BS: Cultural losses

Subject: Cultural losses
From: Penny S.
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 04:56 PM

In the last 24 hours I have realised how much our children are losing. In a piece about Philip Pullman's book "I was a Rat", it was stated that, although the story was enjoyed by children in New York, they missed the references to Cinderella. Since the book is predicated on the idea that the transformed rat fails to remogrify to rathood, and falls into dire situations until rescued by the Princess, those children missed a lot.

Today, I found that some references in our school play weren't understood. I have the shepherds turning up, and (to make, I thought, lines that were easy to learn) wrote:

Shepherd 1 We were watching our flocks by night.
Shepherd 2 All seated on the ground.
Shepherd 3 An angel of the Lord came down.
Shepherd 1 And glory shone around.

The innkeeper, being rather rude at the time, then makes some remarks about laundry and socks. The children know neither the original nor the parody. (Parents are already laughing, fortunately.) I feel I need to teach them the original carol (hymn?) simply in order for them to know the parody, that parody is both possible and permissible in the playground (heck, I thought it was compulsory). Mind you, the parody is a bit dated.

Has anyone else found unexpected absences of knowledge?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 05:41 PM

Hell yes!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: MMario
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 05:48 PM

when my nieces and nephews were small their parents and I all found we were teaching them various "kids songs" at home because they weren't learning them elsewhere - it seemed none of the kids knew them.

I think part of this is that in the last few decades there has been more division of kids by age - whereas in the past kids were kids and pretty well lumped together.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 05:52 PM

There are two ways to deal with absences of knowledge like that. One is to alter the material presented so that the absence doesn't matter. The other is to keep on including the stuff people don't understand, and give them a motive and the opportunity to find out what lies behind them.

The latter way is called education, and isn't a bad idea at that. What's the opposite of education? Because that's what the former way comes down to.

The popularity of Harry Potter suggests to me that children are still pretty curious about things they don't know, when they are interesting things.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 09:00 PM

Ex-ducere, to lead out, is the root concept of "education". The opposite would be induction, perhaps, or something even more sinister meaning "to force (another) into a tight black knot of slavish darkness". Deda could tell you what the Latin might be.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Sorcha
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 10:02 PM

In the US, at least, I think a lot of it has to do with the "separation of Church and State". NOTHING remotely dealing with "RELIGION" can be taught or expressed in the public school system, so NO references to the Bible, Koran, etc. are allowed.

As my Mum used to say, "I don't care what your religion is, if you can't understand the references, you are un-educated." There are just too many references in society/literature to ignore religion altogether.

Even though I have tried hard,neither of my children understand referances such as "In My house there are many mansions" or even, "Ask not what your country can do for you", let alone quotes from the Koran, Omar Kahyim, Dickens, Hemmingway, Shute, Rand, Kipling, etc.

Sad, huh? Perhaps Education has reached its' lowest common denominator.........

As in "Teach the least of them and let the best of them go hang". We do, after all, have to teach them all, even the "least" of them........gods forbid one should not graduate from secondary school.......

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 10:43 PM

I think we're trading one set of cultural artifacts for another. Whether or not this is a good thing, I'm not even going to try to speculate.

It works the other way, too. Sometimes I have to get my son to explain some of the kinds of references that people his age understand without difficulty, but I haven't a clue what they're talking about. But I'm guessing that this is all a normal part of the evolution of culture, maybe sped up a bit because of modern technology.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 11:14 PM

Well, I learned to span the advent of electronics, tune transistor radios, pick up all kinds of Disneyland and similar clues from the Great Wasteland, but still appreciated a jolly turn of phrase from Midsummer's Night's Dream or Hamlet -- even took a few classic Greeks on board along the line, although nothing like the classics my grandfather had to learn. But at least I knew the references. Barky is smart as a whip but her "early history" references are mostly lines from Thirties torch songs.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Deda
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 11:16 PM

Sorry, Amos, I can't think of a Latinate word meaning to force someone into darkness or slavery. Induction is, etymologically, the opposite of education.

Both my just-adult kids (21 and 25) are a lot happier living outside the US, because France (for my son) and Israel (for my daughter) have a cultural richness, and a sense of community, that they don't find here. They don't like American TV, American consumerism, American arrogance, American lack of values -- and they were both born and raised in the good old USA. They find it much easier to make connections where they are. My son, currently studying abroad in Brittany, is learning Gaelic and playing Irish music in pubs with local musicians several nights a week. Once of his best friends in Rennes is a musician named Seamus who's old enough to be his grandfather. He just doesn't easily make connections like that in Colorado, even though he'd show up for a local Open mike nights; after open mike night here everybody just kind of went off home. He found people a lot warmer there. He also doesn't need any license to play in the streets there, and nobody looks at him sideways.

This (above) isn't precisely about creeping cultural ignorance, which is actually at levels that shock me. When I was teaching Latin to college students, at the beginning of the first semester I usually had to clear up what terms like "Noun", "verb", "adjective" meant, before I could hope to discuss any finer points of grammar. When I'd try to give them english derivatives to help them remember vocab, they often had never heard of the words; "ameliorate" and "pejorative" come to mind. They thought I made words up. Yes, I think that a lot has been lost culturally. I am a Shakespeare fan, thanks to my Mom, and I dragged my kids to the local Shakespeare festival every summer from the time they were 8 or 10 -- and that's not too unusual in Boulder, but I think it's unusual in America generally.

Interesting thread. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 11:20 PM

Well, Amos, I feel pretty sheepish having to admit this, but my son knows a lot more Shakespeare than I do. I console myself with the knowlege that I know a lot more Samuel Beckett than he does.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Sorcha
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 11:21 PM

Well, hell Amos, Barky is ahead of us here. Kate's refernces are only from Sixties "Oldies" songs......I think she and Barky are close to the same age. Kate was 17 last Tuesday (Dec. 4th)

I keep asking myself about those Oldies..........the '60's is old????? Aw shit..........means I'm Older than Dirt.......

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 11:34 PM

Actually, he knows a lot more about a lot of things than I do. Sheesh. Now there's a humbling experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Bert
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 11:44 PM

the '60's is old????? I know what you mean Sorkiedarlin. Just you wait until you find the sheet music for a song that you remember from your teenage years, and you find it in an Antique Shop;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Sorcha
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 12:04 AM

Already doin' that, Bertiedear.......sad, ain't it? Old we are, older than dirt. Older than mud pies. Do we look old? NO. Do we feel old? YES.......

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Kaleea
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 01:24 AM

The overwhelming loss of "culture" is rather lack of familial & ethnic teachings, beliefs & practices. We have become so well homogenized in our great country that many of us have been "whitewashed" and the ethnic traditions have been removed from us a 100 or more years ago. Add to that the age of media, TV, www, movies, etc, we spend time apart instead of with family members doing family activities which once taught us those teachings, beliefs & practices. Only recently has it been "cool" to be Irish, Native American, and many other ethnicities. Many are interested in "Celtic" traditions & music. I asked one of my Aunts not long ago why it is that we, the grandkids, were never taught to dance a jig, or play the traditional instruments, although I recall that my Granny still danced a jig for us when she was in her sixties while Grandad played a jig tune for her on his harmonica. My aunt replied that the Baptist preacher would never have allowed it. That music, he taught, would lead to wild dancing & thus the liquor, he taught. Therefore, we learned little Irish Music in the home. My great grandmother was not allowed to speak her native Choctaw language, or wear the clothing, or prepare the food, or any other Choctaw traditions. Thus, we had little Irish traditions and absolutely no Choctaw traditions by the time I came along. If these things are to be passed on now, it must be taught in the families. The parents must take the responsibility not only for the proper upbringing of the child (a rare occurance these days), but also must take the responsibility of teaching their children the family & cultural traditions.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Mudlark
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 03:45 AM

I agree that religion has a lot to answer for in stiffling ethnic culture, but I think TV also plays a part in a more general way...some talking head mispronounces a word, and within a year it turns up as a variant in some dictionary. Kid's games seem to be going the way of the dodo too...it's been a long time since I've seen kids playing jumprope, hopscotch, jacks, marbles, let alone mumbledepeg and string games. Come to think of it, I'm beginning to feel like a dodo myself!

