I still read young adult fiction because as a 14 year old nothing is more entertaining

I didn't pick up this book to be reminded that I, at the tender age of nearly 30, did not achieve literary success or begin to chart my way into the literary world at the age of 12. Not all of us studied literature at 12. Not all of us starting writing novels at 13. Maybe the book gets better after the first part, but the first part drove me crazy. I don't need nor want to be reminded in subtle ways that I am not a prodigy. I wish the author had left her educational/literary privilege at the door.

true that. even newspapers just copy past crappy articles

...

>I really fucking miss the days when I could turn the television on and watch the national sheep dog trials
I wish I was like you/easily amused

>far left

Encourage students to enjoy real literature. I feel like I was cheated in school and had to find just about every good thing I ever read on my own. And the odd good thing that did come up in school had all the fun sucked out of it by the boring ass ways they taught it all. Romeo & Juliet is meant to go over a couple of hours, not a couple of months.

I don't know how this would work. The IB program that i took for upper middle class kids looking to study internationally had philosophy programs but they were complete bullshit and the teacher couldnt properly explain Kant's ideas on metaphysics so i spent a few minutes reading plato.stanford to understand instead on the night before the exam. ive some cousins in France where philosophy is apparently compulsory in year 12 and apparently its complete bullshit. the education system as a whole needs an attitudinal reform

tfw french exchange student came to my school and they had to do philos + didn't have a favourite philosopher

Fuck dude. I did the full IB diploma program at my school and I've considered uploading all of the TOK class texts that I still have for Veeky Forums to critique. Also, as a side note, I took IB in the United States at a school where a majority of the kids were living in poverty and none wanted to attend college internationally, so it might have differed a bit from your "upper middle class kids looking to study internationally" program.

Also, I took a shit ton of AP classes, got my IB diploma, got a perfect score on my SAT test, and ultimately realized that I had been meme'd by the American education system, AMA.

I don't know about the uncivilised world and in particular the United States where the majority of il/lit/erates hail from but English classes over here is what instigated my interest in 'proper' literature. In our stage 6 (year 11 & 12) program, we studied Faust, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mrs Dalloway, Hamlet and the Ambiguities. That being said, I went to an extremely prestigious and expensive boys' private school where most teachers were qualified to be professors.

this

also what really needs to happen is the American educational system needs to grow some balls. We read four books total my senior year of high school, Hamlet, Oedipus Rex, Candide, and A Thousand Splendid Suns. We spent the most time out of those on Candide because the people in the class wouldn't stop fucking around. Students could read more and read better literature if schools would stop pandering to students who are blatantly fucking with the system. If they won't participate in learning the material then they should fail.

>latin and greek
>philosophy and theology
Filthy memer. Replacing plebs with boring autists won't do any good either.

What is needed is a rich and stimulating environment with all kinds of different stuff and a bit of freedom to choose to study what one wants except for the essentials.

It would also be good if outside of the essentials there would be much more difference between schools. I wouldn't mind a school that teaches latin, greek, theology and philosophy as long as there are other schoos that do somethin else.

I had latin, greek and philosophy at school, and we never read any ya fiction other than maybe one book in 7th grade.

I'm pretty pleb today. I mean, probably more patrician than the average pleb, but I would have probably ended up the same without reading the Politeia in 9th grade.

Good ideas, would never be implemented thanks to No Child Left Behind. Bush's worst idea ever.

Please kill yourself.

>lack of history as America
???

>>lack of history as America
Not that guy, but the tiny cow village I grew up in was founded centuries before Columbus sailed across the Atlantic. This is not even an exception over here, but rather the rule.

I am not saying that the Americas don't have a history, but the western culture there is still pretty young, compared to the history of Europe atleast.

What the author meant doesn't mean shit. The recipient is the one who finds meaning in a pice of art, otherwise it wouldn't be art.

High school English is perfectly capable of producing people with interesting taste in Lit, they just have to have a natural interest in the subject. There's nothing wrong with the way it's taught and the books that they study are normally a good selection.

