Teacher's Bad Rowling Advice

[davem]

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/s...name_page.html

Embarrassed Steve Eddy revealed how he ticked off the author for her tales about fairies, telling her that they were "too childish".

But the precocious 11-year-old ignored him and went on to amass a £576million fortune through the Harry books....

Speaking for the first time about his famous pupil, he said: "Joanne's work always showed impressive imagination and in class she was always bright and enthusiastic, much in the way of Hermione in the Harry Potter books.

"But when it came to her stories they were always about elves or pixies or fairies. I was constantly telling her that she was at an age where she should be writing about grittier, more real-life things.

"But - thank goodness, as it turned out - she never heeded my advice and kept presenting me with her fantastic stories about made-up creatures.

"Looking back I am a bit embarrassed about it, but I had no idea what she'd go on to achieve."

What's interesting about this is not just that her teacher told an 11 year old girl that she should be writing about 'grittier', more realistic things', but that he considered stories about Elves & Faries' to only be fit for children under 11.

It seems Mr Eddy felt that stories about Elves can't be 'gritty', & that they have no place in the mental space of an 11 year old.

Of course, Tolkien attacked this very attitude in OFS, but its clearly still quite prevalent among the 'literati' (there are numerous reviews of CoH that take the same approach). I find it more shocking that a teacher can think the same way. If it comes to 'gritty' stories, what is grittier than the Icelandic Sagas - or CoH, & Elves & Dragons play a pretty prominent part in those?

But when did this attitude arise? Tolkien talked about fantasy & fairy stories being relegated to the nursery, but why? Haven't adults always loved these tales? Of course, we can find fairies being presented in a 'knowing', mocking, way by Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream, & by contemptuously dismissed by Cervantes in Don Quixote, yet around the same time Spenser had produced The Faerie Queene. At the same time Spenser was using Faerie to allegorise the cult of Gloriana.

I wonder if the situation is changing though? Will the popularity of Harry Potter, HDM (for all Pullman's statements about 'using fantasy to undermine fantasy'), & LotR (movies as well as books) finally put a stop to teacher's like Mr Eddy, or is this attitude of 'write about grown-up things', or 'only write about what you know' going to persist?

Shouldn't teachers be encouraging children to use their imagination to the full? Can't help wondering how many other potential JK's have been lost along the way through following teacher's 'advice'. Would we have had the Legendarium if Tolkien had had a teacher like Mr Eddy?