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Illuminata
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 07:20 AM

Why mourn for the loss of outdated cultural/ethnic knowledge of the dominant culture? There is plenty of new cultural/ethnic knowledge to be learned, especially by those of us stuck in a rut of over-valuing our own educational past.

Sorcha, I don't know how much time you actually spend in school classrooms nowadays, but it simply is not true that religion isn't being taught in American schools. The history of the major world religious traditions is being taught, but from a humanities/cultural studies perspective, not from a theological one. In a pluralist society such as the one we have in the US, I think we should be much more concerned about a lack of teaching about democracy and democratic values, rather than Shakespeare (which I hated) and religion. I'm a professional educator, and I never hesitate to tell my high school students that I hated Shakespeare, and pretty much still do. But on the other hand, I LOVED Beowulf, which some of the students I work with are currently reading.

I mean, c'mon people--just how tragic is it *really* that our kids don't have a context for Victorian era Christmas songs? As CarolC has pointed out, they have a whole world of cultural knowledge we don't have.

And as to the remarks about the lack of community values in the US vis a vis Europe and Israel, I don't really agree. Despite the fact that many people in the US feel isolated, I think that is most often a conscious lifestyle choice we make when we decide where to live and work, and what we choose to spend our time and energy doing. I have moved around the US a lot in my lifetime (now approaching 50), but I have never felt at a loss for a sense of community because if I can't find a community of kindred spirits, I create one. Preferably a community that takes me out of my comfort zone, and forces me to keep learning about them, rather than perpetually lecturing to others about how great I am (which is what I think people here are doing).

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 07:27 AM

P.S. See Jingle Bells, Batman Smells re: cultural context for children's folk parodies.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Gervase
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 07:47 AM

This is a tricky one - my heart agrees with CarolC and my mind with Illuminata, but with some provisos.
Culture is part of the glue that bonds us collectively, and a part of it, for the Anglophone world,is the old Judaeo-Christian melting pot of the King James Bible, the BCP, Shakespeare and a host of other literary and classical references.
Pick up any book of quotations, open it at random and, if you're over 35, you'll find passages that you recognise and which resonate because you've grown up with them. And by far the biggest chunk of any book of quotations comes from the Bible and Shakespeare (as well as good old Anon/Trad, who is all our grandparents).
Thus, even as an atheist/humanist, I'm saddened by the loss of the language and poetry in which I grew up, be it the Psalms, Virgil, Homer, Milton or whatever.
Admittedly my own kids are unusual in that they've been force-fed with the "old mix" (and are regarded as eccentric as a result - but bugger it, my daughter's got an interview for Cambridge next week), but I'm often boggled and depressed at their contemporaries - some of whom can make neither head nor tail of art history, for example, because the classical references are lost to them. Or who think that Michelangelo, Leonardo and Donatello were three bloody terrapins!
And that's where I have a problem with the whole area of cultural knowledge that we don't have, as Illuminata says.
I love the idea of kids celebrating Diwali and Eid, but I get hugely depressed when all they can talk about is Pokemon characters. Fine, go easy on the Shakespeare if you're going to replace it with something equally satisfying (or update it - like the superb Romeo and Juliet by Baz Luhrman - which will entrance the most cynical teenager), but if you're going to do the cultural equivalent of taking away a national dish and replacing it with a Big Mac...
...pass me my Browning!

And yes, I know I'm a snob, but I'm not ashamed to be one in that context.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: LR Mole
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 08:38 AM

Well, one of the best educators I ever had likened the whole situation to an infinite corridor, with many doors. After people stop having the right to push you around, you can peek into any one you want to, and if you like the company and the aesthetic furniture, you can wander in and stay awhile. Most of us hit a stage where we detect crap pretty quickly (and then go on, or remember where it is, or go in for a good wallow.) And someone's always a little further along than we are.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 08:58 AM

If you don't study religions how can you make up your mind not to follow any? (Or, to put it another way, "know your enemy".)

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: SharonA
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 10:38 AM

Right on, Fibula!

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 11:51 AM

OK - raise your hands, all you people who've studied Zoroastrianism in order to not become a Zoroastrian! Personal beliefs are what we know about and accept. What we don't know about doesn't affect us except in our interaction with others. A culture is made up of what folks have in common. Those things that are passed on through generations - stories, songs, methods for doing things, etc - provide a frame of reference, a language.

I think children's culture changes all the time, and can be quite drastic. My own parents probably lamented the fact that I talked like the dog in the Jetsons instead of Betty Boop, (mis)remembered lines from Star Trek ("The evil must be destroyed. YOU are the evil!!"), but Flash Gordon was a stranger.

Kids don't personally encounter the same things previous generations did. What happens is someone who does remember tells the kids about it, as Penny will be doing with the sock-washing shepherds. Perhaps the greater part of our surprise comes from finding out we're the ones to be doing the passing-on because someone else hasn't already done so.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 12:06 PM

Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away!

Wm Shakespeare,King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Bert
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 12:10 PM

...Culture is part of the glue that bonds us collectively...
Well said Gervase.

Our culture and our traditions are what make our society. Lose them and we lose our civilization. It's our job to teach our children our history, our values, the traditions of our family, our neighborhood and our society as a whole.

That's why we spend so much time here BSing about regional foods and cultural differences and chastizing antisocial GUESTS and talking about the songs which define our culture.

So sing to your kids, teach them how to play gobs and hop scotch and tell them stories of when you were a kid.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Illuminata
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 02:20 PM

People here seem to be only enamoured with the culture they know though, don't they? You are looking to pass on what is familiar to yourselves, not what will be of use to your children. My sister, also a professional educator, refers to this cultural nostalgia as an attempt to educate our children to know our past, rather than prepare for their future.

In the school where I work, we currently have Muslim students fasting during Ramadan--Muslim students from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Canada, in addition to the US. The Latino population has exploded here in the last decade. We have a large Asian American population, Native American population, and African American population.

So who is to say we should force student to learn the English poets rather than the Ethiopian or Indian or Chinese poets? Why are the English poets deemed "classic" but the other poets dismissed as marginal, or worse--substandard to the English poets (which is the argument I believe most of you are making).

We are all rooted in the center of each of our cultural universes. But in a pluralist society we have an obligation to learn about one another's ancestral knowledge, not just about our own. *That* is what makes for an educated person nowadays, in my view.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Deda
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 03:02 PM

I don't think we are derogating any other culture by trying to pass on our own. Are you saying that the western European culture should NOT be passed on? That I should refrain from, or be made less of for reading to my children and grandson the books that I loved as a child, simply because they were written by dead white guys? I don't see that "sharing our experience, strength and hope", as the 12 step groups put it, has to be seen as a put-down of other people. My kids speak Hebrew (my daughter) and French (my son), but not Spanish, even though they were exposed to Spanish starting in pre-school and lived in a state with a large Latino population. These were truly their choices, I would have been quite happy if they had chosen to learn Spanish or Chocktaw or Arabic or Chinese. I guess I don't really understand what your message is, except that we're all somehow culpable here. Culpable for what, exactly?

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Deda
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 03:05 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Deda
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 03:07 PM

PS Here's a serious cultural loss for you -- Walt Kelly. There are no Pogo comics or books to be had for less than $100 at used book stores, at least that I've found. My kids DON'T know "We have found the enemy and he is us" -- just as I didn't know that that was based on a famous military quote, "We have found the enemy and he is ours", I only knew the Walt Kelly version until I married my 11-years-older, history-major husband.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Bert
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 03:09 PM

We can only pass on what we know. As society gets more mixed, we will learn more of other cultures. The original posting was an attempt to combat ignorance. I am sure that everyone who is interested in following Penny's lead will welcome every attempt to combat ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 04:42 PM

Well, Illum, to ignore Shakespeare wealth in order to undersdtand the depths of Sufi poetry would be as large a loss as the opposite. Of course, in an English speaking culture, you're better equipped with Shakespeare in many respects just because of the rich matrix of agreed-upon symbols. There is also the historical element -- the vast majority of our historical events involved people who were part of the meme-river of English perspectives (Anglo-Saxon-Judaic, anyway) and so a lot of implicit values and slants make sense, whereas those of the ancient Persian might not make any even if the words were known.

I see no fault in defending the beauty you know against being slighted. It in no way implies a rejection of beauties yet to be discovered! That is entirely illogical.

