I think I'm an elitist

First week of the semester. Barely surviving. That's my explanation for the sparse posting. Anyway, I'm teaching comp classes this semester, three of them. Part of what I like to do with a comp class is get the students thinking about complex issues, reading critically, and writing a response. I make them read at least one good book (Booker, Pulitzer, Nobel, National Book Award, even Newberry) during the semester. They have to watch one movie, preferably an Academy Award winner, and they have to review a long-format essay from Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, CJR, or the New Yorker.

This week I went through the typical questions: what was the last movie you watched; what was the last book you read; what magazines do you read. Then I asked them to name one Pulitzer winner from the past five years. I have 75 students. Not one of them could name a Pulitzer winner. One did guess "All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren, which I suppose should make me at least relieved that it did actually win...about sixty years ago. Then I asked them for any Best Picture winner from the past five years. The closest guess: Gladiator. (A movie that had no business winning the Oscar.)

Does it make me an elitist that I can rattle off the last ten Pulitzer winners? Or that I can name the best picture, best actor, best actress, best director, etc., for the past several years? What about having subscriptions to those four magazines instead of Us Weekly, People, or Sports Illustrated? Should I feel hopeless that college students are completely unaware of literature in almost any form? Maybe I should assume they are going to college to learn what good literature/film looks like. Whatever the case, I admit that I was surprised at how uninformed they were, especially since most of them could name most of the big box office successes of the past year. Alas...

Comments

[Leighton]

People learn what they need to know to survive. Eighteen-year-old kids, even the ones who self-identify as stupid, are geniuses at surviving their high school environments and usually their family situations. Most everything else gets pruned.

I ran into a lot of the same thing teaching math and computer science, though my expectations going into it were probably lower. I wish I could say I made more of a difference, but it seems like in practice most kids that age are thinking more about social survival than becoming more aware of the world around them. Most of my friends didn't really buckle down and realize how cool learning is until years after they graduated college.

But when social awareness is becoming more and more critical to our collective survival, and you see people who just aren't...it's scary. I don't have a good response to that.

[ninjanun]

Okay Greg, how does knowing who the past ten Pulitzer Prize winners, and the best actors, actresses, etc. contribute to our collective survival?

I'm not trying to be coy; I really want to know, especially since I don't know these things, either (oh, maybe a few here or there...vaguely).

I'm guessing if you can convey that to your students, you'll have a better shot of making them more interested and involved in their education.

[Jennifer]

Elitist? Maybe. Minority? Without a doubt.

I was at an AP conference this summer. It's not just English teachers, most of them are honors English teachers. We're reviewing an assignment where kids have to review a magazine article of at least three pages and an Honors English teacher blurts out "Well good lord, who reads Vanity Fair?!".

"Well" the instructor says carefully, "I do, and so do my students."

She didn't get it.

Just know that as my classroom begins to directly feed yours, they've heard some of this stuff. Seriously.

[Adam Smithee]

I think it is very easy to come across as "Elitist" and that may be in the way you present yourself. I find people who have spent a lot of time with their noses in a book can typically hold better conversations and have a better vocabulary set as well. So we do tend to look down our noses a bit at those who don't read. Now the debate is to find out if our elitism is warranted.

But if you asked me the same questions you asked your students I couldn't answer them. However if you asked me to give you a list of the books I have read, or currently reading, and I think you would find that they are all classic literature.

I was lucky because in high school my teachers required us to read some of the classics and that is when I started to really enjoy reading. So in a sense it was forced reading but I had to see why the teachers were so excited about these stories as well. In turn I still don't understand why some people have never some of the classics and I almost feel sorry for them. Because I feel like they have missed out on so many exciting experiences.

So I think, if you were talking about a book that you loved and were really excited about. Then maybe you might find one or two who will get hooked on great literature as well. Sadly that's all you can really hope for. But then again you will have also passed a great passion and gift to those students as well.

[Leighton]

I don't know much specifically about Pulitzer or Academy Award/Oscar winners (I never really paid attention until Lord of the Rings, and even then I'd have to look up what those films won)--I mostly follow the Fields Medal and the science half the Nobels. Different career choices mean different knowledge is relevant. But stories and literature are vitally important for our functioning as a society.