This.

Stop thinking that back in ye golden days everyone was a literary patrician or shit like that. Actual literature was always a niche hobby.

The highschool I went to was really adamant on class participation. If you didn't raise your hand to ask a question or add to the discussion at least once a week, you lost your participation points for that week. Never participating at all could actually have a pretty bad impact on your grade. What this resulted in was an occasional good discussion, but also a lot of retarded people asking retarded questions just to get their points.

We put an end once and for all to aesthetic relativism and cultural relativism.

>I worry about the day Wal-marts start cropping up.
They tried to penetrate the German market way back and fucked up on so many levels that it's a famous case study about the dangers of ignoring cultural differences.

They also own Asda.

I get that, but there's definitely plenty of history here. I think it just annoys me when people say this and then say it's because it's not as old as certain towns here or there in other parts of the world as if the age implies the history.

oh hey other people who did the IB meme.
TOK was a fucking joke but my English classes were pretty good. Introduced me to Hesse and Flannery O'Connor at the very least.

>how do we fix
SHIGGY DIGGY

in 12th grade in the US we read hamlet, inferno, frankenstein, invisible man, crime & punishment, and others

That being said, I went to a public school with a lot of minorities and poor.

fucking awesome

The first thing we should do is educate our youth on the proper use of the word "plebeian"

>The Picture of Dorian Gray

No wonder you're all gay

symbolism is easy to grasp

I don't know where the fuck you are. We read Frankenstein which is garbage, Macbeth which is steaming garbage, brave new world which is actually pretty good, and some other garbage

I don't care about Shakespeare's cultural impact, nobody fucking reads it and it's boring there's fuck all interesting to talk about besides one or two cool lines in the whole play ("life is but a poor player that struts and frets upon the stage etc etc sound and fury") I'll kill myself before reading Shakespeare again; the only one worthwhile is the Tempest but is required reading nowhere

in fact I'll even say the only cool part about reading Shakespeare was reading brave new world afterward with all the references other than that absolutely worthless

>I don't care about Shakespeare's cultural impact, nobody fucking reads it and it's boring there's fuck all interesting to talk about besides one or two cool lines in the whole play ("life is but a poor player that struts and frets upon the stage etc etc sound and fury") I'll kill myself before reading Shakespeare again; the only one worthwhile is the Tempest but is required reading nowhere
. . .

Tempest was required reading for me. I fucking hate it, one of the worst of Shakespeare's works. It goes absolutely nowhere and 90% of it feels like filler. The only interesting character is Prospero

Feel you on Frankenstein though

Problem? The only time anybody turns their brains on during an in-class reading of Shakespeare is when the teacher points out a dirty joke. I only get substance out of Shakespeare when I read about it secondhand (ie "How to Read Like a Professor", Brave New World, etc). There's nothing to talk about, discussions are forced, essays are trite, there's basically no way to get properly immersed in the actual cultural context of Shakespeare's time. Trash high school reading. The teachers pretend to really like Shakespeare for some sort of retarded respect that nobody really cares about.

I just have a personal thing for stories that go nowhere, so I can understand that; which is why I liked Catcher, even though the entire class complained about it every step of the way

tell that to dickens m8

Grammar schools still exist.

I went to one, it's still operating. Birmingham has about 6 of them

>We were forced to read Paper Towns in my sophomore year of high school because some student wrote an essay about why it's important literature
>It was supposed to help us understand "Song of Myself"
>Half the class ended up writing a prose explication analyzing fucking John Green for the final
>We never even read all of "Song of Myself"

>american education

It wasn't about amusement. It was legitimately valuable information with the potential to directly impact a good portion of our economy.

There's something like 20 sheep per person here. It's good to know how the dogs are performing.

Now it's just the Simpsons and soap operas.