A.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 05:01 PM

The important thing is to leave the quotes and the references in place, to be unravelled and to be made sense of - and at the same time to make sure that the children know how to follow up the clues and solve the puzzles. That's easier now than it has ever been.

In the last resort education isn't about passing on information, it's about encouraging people to feel curious, and to discover that if they follow up on their curiosity they find out the answers, and find other wonderful things that they had no idea were there.

And the Mudcat provides splendid examples of how that works, day after day. And if you have to dig around sometimes to find them, that's OK too.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Rollo
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 07:13 PM

Working with children, I am shocked about their little knowledge of literature. And we are not talking about Shakespeare, Goethe, or Balzac here. We are talking about BOOKS.
Okay, maybe times are changing. Technologies rise and fall. The last flintstone factury has closed, because no one needs flintstone anymore. Kids know "Heidi" or "Pinoccio" from japanese anime, but have never heard of Johanna Spyri or Carl Collodi. But how in the world shall they be able to write e-mail when they don`t train reading and writing anymore?
And it is not only reading and writing, it is the numbers too. This is what I call "loss in education". Modern times have other tunes. Who cares about Virgil or Aristophanes today? A small bunch of enthusiasts. But enough not to make them forgotten. There will allways be interested ones who discover the riches of our ancestors. But we must give them the tools - not only to dig in the library shelves, but to master modern civilisation.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 07:39 PM

Ay, there's the rub, Rollo -- to "master modern civilization" means a lot more than getting a credit card!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 07:53 PM

And they still read Harry Potter. Which leads into other things.

And there are more people of all ages writing letters to each other than there ever have been. Except they call them emails and posts and so forth.

The job of schools is to help people acquire a taste for finding good things and a belief in their ability to find them and learn to enjoy them. If teachers think it's their job to stuff young people full of all the things they are going to need and use, they are fooling themselves, because it's never been like that and it never will be.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 11:39 PM

Deda: Books of Pogo comic strips have recently been reprinted. They go at least up to Volume 11, and I think they cover the entire "canon." I think some of the volumes may already be out of print.

However, I remember as a kid having a book called the Pogo Peek-A-Book that consisted of stories that had never been printed in the newspaper. I think the stories were parodies of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. I don't think that one has been reprinted, but I see that used copies are available for around $30.

My son may not know Pogo, but he knows Calvin and Hobbes, which may be just as good.

Let's cut the kids some slack. They may not know Cinderella, but they know Star Wars and Harry Potter, which didn't even exist when we were kids. Unless you're going to suppress such things as Star Wars and Harry Potter, how are you going to prevent one kind of culture from supplanting another?

Our parents (those who were literate, anyway – mine weren't) probably bemoaned the fact that kids were no longer reading "Little Women," "Ragged Dick," and the Waverly novels. But if we hadn't given them up, how would we have had time for Pogo, Ray Bradbury, "The Catcher in the Rye," and "To Kill a Mockingbird" – all of which didn't exist when my parents were kids. Plus ça change…

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 12:17 AM

" Why mourn for the loss of outdated cultural/ethnic knowledge of the dominant culture? There is plenty of new cultural/ethnic knowledge to be learned, especially by those of us stuck in a rut of over-valuing our own educational past. "

yes, perhaps...but there are forces at work in society today, (often economic), that make it very difficult to give kids a decent perspective about 'what was'. I do not expect that everyone should have immersion in Greek myths or Shakespeare...any more than in Ogden Nash or Pogo...but the educational system seems to be content in many cases to not bother to mention aspects of our cultural history that really DID define what our society is today.

Yes, the information is still there, but if it is barely mentioned in the schools, only a minority will ever have any frame of reference for it.

Perhaps there is just too much 'new' stuff that MUST be learned, but I suspect that a lot of the problem is simple distraction by TV, computer games, pop music and the pressures of the 21st century. Did you ever read "Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler? he had some points!!

(I just realized that there is no way I can type in a short post 1/10 of all the stuff I want to on this subject...like the old student complaint..."I don't have time to write a short paper")

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Illuminata
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 10:45 AM

Hold the phone here, folks. This thread was started by someone who bemoaned the "gaps" today's children have in their cultural knowledge. And many have responded with what I would call a very predictable old fogey response.

It appears that some here are operating under some false assumptions about what is and is not being taught in the school curriculum nowadays. The curriculum taught is variable of course (ie accounts for district by district, state by state curriculum requirements, as well as for children's varied skill levels), but is still very much dominated by an Anglocentric canon. Shakespeare and Homer are still cornerstones of the humanities curriculums in high schools across the US. So are the Federalist Papers and the historic contexts of Manifest Destiny. But European folk and fairy tales are no longer the only ones being taught in the schools. And it is through their exposure to the literature (both oral and written) of other cultures, that kids begin to learn about the many cultures they will encounter in their global villages as adults.

So yes, there has been a certain amount of the Anglocentric canon sacrificed, because there just isn't time for teachers to include all of what we were taught, with all that needs to be taught to today's kids. I think that educators have gotten it as right as they can, considering how shallow their own educations were in this regard. Many will still revert to teaching the Anglo canon, claiming it is the "best" example of a folk tale, myth, or version of history. They do this for a lot of reasons, some of which include insecurity about the multi-cultural canon, or arrogance about the Anglo canon, or resistance to learning anything new themselves to update their lesson plans, or cynical laziness--a terrible problem among today's teachers.

In the last thirty or so years, some educators have struggled to broaden the curriculum to fit their students needs to become literate and informed about the vast, rich history and literature beyond the Anglo world. That is the world our children will inherit--a complex, global world where the English language, the Anglo canon, and an Anglo and Anglo American view of history isn't the only world view being taught. Our future generations will be encountering people with dramatically different cultural ways of experiencing and knowing the world on a daily basis. If our children know nothing about non-English speaking people, their histories, their literatures--how will we have equipped them to deal with their world? We need to move beyond this terrible "kill and conquer the enemy" mentality have (especially in the wake of 9/11) about people and cultures from Spanish speaking, Chinese speaking, Arabic speaking, Hindi speaking, etc. parts of the world. There are many more of them than there are of us--English speakers dominate today's world militarily and economically, but not linguistically and culturally. Yet.

Personally, I love Louisa May Alcott. She was an important author for me to read as a teenager, especially as a role model in a world where there weren't many strong women. So you can imagine what a shock it was for me to find out as an adult, that even for all her passion for the cause of the emancipation of blacks, she also was terribly prejudiced when it came to Native Americans and the Irish. I wasn't taught that in high school, but now children reading her works are--sometimes. But only if they are being taught by excellent teachers, who will gently guide their students through the 19th century American writers like Hawthorne, Twain, Whitman, Dickinson, Alcott, Thoreau, etc who point out the prejudices of their day all these writers succumbed to in varying degrees. When children are taught this, they are learning skills which make it easier to identify such prejudices in themselves and in their culture--an important survival skill in today's world.

I know the same thing is happening in other English speaking parts of the world, with the same sort of backlash against a broadened curriculum we see here. But I don't view the development of a more inclusive multi-cultural curriculum negatively at all. I think that in the long run, if we survive the military madness which has gripped this planet since the dawn of the industrial age, we will find a way to live in peace with one another on this planet--but only if we dare educate ourselves about one another. If we just keep educating children to know our own past, rather than educating them about the great and terrible past of other people who inhabit this earth with us, how will we ever make this world a decent place to inherit in the future?