Greater exposure to literature and a wider range of stories gives us the ability to make our explanatory metaphors more nuanced and better able to handle the complexities of life. Take our perceptions of our relationship to mentors, for instance. Someone working within a straightforward football game or spiritual warfare metaphor will have trouble with the idea of a mentor (viewed as a coach or senior officer) giving wise advice 85% of the time, giving bad advice because of a blind spot 13% of the time and lying to them for what he perceives as their own good 2% of the time. Even though in practice most mentors have figures something like this, people treating life like a sport or a war look at it from an all-or-nothing perspective: you either trust someone in authority completely, or not at all. Right or wrong, (s)he's in charge, and saying (s)he's mistaken about one thing is the same as saying (s)he's wrong--even deliberately lying--about everything. There isn't room to respect a mentor for her overwhelmingly useful contributions while gently going the other direction when she's in error, because asserting your own judgment against hers--even when you're clearly right--is more destructive for your shared goals than just following her in her wrongness.

Literature and complex stories help provide templates for dealing with other people that will ultimately match real-life situations more closely than the simple metaphors we learn as children. I don't have enough experience in mainstream contemporary literature to give specific examples from there, but I could give dozens from science fiction, fantasy and anime. In Lord of the Rings, Sam saves Middle-Earth several times over because he's willing to override his master Frodo's judgment when he perceives Frodo is being corrupted by the will of the Ring, and these rebellions are born of steadfast loyalty, not betrayal. In Doctor Who, Rose violates the Doctor's orders and connects with the heart of the TARDIS in order to save him and end the Time War; she understands on some level that his goals are impeccable, but his choice of action wasn't the right one. Buffy knows to trust Giles' advice the vast majority of the time, but she'll still knock him on his ass to keep him from getting himself killed. These nuanced approaches are far superior for everyday civilian actions with (responsible, truthful) authority figures than the all-or-nothing unconditional trust demanded by a sports or military metaphor.*

That's just how we perceive one particular kind of relationship. There are also consequences for our understanding of everything else--government, organizational behavior, intimate relationships, ordinary conversations, our own minds.

How to teach this sort of thing to students? No frakking idea. That's why I stick to math; it's a hell of a lot easier.

* This applies more to the metaphor of a sports game as understood by non-professionals than to actual sports games. Some of my athlete students have had coaches very open to suggestions and corrections, and their game-centered view of the world is more nuanced than your typical armchair quarterback's. Likewise, actual people in the military tend to have a more realistic view of authority, hence the phrase "dangerous as a lieutenant with a compass." These metaphors are most hazardous in the hands of people who have never seriously played sports or been in the military.

[Captain Freedom]

Like Leighton's first comment, I didn't really care about learning until after undergrad. Now that I'm in grad school, I find it more important than being up-to-date on social stuff.

However, being a youth minister, I kind of need to be so I am. I think it's just living in your culture. Your culture (I think) is fine wine, great beer, and artsy stuff.

I am not sure knowing the past Pulitzer winners and Academy Award winners makes you an elitist. I would label it more of a nerd but you say tomato, I say tomato

[Dallas Tim]

The Bible talks about knowledge "... puffing up..." That's a pretty good assessment. Knowing things simply for the sake of knowing things is really only good if you're going to be on a game show.

Who cares who won a pulitzer? Who cares who took home an Oscar? The people who participate in those festivities often have mangled private lives and issues/problems just like everyone else.

It's alot like sports trvia. Does knowing who had the most interceptions in a Superbowl really contribute to the overall success of anyone's life experience? (Maybe in the sense that it makes them feel better about how much they know which seems rather shallow).

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with having, as Greg obviously does, a passion for reading and therefore a rather up-to-date awareness of which books/authors/movies/etc... have had success in recent years. BUT if you translate that "hobby" into an "elitist" mentality, then you are only proving the Bible reference I menioned above to be true.

We all know the guy can lift the hood of anything with a motor in it and, in about 3 seconds, tell you exactly why the engine is not acting right. We all know the guy who built his whole 3000 sq. ft. house in what seemed like two weeks. Or the girl who can hear any piece of classical music ever written and tell you the composer, title, year(s) of composition, birthplace and age of the composer when he/she wrote the piece in question.

I think what we have to ask ourselves is "How does what I know help me to help others?" Maybe that affinity for sports drives you to throw the ball with your son(s) in the back yard. Maybe your love of music allows you to participate in some activity that cheers you up and helps alleviate stress so that you enjoy life more with those closest to you.

I think someone who thought they were an "elitist" probably came up with that term. The fact is, we're all better at some things than others. My appreciation for Mozart over your love of all things motorized, doesn't make either of us "better" (although I'd rather know someone who can make my engine work more than someone who can program my radio).

