#let the kids be angry abt the public education system dictating how they interpret media i think | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

equalseleventhirds · 3 years ago

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every once in a while the 'blue curtains' discourse pops up again and every once in a while i sit and stew on it and then once again wind up going,

'critical analysis of media is an important skill that is valuable to learn' and 'a lot of the classes teenagers, especially in the US public school system, are sitting through that claim to teach literary analysis are doing so badly and it's perfectly justifiable for those teens to be angry & frustrated with what/how they're being taught, and fucking adults on the internet shouldn't be mocking them for being stupid when they express this'

are ideas that not only can but must coexist, actually

(yes i know i've said this before but god this keeps showing up, and i do keep repeating myself vaguing about it, sue me or w/e.)

#listen 2 me. if i stuck to what my high school english teachers claimed was 'literary analysis'#i would be part of the 'but the author didn't MEAN to be racist/homophobic/etc so the bigoted subtext doesn't exist' crew #bcos for some reason my high school teachers focused exclusively on authorial intent as the be-all-end-all #(or uh. supposed authorial intent. lord of the flies was taught as....... u kno how it's taught.)#i learned better from better teachers later!#and also i was a CONTRARY child and got in arguments with my english teachers that did in fact lower my grades #but not everyone has the better teachers later or the luxury to argue with bad ones #let the kids be angry abt the public education system dictating how they interpret media i think #(also like....... if the teacher says blue curtains mean sadness and a student thinks the author liked blue #the student is in fact interpreting the text. among other things they think the blue curtains are positive somehow.#and a GOOD teacher would encourage them to dive into that and ask like. what makes you think this? does this seem like a happy scene?#similarly before you adult on the internet start lecturing children abt how seeing the sadness in blue curtains is something they must do #in order to be smart and good at symbolism or w/e #possibly consider that they are seeing symbolism. just not being taught how to articulate that bcos it differs from what is dictated to the #*them #.................bcos that was absolutely my experience in high school #and someone being high and mighty on the internet about how i was stupid for being frustrated with this #would not at ALL have inclined me towards learning whatever bullshit they were trying to say.)

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