Long, rambling thoughts...sorry this isn't more coherent. But it has been an extremely long week in the urban high school trenches. Which I wouldn't trade for a million dollar paycheck, BTW.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 12:15 PM

"Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire" - WB Yeats.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From:
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 12:18 PM

I guess I am confused by the original post. If this is a religious school or Sunday school...it makes sense they would know or be taught the original carol. If it is a public school setting, then it is one of the songs that is probably off limits. I am baffled by why it is important that they know the parody. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 12:37 PM

Actually, to be perfectly honest, I have to admit that I don't even know what carol and parody the original poster is referring to. And I'm 45 years old.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 01:01 PM

My soon-to-be eight year old is thoroughly immersed in today's "pop" culture. He knows the music, and all that. However, he also can tell you all about King Arthur and Camelot, Robin Hood, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone and a great-great-great-grandfather who was chief of the eastern band of Cherokees. He loves all that is new and modern, but has a respect for, and interest in the past. He can tell you in a flash what sort of music he's hearing, be it classical, jazz, Irish/English/Scottish folk, African and Native American traditional. I intentionally immersed him in all the things that have enriched my life and sustained me for much of my life. On vacations we have done the Disney World/Busch Gardens and all the other "today" kid stuff. We have also spent time visiting extended family in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. At home we go to county fairs, art institutes, powwows, Highland games, sledding, skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, folk music fests, etc. We even attend a Native American winter sport called "snowsnake," when there's enough snow. Anyway, I believe if you are willing to take the time and effort to offer an enriched environment, you (and the kids) will reap the benefits. I worked for years at a private psychiatric hospital, primarily with children and adolescents. Whenever possible, I exposed them to some of the same good stuff. Initially coworkers were positive that our "problem kids" would have no interest in, or use for a visit to the Detroit Institute of Arts or harvest festival at a local farm. However, they soon realized they were wrong. Don't underestimate the "thirst for knowledge." Don't dismiss out of hand the value of passing on values. Sometimes you never know which seeds you sow are going to take root. Whether it's Shakespeare or a state forest, give it as a gift to a child as something that "you might not need this now, but know that it will always be there for you when you do," sort of gift. And if none of it seems to be valued now, know at least that you've given the best of gifts.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 01:03 PM

Sorry, I got carried away and forgot to sign that post. CookielessBD

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 03:38 PM

Carol:

The ancient carol (more ancient than your young self) goes:

While shepherds watched their flocks by night
All seated on the ground
The Angel of the Lord came down
And glory shone around,
And glory shown around....

Many school children learned, as well, a parody involving shepherds washing their socks by night.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 04:12 PM

Thanks Amos.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 06:07 PM

But the fact remains that those who do not know history can easily be sucked in to reliving it; imagine the temptations of a new draft of facism or communism, a new set of bells and whistles and anew generation of ignorant beefy boys and girls willing to jump in to the latest new thing because their elders just don't understand...

Perhaps the same is true of the high points of cultural insight, poetry and philosophical discovery. To my mind ignoring "Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright" is almost as dumb as ignoring Newton's Principia. It is wise to understand "The center will not hold..." , as it is to understand Force=Mass*Acceleration.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Illuminata
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 09:01 PM

Amos, I don't see where anyone here has said we should throw out the baby and the bathwater, so I don't understand why you and some others believe that there is some mystical cultural loss occurring because kids aren't being taught all the same things you were taught.

No one has said they thought it was a good idea to abandon the Anglo canon in English language education. No one. What some of us have said is, there seems to be too much nostalgia over what supposedly is being lost, without providing any proof of it being anything more or less than what has always been lost in the transmission of knowledge from generation to generation (ie cultural knowledge which is no longer of use to either generation).

Why is it that some people are so insistent that this generation will go to hell in a handbasket because they don't know Blake or Shakespeare (and why aren't they asking about American writers too?)? I didn't know any Blake in high school either!

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Bert
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 02:45 AM

Illuminata,
...too much nostalgia over what supposedly is being lost...

That's kinda what us folkies are all about - preserving our traditions.

If we don't do it, who will.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 03:49 AM

No problem, no problem. Them as needs will find. For whatever reason, I learned my first Blake in grade school, not high school; and I felt the richer for it. As for nostalgia over what is supposedly being lost, I am sure a lot of people will get through their lives just fine with none. A lot of people get through their lives without knowing Newton as well. Maybe all culture of this sort is just a bunch of self-congratluatory twaddle, with no wealth really involved, no richess of soul. After all, of what use is it?

I don't buy it. I could not give a whit if my daughter never learns who Gracie Allen was, or if her children never hear the names of the Ninja Turtles or the Lion King. They are chaff. But to grow old without Blake (OR Carlos Williams or Gregory Corso or a lot of American, English, Italian, German and French voices among others) to my mind is to grow old deprived and impoverished.

Thank god we (so far) still have libraries and a huge matrix of public clues that allow those who hunger for this kind of richness to find it.

I did not decry a mystical cultural loss. I think you are misconstruing what I said. There is nothing mystical about it. There is less dialogue, less exposure, less cognizance of what I consider to be important writings and voices in the public domain generally than I experienced before I was twenty. The dumbing down of America is not a paranoid fantasy of mine.

The exposure to more and different cultures, which you describe, is certainly a positive element in the balance. And if you are fighting illiteracy as a teacher, then I applaud you for it. I am sure it is a frustrating job in some respects, and heart-warming in others. The point is not that white dead males should be honored, or some other cultural quirk. The point is that wisdom and beuaty should be shown and shared whether it is penned by a black person or a red person or a white person.

The quote above, that education is a fire to be lit, not a bucket to be filled, is very much to the point.

I don't much care about Victorian Christmas carols, or much of Christmas anything, but it pisses me off to notice how "politically correct" advertisers are not willing to say Merry Christmas anymore, but substitute "Happy Holidays" instead. A cultural loss? Maybe. Certainly a cultural wussiness.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Penny S.
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 05:48 AM

Sorry about my absence from all this very interesting response.

Firstly, Cinderella - it is one of a group of stories with similar themes which are found in many cultures, going back a good many centuries, many of which involve much more interesting females than the "well-known" version. There are also a lot of film versions. It is very odd that it was not recognised. It is part of the basic roots of literature. For instance, the tale "Cap O'Rushes", which is one British variant, is closely related to King Lear.

Secondly, the shepherd's sock song.

While shepherds washed their socks by night,
All seated round the tub,
A bar of Sunlight soap came down,
And they began to scrub.

Not important of itself, and itself well past its sell-by date in terms of the society it is based in. What it did to me was to remind me how little playground culture there is. In the past, these things were passed on by the children, separately from the adult world, and secretively. Now, any playground activity seems to be rooted in the pop world, and the concept that children can add to culture, produce their own versions, and that this is acceptable, has been lost. This is important. Children who grow up knowing that they can be involved in the creation of song, (and parody is a good way into that) are going to be much more involved in music in adult life. Don't we want that?

Here's another (rather sadly):

We four Beatles of Liverpool are,
George in a taxi, John in a car,
Paul on a scooter, blowing his hooter,
Following Ringo Starr.

Observe the adherence to the rhyme scheme of We Three Kings, and the clever use of Ringo's surname.

We don't have the separation of religion from the state schools in the UK, so we do a lot of Christmas songs - but tend to sing the more interesting modern carols rather than the old basics. The tune used for the parody of the shepherds song is a boring four line one. I suspect that if it had been generally learned to the tune used for "Ilkley Moor" there would have been no sock-washing.

The nostalgia I have is for the way we gathered together at playtime, learning a new song that a girl had brought back from a visit to a friend in another part of the country, and the way we then started to build our own, not the songs themselves.

"The Yellow Rose of Texas,
The man from Laramie,
Went to Davy Crockett's,
To have a cup of tea,
The tea was so delicious,
They had another cup,
And left poor Davy Crockett,
To do the washing up." (This was the incoming one.)

"Say what you will, school dinners make you ill,
And Davy Crockett died of shepherds' pie,
All school din-dins come from pig bins,
Why, O why?" (this one never had a satisfactory ending.)

I'm afraid that modern children may have learned that composition is something done by somebody else.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 07:30 AM

If it's true that children in New York don't know Cinderella, in some version or other, something would be drastically wrong. I doubt if it's actually true. Maybe in some deprived high-minded households where the parents have a distorted sense of what is appropriate for their children.

Penny's got her finger on what is significant about this whole thing. It's not that the syllabuses in schools leave out lots of things that are a vital part of our cultural understanding - it's that we seem to have a culture which takes it as read that the way people learn those things are through being taught them in school. (And it seems to me that this is the assumption that underpins a lot of the posts in this thread.) And if that were actually the case, it'd be a bit scary, because it's never how it's been done in the past, and there's no way any syllabus can include all the things we need to learn if we are to nourish our cultural roots.

In fact it's not true, because the things children learn outside the classroom are still far more important than the things they learn inside the classroom. The worry is that maybe, as Penny suggests, the realm within which children are in charge of and involved in passing on and adjusting the culture has been invaded. It seems to have been largely usurped by manipulating adults in the business of packaging stuff they can sell for money - TV programmes, trashy toys, computer games. Or engaged in social engineering and censorship, which is the other side of the counterfeit coin.