Reading does, as far as I can tell, make one a better communicator, and gives them an edge when it comes to taking in the types of details that help them deal with problems and solutions. Hopefully that makes them a better friend, son/daughter, spouse, co-worker and citizen in general. Not just a know-it-all who looks down at everyone else because they might prefer the Doobie Brothers over Bach.

I guess we're all "Elitist" in some sense. Then again, none of us are.

[greg]

Tim,

You seem obsessed with artists' private lives. My point wasn't knowing things for the sake of knowing them, but year in and year out, the pulitzer is a pretty good indication of the best literary fiction being written in the U.S. The Oscars do tend to focus on very good films. My concern was not that students couldn't recite them; it was that they didn't know ANY of them, which I take to mean they are not interacting with good literature, print or film.

And don't get me started on the Bible...

[Dallas Tim]

Greg,

Here's Wikipedia's definition of "Elitist" (I know Wiki's not the end-all but for the sake of argument...):

"Elitism is the belief or attitude that those individuals who are considered members of the elite — a select group of people with outstanding personal abilities, intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes — are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight; whose views and/or actions are mostly likely to be constructive to society as a whole; or whose extraordinary skills, abilities or wisdom render them especially fit to govern. Alternatively, the term elitism may be used to describe a situation in which power is concentrated in the hands of the elite."

My take is related to the idea that somehow knowing who won an Oscar is "... the most serious..." or that knowing who won the Pulitzer "...carries the most weight."

In other words, someone decided that because I may not know those things, then I'm ignorant of what's more important than say, CPR, or how add a room to my house.

You originally asked if you should consider yourself an elitist because you knew Pulitzer/Oscar winners. All I'm saying is that in those areas, you are adept at commenting and discussing related topics because you are "into" them. Those things are NOT however any more important or serious (as the definition indicated) than a variety of other "non-artsy" endevours.

Maybe we're talking past each other regarding the definition of "elitist." What I had always thought the definition entailed was pretty close to what Wiki said. Pulitzer's and Oscars are nowhere near the most important or serious as far as society is concerned. I would be inclined to think that science, medicine and parenting would rank far higher than a made-up movie about a female boxer.

While I am only being honest as things settle in my mind, I realize that much of what I've said may appear as me belittling something that you take seriously and are passionate about. I hope that I haven't offended you (I'm probably more worried about what others might think as you and I have debated before and have always been able to respect each other's opinions) and I appreciate your comments. I don't know if I would have been as dismayed with your students lack of cultural knowledge as I would have been at a similar response when you checked to see how many guys actually had their pants pulled up to their waist as they walked into class.

Peace.

[Dallas Tim]

I will add that your doctorate degree does mean that you've shown yourself disciplined and should therefore be taken as someone who knows how to think and assess a particular topic and communicate their views on such. Not that Pulitzers and/or Oscars are of more value that mathmatics or geography, but you understand how information is collected and disbursed accordingly.

[greg]

Tim,

I'm afraid I'll have to disagree slightly. I'd like to say that literature and art are on a par with science and medicine in terms of cultural importance. To be conversant in literature won't help you save someone's life (although, I suppose it could help you talk a jumper down), but it will make you more conversant with other kinds of people and contribute to a broadened perspective, greater tolerance, more wisdom, and a more critical mind. I'd like to see students who know CPR and who won this year's Pulitzer. I am happy to report that two students in my first hour MWF class picked up The Road over the weekend. I guess that means I'm doing the Lord's work. Amen.

[Dallas Tim]

Did you ask them if they've read the all-time best seller? ;)

You reviewed The Road in an earlier post and I thought then that I needed to read it. I'll try to find a copy and do so as well.

[Leighton]

Did you ask them if they've read the all-time best seller? ;)

I think everyone should at some point, and also the second most popular. >.>

[Dallas Tim]

You people with high I.Q.'s... you think you're so smart...

wait...

[sepherim]

As long as we are recommending reading on the basis of popularity, Leighton is correct about the second most popular work in terms of editions published, but the undisputed second most popular in terms of sales is "The Little Red Book--the Quotations of Chairman Mao." And third on most lists is the Koran.

I will admit to having read most of the Koran, or to be more accurate an English translation of the Koran, but never could get very far into Chairman Mao.

[Leighton]

Mao is pretty dry. I wonder if parts might not be more interesting in Chinese, but it seems like communist propaganda is pretty boring in any language; too many buzzwords and not enough imagery.