>I don't care about Shakespeare's cultural impact, nobody fucking reads it and it's boring there's fuck all interesting to talk about besides one or two cool lines in the whole play ("life is but a poor player that struts and frets upon the stage etc etc sound and fury") I'll kill myself before reading Shakespeare again; the only one worthwhile is the Tempest but is required reading nowhere

greentexting is the easy way out
fight me kid shakespeare is trash
only the edgelords enjoyed shakespeare, and only for superficial reasons

Dickens is writing easy to read literature though. He's not like Ulyssey.

Oh God, I feel bad for you, user.

Even my third world country still teaches worthwhile national literature instead of fucking YAs.

Might as well tell society to go back to the 18th century.

Dan Schneider posts on Veeky Forums?

>symbolism
god all the plebs cling to symbolism for this show

I go to a grammar school in a selective area (a lot of people do a test, top 40% or so pass, if you pass you get to go to one of the several grammar schools).

grammar schools are shit. your ability to do some dumb test at 11 has no effect on anything.

almost everyone i knew were all tutored by the same old lady (nothing extravagant, in classes of 30 every week). 1/3 of the test is verbal reasoning (tall is to high and short is to...) which kids have never done before.

its like the whole thing is designed to dampen social mobility. also comprehensive here a literally zoos because they dont have anyone smart.

if you want, differentiate after gsce's.

>differentiate after gsce's.
That's how it was before Cameron. In fact the often perceived as dumb technical colleges were really good in this respect since those that didn't want to learn just stopped turning up after a couple of weeks (which in turn means very good teacher to student ratios, often as good as private schools).

A lot of people shit on the comprehensive system but I think they're amazing and the teachers are incredibly highly skilled. But because private school education is so fenced off it isn't always obvious. Look at the statistics and you'll see private school class sizes of ~5 will often still have one person failing at GCSE level, which is a fucking joke to a comprehensive teacher. The whole Grammar school system gets rid of the "we're all in it together" attitude that a decent comp can foster too (and is the kind of attitude one finds at the top US universities and makes them work so well).

I think even when grammars "worked" it was a bit of an illusion: talking to some people who went through it they were often told they "were the best of a bad lot" or similar, the ones who succeeded academically often had private tutors (as it is now in general), and a lot of grammar schools liked to try and mimic private schools and would charge an arm and a leg for school trips and uniform and so on.

Compulsory participation is cancer, lots of students are just dumb or not interested and most of the questions and comments are either trivial or idiotic.

The only difference between a grammar school and a comprehensive is the barrier to entry. By keeping the lower graded (poorer) students out of the school they can attract better teachers due to the better reputations of the schools and this is why the results are better.

Bring back classical education and do away with sjw bullshit. Of course, this will never happen, so the rise of the curious autodidact will continue.

Your silly comment is a perfect illustration of your complete lack of understanding.

>lack of history as America
You see, many Europeans seem to think an American's cultural understanding only goes as far back as the founding of the US. What they seemingly cannot grasp is that it's not that difficult to trace our cultural heritage back to Europe, where the idea of America was born.

>also comprehensive here a literally zoos because they dont have anyone smart.

I attended a comprehensive in a grammar school area and can confirm that this is true. Out of a year of circa 200 students, I was one of, say, 10 students who were truly, academically intelligent. It was hell for a kid like myself who was overly-earnest and loved learning.

It really fucked me up and I ended up underachieving. Fortunately, at 23, I'm now on the right path and doing well at university.

The education system needs fixing but I don't think grammar schools are the answer. I'm not completely averse to academic selection, but I don't think the current 11-plus exam is the way to do it.

Schools aren't really the problem. Like people in the thread are saying to get students to read better book and learn Latin and Greek and the like, but what is the point? No one i knew at school even read the assigned texts as it once, and no one learned a foreign language through classes, and this is relatively easy ones still in use like French, let alone trying to teach people Ancient Greek.

You will have to sort of the larger cultural problem, not just blindly attempt to reform the school system.

>5 minutes
Here's a little hint for you: you're supposed to support whoevers name is in the title