As I said, I'd be surprised if there are many children who don't know about Cinderella. But I'd be less surprised if, for many of them, all they know of Cinderella is a video of a Disney cartoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Illuminata
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 08:04 AM

People seem too quick to judge all contemporary culture as "popular" culture. I find it telling that there are UK contributors here, who's only idea of what constitutes "multi-cultural" to mean the dominant European cultures (ie British, French, German, Italian, etc)

While children's culture has changed (it had to change, just as adult culture has, to adapt to contemporary life), to say that children aren't composing just isn't true. It also seems absolutely ludicrous that children in NYC wouldn't recognize the Cinderella tale.

I think folkies do traffic too much in the cultural nostalgia business, and often leap into a rather hysterical mode when this subject comes up. They aren't the only ones, of course. Harold Bloom has carved out a lucrative career decrying the loss of cultural knowledge among our children. My personal opinion is that his theories amount to nothing more than racist backlash against a world that is opening up to the influences of many cultures' traditions.

No one is suggesting children shouldn't be exposed to poetry, drama, music, folk and fairy tales, etc. But some of you seem quite insistent that children should be exposed more to a traditional Eurocentric canon, rather than to canons from other cultures, and especially, from contemporary works of (haughty sniff) popular culture (unless it is Harry Potter, of course).

What I find bizarre about this whole thread, is that so many people who are not involved directly in the business of educating children, seem to think children aren't being exposed to enough of the European canon, when they are. Even Christmas carols are still sung by school choirs for their winter holiday programs.

And frankly, I find it terrible that there is this cultural arrogance which seems to presume we should *still* be having Christmas programs, which only recognize Christian culture, rather than winter holiday programs, which recognize Jewish, Muslim, and African American holiday traditions as well.

That just seems mean spirited to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Bert
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 10:45 AM

Illuminata,

...so many people who are not involved directly in the business of educating children...
Just about everyone here has been involved very directly, but sadly, mostly on the receiving end, of the pathetic attempts that society has made to educate them. Hands up anyone who has never sat in class, bored silly with the subject in hand.

It's not cultural arrogance for us to pass on what WE know, and it would be cultural death not to.

Our kids found that it was the school that denied their American Indian culture (their natural father was Lakota Sioux) and lied to them about their heritage.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 02:35 PM

I guess I have a fundamental disagreement with the idea that children are doing anything differently now with regards to the transmission of children's culture than they did before.

When I was a child, we had a very rich playground culture (As I mentioned before, I'm 45). And yet, I never heard the examples that have been given as an indication that playground culture used to be a bigger part of childrens' experience.

Secondly, my son had an extremely rich playground culture with his friends. It included things I hadn't heard when I was a child, some of which are very old, apparently, such as "Little Bunny Foo Foo", and some of which are more recent inventions.

I think the people who think kids culture has become any less vibrant or valid than it once was are selling the kids of today short.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 03:38 PM

If you think multi-cultutal in the cities of the UK means exclusively European, illuminata, you're surely out of touch.

In fact the other European cultures (French, German Italian etc) are probably far and away less familiar to city children than those of the Indian subcontinent and the Caribbean. (And that's not a complaint.)

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 03:48 PM

The other thing I'm having a bit of a problem with is the idea that if someone doesn't know Blake, or Newton, or Shakespeare, or Alcot, that automatically means all they know is Barbie and Ninja Turtles.

That's pretty one-track thinking in my opinion. I don't know Blake or Newton. I don't know a lot of the people mentioned in this thread who are deemed to be crucial to having a rich cultural experience.

I don't think my experience is any less rich for having focused more on Beckett, Ferlinghetti, Salinger, Stoppard, and Kafka than people who focused on what some people in this thread think is important. Different strokes for different folks.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Illuminata
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 04:23 PM

Thank you CarolC, for speaking sense.

Bert, as a person of mixed cultural heritage (none of which includes English/British ancestry), I am fully aware of the ways that the dominant Anglo American culture's education system has systematically worked to destroy the cultural traditions of many peoples.

My point in this thread is that some here still seem to be pretty intent on doing that very same thing, while shoving their culture down our throats "for our own good".

Also, I have admitted to the failings of "the system" in this thread as well--see what I said about being forced to study Shakespeare above.

McGrath, I didn't say I thought British cities weren't multi-cultural. I said I thought some British posters here were speaking from a culturally arrogant perspective, as if multi-cultural simply meant a combination of the dominant European cultures.

I stand by my ground that one of the most dangerous influences on children is their adult mentors/teachers nostalgia for their own youth being passed off as meaningful education. It isn't. Nor is it "passing on cultural tradition from one generation" IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Bert
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 04:54 PM

Hi again Illuminata,

...worked to destroy the cultural traditions of many peoples... Being of English ancestry I would not notice that. I don't know how much of that attitude is deliberate as opposed to being simply ignorant (as were the vast majority of the teachers I had to put up with in England).

In a lot of ways you are preaching to the choir, because most of us here appear to be very eager to learn of each others culture.

I understand what you mean, at first I thought that you were coming on a bit strong and exaggerating somewhat. But if you've been on the receiving end of the same crap that our kids got in school then your stance is understandable.

Re: ...nostalgia ... as meaningful education ...
Well, I've got to disagree a little here, Anything that is learned is meaningful. It may not be the sum of an education but it is some of an education.

One of the best teachers I ever had (a guy named Tampkins) would spend half the lecture chatting about his life and his family and in the end we learned more about mathematics and life than we did from other teachers who kept to the subject.

Re: passing on cultural tradition, our culture and tradition IS our society . We should all learn our traditions because they form the foundation upon which our society is based. That doesn't mean that we should necessarily be slaves to those traditions, rather, we should use them to understand each other and to form a base upon which our society can grow and progress.

Modern communications in this world are expanding our culture and it is up to us all to learn more about our expanding world.

So rather than belittling the value of our traditions you should be educating us about yours.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: weepiper
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 05:08 PM

Several people here need to get down off their high horses.
As I read it, no-one has suggested "Anglo" culture should be "rammed down" anyone's throat, rather there have been expressions of sadness that kids are missing out on good stories that the adults posting enjoyed when they were young.
I find the idea of knowledge having to be stuffed into unwilling kids depressing. What I also find depressing is the view some posters above have that this sort of passing on of personal cultural heritage should be solely the job of schools. If you found it interesting and stimulating and meaningful and inspiring when you were young, tell your kids about it. Where's the harm in that? So long as you make sure they realise yours is not the ONLY culture worth knowing. I think we should credit kids with more intelligence. Teach them how to find out about other cultures, of course. But as Bert said above, it's not cultural arrogance to want to pass on what we know.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 06:43 PM

it is not possible for most of us to 'know' Blake & Beckett and Brahms and Ferlengetti equally...as has been pointed out, we make our choices as to general styles and areas we appreciate most. What bothers me is not knowing about Beckett if you like Blake or vice versa.

Simple awareness of where Corso and Dostoyevski or Dickenson...or even Ogden Nash....fit into our heritage will allow you to at least not be bewildered by references and allusions....I know you can't do it all, but just reading titles in a bookcase and album covers in a store will make the names familar.....

whazzat? Reading?...yeah, you DO need to try it once in awhile..*wry smile*...How many people do YOU know who will not ever be on Mudcat simply because they find it tedious to scan words on a screen or on paper? I know a couple of people who are so dyslexic and slow that it it just too much work...but they DO listen to books on tape and know a surprising amount!

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 06:51 PM

I guess the problem arises when people start using phrases like "our heritage". There really is no such thing as "our heritage" any more. We're just too mulicultural for that. How many of the great Hindu or Japanese poets are included in the curricula of schools in the US? And yet at my son's school, people of European ancestry were no more in the majority than people of eastern ancestry.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 07:15 PM

if we're multicultural, that IS part of our heritage..*smile*...I know some Japanese things and some Swedish things etc....but my strongest influence is Western European filtered thru midwestern American schools....and let's face it, the evening news, (unless you look hard for alternatives) is delivered by people partly chosen for their accents and background.

Diversity has wonderful aspects, but diversity for its own sake, unregulated, can easily lead to de facto segregation and adversarial attitudes as groups try to retain their language and customs to the exclusion of the majority.......I know this opinion in NOT PC these days, but I live in area where it simply IS a major issue. Not an easy situation to resolve!...The goal is to minimize "cultural losses" while promoting some standards of knowlege, behavior and societal norms.

