Dear Elaine Showalter, You made me feel guilty of what I was not as a teacher !

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If I can still take Aristotle seriously for his “well begun is half done” precept, I don’t have to read anything more for the next six months but to reflect on my New Year pick Teaching Literature by Elaine Showalter. A New Year eve with the words of a brilliant teacher and  a few days we hanged around were life enhancing. I know her from my BA final year. She took us the other day to the wilderness. And now to the labyrinthine world of teaching and teaching literature in higher education in particular. She penned it drawing on her 40 years of teaching around the world and we get it in 176 pages.


As I finished reading the book, I felt I should have read it the day I somewhat answered the question: What I want to do with my life?. If I had by any chance, me and my teaching would never have been the same. I think many of my friends read it years back for I read some of them quote her often.

Four years ago, one of my close friends joined a university as an assistant professor. She was one of the well read and scholarly figures among us  even on our college days. However, she sounded like trying to assert her confidence, as I remember, by posting a quote by Showalter on Facebook:
 
" Teaching literature is not a brain surgery. No one will die if we make a mistake about Dryden" (p.ix)
 
 I didn't know it was from Teaching Literature. Nor did I go after it then. I wish I could reproduce the whole book her or at least the last two chapters: Chapter 9.Teaching Dangerous Subjects, Chapter 10.Teaching Literature in the Dark Times, and Conclusion:The Joy of Teaching Literature. They really electrified the teacher in me. I can't go to lectures any more as I did yesteryears any more.

 

Comments

  1. ErichMarch 4, 2014 at 5:50 AM

    I would LOVE to read those last chapters you mention and the conclusion, hear your thoughts and share mine (humble as they might be) ... Maybe you could make your copy of the text available to interested parties?

    ReplyDelete

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