When You Are Oppressed, Or Ten Weighty Reasons for Teenagers and Their Parents

[Encaitare]

I wish the Downs were considered supplementary for schoolwork, because that is a truly awesome idea. Unfortunately we're don't study Tolkien in school so there would be no such circumstance. It would be cool if there were boards like this for other books.

Parents might be particularly happy that we don't allow slash and are a PG 13 site. (Well, assuming that parents would object to slash,...)

I explained slash to my mom, and she just sort of nodded and was all, "Oh, that's... nice." My poor mother; she's so patient with me and my insane friends.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

I go out with friends, I spend time with family, I have a great job and help teach at school ...

Originally Posted by Encaitare

Nah, I have a healthy social life.

I did not mean to suggest that you didn't, and I had no one in particular in mind. I was just slightly concerned by some of the comments suggesting that people would far rather spend all day on the internet than go out socialising in the real world. As I see it, places like the Downs should be regarded as a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, real life interaction. That's certainly how I intend to approach it with my children when they become old enough to be interested in these kind of things.

Of course, I can talk. But then I'm a father of two young children, so I'm not supposed to have any kind of a social life.

As for teaching, I was completely put off it as a career choice when I saw how we treated our teachers at school aged 14 to 15.

I was actually introduced to The Hobbit at school, and I think that it makes ideal reading for 8 to 10 year olds as it provides great scope to exercise the imagination. I don't think that LotR was quite considered serious or "academic" enough at my school for serious study by older English students, although I would certainly consider it sufficiently so. As has been suggested, some of the discussions that go on here on the Downs can testify to that! And those of us who were into fantasy literature, Dungeons and Dragons, wargaming and the like did have a rather "dorky" reputation with the "cool brigade", so I doubt that LotR would have gone down too well with them. Then again, we did do some really good books for English literature at O-level and A-level (as the exams were called when I was at school, back when the world was young). 1984, Wuthering Heights and A Farewell to Arms were three books that I studied that I particularly enjoyed. And it seems to me that LotR offers as much, if not more, scope for serious study as these books. As for length, well I had to read Great Expectations for O-level, although I read the abridged version having left it to the final few days of the holiday. Then again, I would plead a natural allergy to Dickens (although I still got an A grade for my essay ).

[Mithalwen]

I too have a natural allergy to Dickens but I forced myself to read 50 pages of "Our Mutual Friend" each morning when I woke, and another fifty before I slept in order to complete it for the start of Upper Sixth. I called it my penance and never read another Dickens until I had to do Bleak House for my degree. the best I can say of him is that having slogged through the first 700 pages, the last 200 were relatively diverting. Irritatingly I seem not to be able to escape him. I was given the complete works which are (apart fromBH) unread and take up an obscene amount of precious shelf space. I lived around the corner form his birthplace for a while and later across the bay from Bleak House. I left town at festival time.

Since we are getting bizarrely competitive about teaching careers I will take the gloves off.

At my interview I was told that the person I was replacing had gone off sick. On my first day, I found out she had had her face smashed in by a 12 year old pupil.
I should have walked then and there but I stuck it out. I was sworn at, assaulted and sexually harrassed. My property was stolen. My desk and door handle were covered with spit and other bodily substances. My office door was kicked in. Someone tried to set fire to my hair. This is in addition to the usual living hell of the class room and still trying to do your best for extremely damaged children. Oh yes, I was also stitched up by the management as a scapegoat for the school inspectors.

So unless you started crying at 4 o'clock on Sunday afternoon because there was school again the next day, seriously considered slashing your wrists as a preferable alternative and are still not entirely free of the repercussions seven years later, then no your experiences were probably not worse

BTW Apart from having limited time ot cover such a long book, cost might also be a factor in not teaching LOTR. Full price each volume is six or seven pounds and at least double that for the one volume version. That will make a big dent in a dsepartmental budget when you can get older "classics" for a fraction of that .

[tar-ancalime]

As for length, well I had to read Great Expectations for O-level, although I read the abridged version having left it to the final few days of the holiday.

Yeah, I was supposed to read that too, in the ninth grade. As I recall, I "abridged" it for myself: I read the first 50 pages and the last 50 pages.

Which brings me back to the thread topic: if it's so easy to avoid reading for school (and yes, still make good grades), isn't it encouraging for parents to know that their teenagers are reading and discussing literature in their free time?

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Oooh... Poor Mith! You win! Where in the world could you possibly be teaching where it could be that horrible? It sounds to me like (apart from a lot of other things) they need a bit of Tolkien in their lives!

Fea

[Encaitare]

Wow, Mith, that's terrible. My sincerest sympathies! Were you working at a "regular" school or one for "troubled" individuals?

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Well then, Mith, I think you have yourself a dire problem there!
It is events of that sort that lead me to make a T-Shirt that said "Death to the none discriminated against", Being one of the few Tolkien fans in my school, I am discriminated against, so I like to make them think about how they would feel about it... However, mostly it results in my loss of limbs.