(yes, I'm aware there are 3 doctoral theses buried in that little paragraph)

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 07:17 PM

"I find it telling that there are UK contributors here, whose only idea of what constitutes "multi-cultural" to mean the dominant European cultures" - I've just read through the thread again, and I honestly can't identify who are being referred to here, and what they said to deserve that.

Of course, except when words like honour and labour andtheatre and so on come up, it's a bit hard to tell the UK from the US sometimes (and even then the "English" spellings might just as well be Irish or Australian, or indeeds most part of the English speaking world outside the USA). But I've tried to see how the contributions which look like they are probably UK (in this broader idiosyncratic use of the term) can be interpreted in this way, and I couldn't do it.

I really don't think there's too much disagreement here.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Grab
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 07:45 PM

Illuminata, surely the point is that if a culture is to be passed onto the children, it has to be done by the adults of that culture? The point that seems to be raised is simply that if adults don't pass on their cultural traditions to their children, no-one else is going to do it for them. Teachers exist to teach facts and methods and to encourage children to think for themselves, not to indoctrinate them with a cultural background.

Taking the "mixed salad vs. melting-pot" idea of cultural mixing, which one do you prefer? Pass on your cultural heritage to your kids, and they'll understand the references made by you, your friends and your culture's literary and artistic heritage. If you don't, they'll assimilate something from their friends at school, and your individual cultural distinctness will be lost - both the legacy of your broader culture (church on Sundays, etc), and the detail of your family culture (from my mum, "everyone have a go stirring the Xmas cake and make a wish"). Whether you think this is good or bad is up to you - I make no judgements on this, I'm simply stating the fact.

And you do have to realise that a culture is pretty much mutually exclusive. You can certainly appreciate different cultures, but it's difficult to be a part of more than one, simply because it's taken you your entire life up to that point to learn that one culture, and that's a hell of a lot to relearn! You can't try to teach your kids all the good points of all the different cultures because they won't (or rather physically can't in the time available) learn the detail, and the detail's what makes you a _part_ of the culture rather than just an observer, as Penny demonstrated in the very first post. There's the classic immigrant problem of the children born in the new country learning conflicting cultures and not really fitting into either.

But if you want to pass on your culture and you happen to be an "Anglo", then this requires elements such as "Three blind mice", Christmas trees, Greek myths, Shakespeare and the Sistine Chapel; if you're of Japanese ancestry, it'll be the tea ceremony, calligraphy and changing your shoes; and so the list goes on. If you're not passing this kind of stuff on, then your child will no longer fully belong to that culture. That's the parent's choice, but if the parent doesn't pass the culture on then there is no other backup, and the end result will inevitably be kids who don't get the meaning in some of what goes on around them (Penny's post again).

My personal opinion, we don't have an obligation to reserach every group's culture in order to understand it. What we _do_ have an obligation to do is to learn a bit of what they believe when we happen to bump into them. And most of all, we _absolutely_ have an obligation not to arbitrarily dismiss a culture as irrelevant or ridiculous until we have some understanding of it.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 11:07 PM

Maybe those of us in the US just have a more fuzzy idea about what constitutes our own individual cultural heritage. In my case, my heritage is Scottish, Irish, English, French, German, Canadian, and Bermudan. In my son's case his heritage is all of those plus possibly some Jewish.

I wasn't raised with an awareness of the specific cultural artifacts of all of those nations. I got a pretty good dose of "American" culture, which, quite frankly doesn't particularly interest me. My son got some of his cultural influences from the things I got when I was growing up, and we chose some others that were new to both of us.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,chrisj
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 11:09 PM

Reading through this interesting thread it does appear that most people are accepting (however regretfully) of some cultural losses from generation to generation (except perhaps in the most 'traditional' societies). Probably this phenomenon has been going on since human beings left the security and familiarity of the cave. It does appear that change means loss as well as gain. Does the www (say) make up for the decline in the study of Shakespeare or Latin? Does the efficiency and relative comfort of modern-day transport balance out the loss of the romance of sail and the steam train?

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 12:40 AM

Actually, Illum, I am completely in agreement that the best approach to the end of December celebration would be to make it into a celebration that acknowledges all religions, cultures and nations, including Shinto, Tao, those who recognize Christmas, Hannukah and the renewal of the year.

My objection was to stores putting up Christmas wreaths, Christmas trees, playing canned Christmas carols directly transcribed from the Chrisatmas tradition, and then ignoring the Christmas face of it by calling it "holidays" so as not to offend people who are not inclined to recognize Christmas. But they still make those holiday shoppers listen to "Oh, Holy Night", "O Little Town of Bethlehem", and "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" as if those spoke to universal human spiritual contexts, rather than predominantly Christian ones.

Maybe we can gradually migrate to something that embraces all human threads in a single end-of-year celebration of survival. That would be a hoot. Maybe we should call it Hootersday!! That would establish a pretty universal human context for it!! We'd just replace Santa with Victoria. Think of all the jobs it would generate, redesigning the cards, wrappings, writing new songs, etc..... it would revitalize the whole planet's economy!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 08:50 AM

My position is that it isn't the place of schools and educators to transmit culture. In a multi-cultural society, that is something to be done by family and one's ethnic community(ies). If that doesn't happen, I don't believe the schools have an obligation to teach one particular canon to make up for what children aren't getting at home and in their communities.

There is one exception to that, and that is when a school's mission is to pass on a particular culture's traditions and teach the curriculum in that culture's language. In the US, this is done either through private education or charter schools. But outside of that specific condition, I see no reason why we should continue to teach the Anglo American canon so exclusively. I have found it to be no more valuable and rich than other cultures canons, either as an educator, or as an individual, despite the protests of Anglocentric parents and professionals, like Harold Bloom and a number of people contributing here.

I absolutely abhor the suggestion that a person who isn't rooted in one specific cultural milieu, is somehow less well endowed a human being. To me, that suggests that people like CarolC and myself are less educated, less aware of the richness of literature, etc. I'm sure people here would not think that is the case, yet if one takes your arguments to their logical conclusion, that seems to be where you end up.

I don't believe for one second that people who have never been exposed to Blake or Shakespeare, who are resident in the US, must somehow be less aware of the dominant American culture's history. One need not be well versed in the winner's version of history, to know one's own.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Illuminata
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 08:53 AM

Sorry, above is mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 09:58 AM

Deda said:

Sorry, Amos, I can't think of a Latinate word meaning to force someone into darkness or slavery. Induction is, etymologically, the opposite of education.

When I was drafted into the army, guess what the word was? I was, indeed, "inducted", and I guess the army culture is fairly characterized as darkness or slavery.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 10:10 AM

Missing Blake or Yeats is optional. Those who seek will find.

But I am convinced there is richness of beauty, in it and that anyone who has not walked among that richness is missing something. This does not reflect on them. People who haven't seen the Grand Canyon are missing a certain beauty as well. Yet their lives may be full of other kinds.

On the other hand, there is lots of richness and beauty I haven't had time to experience yet,

I have only scratched the surface of Sufi poetry and it amazes me.

But an education that did not make Shakespeare, Yeats and Blake available and somehow communicate the influence these voices have had is to my mind missing something important.

So would an education that never made Omar Khayam available.

And it is very much the work of educators to light a fire about these things. And that includes parents.

IMHO.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Gervase
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 10:19 AM

DaveO,
The same word is used in the Church of England (Episcopalian) when a new minister is appointed to a parish - s/he's said to be 'inducted and installed'.
Black arts indeed!

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 11:11 AM

"But an education that did not make Shakespeare, Yeats and Blake available and somehow communicate the influence these voices have had is to my mind missing something important."

I think that's what I said...or at least was trying to say....immersion is not necessary, awareness & exposure are.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: PeteBoom
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 11:53 AM

Part of being "educated" is a basic understanding of where we as a society came from. To sacrifice a general understanding of societal heritage for a preferred cultural heritage is a fallacy. To infuse cultural heritage into a societal heritage would, I believe, be preferred.

Unfortunately, the terms society and culture are often misunderstood and, indeed, used interchangeably. They do not mean the same thing.

A societal heritage is what built the relationships people in the US now have - it, along with the culture, is what built the very fabric that so many people are leaving OTHER societies and cultures to enjoy. An appreciation on one culture need not supplant another.

Granted, the traditional education model in the US has been remarkably centered on the "WASP" heritage of the US. Many do not like that and will substitute "European, Judeo-Christian" for WASP. If you object to the use of the term WASP, I suggest you find a nice, ACCURATE, history of the US, from Colonial times to the present.

The fact is, much of what makes the US what it is stems from precisely that societal and cultural heritage. The appreciation of other, non-WASP aspects is not usually lost, indeed, many people use WASP to identify ANY and EVERY person of European ethnology. (This, too, is incorrect.) The result is a blending or absorption of other groups contributions into society, and its history, and a loss of cultural identity.

A century ago, European immigrants WANTED to lose their identity and become simply "American." The formation of "China-towns" in many large cities reflect an essential racism which prevented the absorption of people into society as a whole. This resulted in a forced bi-lingual sub-society within the mainstream "American" society. The intentional segregation and call for bi-lingual education is a relatively recent development.

Living in an area that is "highly diverse", I can also attest that the language "immersion" programs in my particular area, simply are not working as intended. Two blocks from my house is an "Academie Espaniol" (I'm a terrible speller) - where ALL classes are taught in Spanish. In theory, it makes it easier for the kids to learn. In reality, the teachers' (at this school at least) primary qualification is that they speak Spanish. My grandchildren who went there ("Hispanic" father... why he is Hispanic and not Mexican, the nationality of his birth), when they transferred to a "mainstream" school were a year or more behind in academics, and unable to speak age/grade-level appropriate English - inspite of the efforts of the "meddling WASP" grandparents (never mind that my people were Irish and Scots-Irish and Catholic, hence, a 50-50 average on that accusation - we were White, and the teacher certainly had a point about us "meddling") . Mind you, my OLDEST grandchild is in the third grade NOW - He was in SECOND when he transferred out, the next younger was in FIRST and the one after was in KINDERGARTEN.

I've long held that an appreciation of one's ethnic heritage is important. Also, an appreciation of other ethnic and cultural heritages is ALSO important. The emphasis here is on APPRECIATION - Living in one culture and ignoring what is around you (in the greater scope) for your own comfort (it may be what you were raised with) may be comfortable for you. Your CHILDREN however, deserve the ability to make their own choice.

Living in an American society, not knowing common, western mythic/cultural figures dooms such children to, ultimately, NOT be able to rise out of what and where they were born and raised. Thus, another generation, their children, will be equally doomed to live incomplete lives, outside of the very society their parents sought to exploit. Thus, there is no future, for they have only a segment of their past to build on.

What a rant...

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: PeteBoom
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 12:09 PM

Rant Part 2 -

If one wanted to examine other literary sources for culture and heritage - there are significant Polish, Russian, Czec and Hungarian writers that are simply ignored. I would not mind one little bit if "The Song of Amerigin" was presented alongside with Homer.

Music studies are long gone in most elementary and high schools except for band, orchestra and choral programs. Expanding these to include "non-European" genres would be a challenge - so most do not.

"Special" inner-city school programs making an effort to educate minority students (who tend to be "majority" students at these schools) in their cultural heritage can sometimes go in the exact opposite direction. I remember one year my band was making a presentation on St. Patrick's Day ("Irish culture is NOT green beer...") when I was told point blank, that "everybody knows that all Irish people in America owned slaves before the Civil War."

As a general rule, one should not point out obvious exceptions to the teacher, like, the 69th New York Vol. Infantry - the Irish Brigade, or my relation, Great-Grandfather's brother, who served with the 24th Michigan and died at Gettysburg with some 80% of his regiment.

There.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 12:11 PM

The start of this thread was about the disappearance of simple childhood fun of a sort that was I remember as seperate from that of the adult world, it was ours. It certainly had little to do with classroom activity, more the Playground. The games and rhymes were of the culture I was raised in and I was at the time happy with that, it was childhood why complicate matters. Sufi poetry, henry V and his speech before Agincourt or wondering lonely as a cloud never came into it, how did it happen in this thread, lets all flex our intelectual muscles and impress people. I suspect that kids today have their own secret that are kept from us, some of which may be evolved from the things we fondly remember, much is new, but I am sure they enjoy it. It might be fun to drop a hint about some of these past times and see if they are interested but don't ram it down their throats.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Aldus
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 02:02 PM

Dear Illuminata;

I am deeply relieved that I never had you as a teacher.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Illuminata
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 02:20 PM

The above Guest who posted at 12:11 p.m. has it pretty right I think. This thread has wandered to the point where it is now far beyond the scope the original post.

I'm not interested in carrying on the debate any further, as it has just become too confusing to follow for me. But I wish those of you interested in keeping it up all the best.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: PeteBoom
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 02:43 PM

Ah. Indeed.

Yet, if the parents are too bloody lazy (or uneducated themselves) to teach their children songs of that ilk, and the schools are not allowed to, then there is nothing to parody, and the "simple childhood fun" loses its point. Part of the fun of parody is knowing the words being sung are not the "right" words...

I am absolutely certain that not ONE of the children on my block or in my neighborhood knows the original song referenced in the first thread. Thus, there is no reason for them to find a parody of it funny - and so pass it on...

But, the female enlightened one would know that full well.

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 02:43 PM

This seems to be getting a bit bad tempered.

Sometimes when that happens it's a good idea to think about the music that brought us here in the first place.

A lot of the same issues come up - the tension between the need to concentrate on the music of a particular culture, and a need to be open to learning from, and becoming familiar with other musics from other cultures. The question of how far it is right to expect people to ground themselves in the culture from which they come. The reality that for many people there is not going to be any particular culture within which they have roots. And even when there is such a culture, they may feel more affinity with some other culture. And so on and so forth.

But thank God, when it comes to the music, surely for most of us, none of this is restricted by a need to stick to what we were taught in schools, and to only have any regard for what teacher said was good for us.

And I think that most of us have learnt that in order to make the music, you've got to have a special love of one particular music, and a particular relationship to it, and that is a key to appreciating the other musics, and learning from them.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 04:00 PM

But to get back to Penny's original post - yesterday BBC TV had the first of a three part adaptation of "I was a Rat". Couldn't have been better. Here is a website all about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 04:17 PM

I've long held that an appreciation of one's ethnic heritage is important

I guess one of the points I'm trying to make, and one that might be difficult for some people to entirely understand, is that for many, many people, the issue isn't multiculturalism within the community, but multiculturalism within the individual.

For a lot of people, there are too many different ethnic groups within their own individual mix to be able to learn very much about all of them. That, combined with the fact that in many people's family histories the main goal was to fit into the larger, blended culture (at least in the US), and to cast off any cultural aspects that would mark people as "different" than the dominant culture. So the only "heritage" that is passed down comes from that dominant culture.

Combine this with the amount of moving around that a lot of people have been doing even within the US, and even regional US customs might not get passed down through generations.

For many of us, appreciation for, or even awareness of, our ethnic heritage is just not a relevant concept.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Penny S.
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 04:59 PM

What a hare I've started. I didn't start a long post, covering every possible aspect of my position re Anglo culture, other cultures, the advisability of celebrating Christian festivals etc, because I don't like to include more than one point.

As a teacher, I CANNOT get involved in passing on playground culture. If I did, it wouldn't be that culture, which, when it exists, is subversive, and carried on in supposed secrecy from adults in authority. I can, occasionally, share that I did know, once, or that I remember things which the children refer to. There are games played, and skipping rhymes. As far as I can make out, they have often passed through that oral channel known as The Opies. In the area I teach, there seems to be no trace of creativity in the playground. I would love to see the UK range of activities extended by our Sikh children, or the now arriving West Indians or West Africans. A lively playground culture would do that. It does not appear to have done so. (We teachers can get a flavour of what's going on when we do playground duty. (Do you have that in the States?) We aren't visible unless someone wants our ruling about a problem, or first aid.) The point about playground culture is that is it passed on by children, not by adults, and especially not teachers. Teachers are the people many songs are about.

We'll make a bonfire of St. Peter's,
And we'll burn our cares away,
We'll pile it up with all our homework,
And keep it burning all the night and all the day,
We'll make a Guy Fawkes of Miss Brodgar,
And Miss Parkinson likewise,
......I don't think we ever finished it. (Names altered to protect the innocent.)

What culture I can pass on is my own experience only. I can read poems by John Agard or Benjamin Zephania(?) (but should I use an approximation of the patois in which they were written); I can read stories from the Hindu repertoire, or Islamic culture, Japan or China. I can teach about Ramadan, Passover, Thanksgiving, Diwali. I have done all thse things. I cannot celebrate other people's festivals (though I can celebrate that they have them), without doing offence, not only to my own beliefs, but theirs. It would be playacting, and that is no way to respect others' beliefs. Those who take part in religious acts have to take part in them fully, in faith. Others have to pass on their culture in a personal way. I can't help being what I am, even if I am a member of the only group it is OK and even PC to revile, and my culture is the only one worth flushing away.

The only parody I know about recently is "Glory, glory Hallelujah, teacher hit me with the ruler, father hit me with the walking stick and beat me black and blue." (Though I'm not sure if they know beyond the ruler.) Also two boys who thought that a word in a song resembled one they construed as rude, so they substituted the "rude" one whenever it occurred. In assembly (aka, for our transatlantic readers, the statutory collective act of worship, required by act of parliament to be broadly or mainly Christian in content). Without any attempt to construct a complete verse structure with its own consistency of meaning.

I'm glad that composition is going on elsewhere, though, and the culture is still rich (Carol C.) And Pete, I wouldn't expect your children to know either the original or the parody of a song generated in an English setting - we do have different collections of church verse each side of the pond. Was there a tradition of adult hymn parodies in the US? Over here, it was done by adults, too. Look at the songs of WW1. Perhaps what I have noted is the last of that tradition. Perhaps, too, the verses the children are exposed to lack the literary qualities to stimulate imitation.

Eh Oh.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Penny S.
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 05:05 PM

Oh, and I recall some more evidence. Last year the literacy hour required us to study playground rhymes. The children didn't have many. Some came from their parents. Others, we had to get from --- guess where. Then we tried to write new ones (literacy hour again) - with not much success. We didn't try parody - might do so this year.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Burke
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 06:07 PM

When I lived in Minneapolis, Charlie Maguire was active as an 'artist in the schools.' In his performances he would frequently use parodies he'd learned from the kids as part of his residencies.

I moved 15 years ago so I have no idea if he's still doing it, or what he's finding. What I recall is that the general shared culture that the kids were inclined to parody were advertising jingles. I don't recall specifics, but the content of the ones I heard gave great hope to the idea that kids are not completely taken in by all the ads.

How much of this loss of 'kid culture' is due to adult organization of kids free time to keep them safe or out of trouble? When I was a child we played outside with the other neighborhood kids with the adults pretty remote. We also had several kids in almost every house in the neighborhood to supply the crowd.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST,Wyrdsister
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 06:09 PM

I think the comment about Harry Potter is especially well taken, because, while we were enjoying them as adults, we were aware that JK Rowling was drawing from Tolkien, CS Lewis, Kenneth Grahame, Lewis Carroll et al. The beauty of the Harry Potter seriess that they serve as a "jumping off" point for contemporary children to move on to those earlier (and let's face it, much better) writers.

I agree that our cultural vocabulary is being gradually coarsened and erased by the ignorance and indifference of society in general. Every small strike we can make to keep traditional stories, songs and customs alive must make a difference, and is a cause well worth the effort, because once it's "lost", it can be damned hard to find again, and that's a loss to everyone..

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 07:08 PM

Well said, Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 08:19 AM

Jim Dixon mentioned Star Wars above as an example of new cultural myths our kids have great knowledge of, which we didn't have as children. Last night, our local PBS station aired the excellent "Power of Myth" series with Joseph Cambell. He talked about how well the Star Wars series exemplified the "hero with a 1000 faces" mythology and explained how we, as a culture, still need to create new myths.

Science fiction and fantasy genres are areas where great storytelling and mythologizing is being done all the time in engaging ways. Harry Potter would fall into this category, but apparently Harry Potter is good because Rowling writes for children, but Phillip K Dick and Sheri Tepper are bad because they write for adults.

Because of the cultural condescension towards those literary genres by the intelligentsia, our kids rarely get the chance to read the very stuff that would engage them most in school, and make them avid readers. Why keep forcing kids to read Shakespeare, when the main outcome is it destroys their desire to read at all?

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 09:56 AM

Huh? Who would WANT to force Shakespeare on anyone? We used to make a practice of reading his plays aloud in the family room, playing roles as they came along, and got a great hoot out of it. It made the whole era fascinating.

The only reason reading Shakespeare (or anyone else) would destroy a desire to read is that the reader was so riddled with misunderstanding that it was meaningless to them. Enforced reading of anything is a mistaken approach which all our schools would be better off dispensing with.

A.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 10:51 AM

Stick Harry Potter, for example, on the syllabus and see how long it will be before children go off it.

"Hogwarts would be a less effective school of magic if it did not include Slytherin" Discuss and illustrate your answer with textual examples.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 02:19 PM

Many American schools do force kids to read Shakespeare, Homer, etc. even though there are many more equivalent books/texts to read which are much more accessible to contemporary readers. Which is why West Side Story has been used since the 1960s as an introduction to Shakespeare in a contemporary vein.

Of course, once the kids have zipped through West Side Story, they are force-fed Romeo and Juliet.

I agree with Amos--give the kids a large number of books to choose from, and let them self-select their reading material. Much more difficult for the teachers, but oh so much better for the budding reader.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: PeteBoom
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 02:31 PM

Penny -

Actually, I may have a skewed point of view - or maybe a well-distorted one, knowing the original and parody about washing socks - even on this side of the pond. Part of the point in my rant was that the "mass culture" contains references and understandings about the society which developed the culture. If I had more time than I do at the moment, I'd invoke the comment I heard on BBC world service last night (0300 GMT) about a recommendation to, essentially, educate immigrants (to the UK) about the society they were moving to and help them feel to be part of, not a part from, that society. What I have seen first hand is people wanting the benefits of the culture/society, without adopting the society of their own. Thus, they are neither fish nor fowl. And invariably, it is their children that bear the brunt of their decision.

Now, back to work for me...

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Penny S.
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 05:42 PM

Thanks, guest (which bit?) - I've now realised I can't call to mind any recent advertising jingles. Are they still doing them?

A million housewives every day pick up a tin of beans and say, beanz meanz ....? Spaw, any suggestions?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 06:17 PM

"Fartz" - wasn't that how many people would automatically conclude that one?

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 08:50 PM

I hated West Side Story. I thought making me read it was one of the stupidest things about the school curriculum. The thing that captured our imaginations about Romeo and Juliette back then was when they took us on a school field trip to see the movie version that came out in the early 1970s.

When I was about seven years old (early 1960s), we had a rhyme that was based on an advertisement for a product called "Beefaroni". It incorporated the name of one of the kids in my class. So basing rhymes on television commercials is not a new thing...

We're having Billy Mahoney
He's made with macaroni
Billy Mahoney's such a treat
Billy Mahoney can't be beat
Hooray! For Billy Mahoney!

I called my son today to ask him if he could remember any of the rhymes from his grade school days for me. He came up with these two (in between studying for final exams for the end of his first semester at college). When he learned these, we were living in a very isolated rural community that had a very strong right-wing gun culture...

Joy to the world
the teacher's dead
I barbequed her head
Don't worry about the body
I flushed it down the potty
And round and round it goes

And this one...

On top of Old Smokey
All covered in snow
I shot my poor teacher
With a quarter pound bow

I went to her funeral
I went to her grave
Some people threw flowers
I threw a grenade

He had another version of this last one, but it didn't rhyme as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 09:00 PM

I don't know what it was about Billy Mahoney. We also had this one about him...

Billy Mahoney with the meatball eyes
Pop them in the toaster and you get french fries.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Big John
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 09:34 PM

Culture is the vulture that invades the helpless mind
And gouges out the innocence and leaves the victim blind
Beauty in words and music should be a source of joy
And not a form of punishment for every girl and boy
The schooldays I remember inspired the words above
But they failed to kill my lifelong thrill in music, my first love.

Subject: RE: BS: Cultural losses
From: Amos
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 09:37 PM

Good on ya, BJ!!

A