Johnny Howard is now bitching and moaning about the "post modern gobbledygook" that our kids are being made to read in school and lamenting about the loss of the "classics"... this from a man who wouldn't know a "classic" if it came up and bit him on his toad-like arse!
In my opinion, every copy of the so-called classics such as 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' should be gathered up and hurled into the flames so that our kids will have an opportunity to read a few books with relevance to their lives.
When the hell does a book become a classic? Are the current 'classics' destined to hold this niche forever more? Will my kid's kid's be quoting TS Eliot to their kids and wondering as I did why the hell am I reading about this sad f&*ck's miserable life?
Thanks to Jacinta in Melbourne for digging up this lovely little snippet of information:
Christian Kerr writes:
Come again, Prime Minister?
The Prime Minister calls postmodernism “gobbledegook”. As good scholars of English, we've had a look at our Macquarie dictionaries and discovered a derivation for the word the PM may not have known ...
gobbledegook:
noun written or spoken nonsense. [originally US military slang (1940s) for `red tape', from the earlier slang phrase gobble the goop to perform fellatio]
Image: real books - none of that classic shite!
3 comments:
Why get the kiddies to read books at all? they should be reading 15th century manuscripts that are handwritten in ink on parchment.
Actually, he called Outcomes-based Education "gobbledegook." In other words, he doesn't understand it (and doesn't care to educate himself): therefore, it must be bad.
As I said on Mr Lefty's blog:
"While I disagree that the "classics" comprise the foundation of English or English Lit. (as high school subjects)--there is no natural or scientific reason why a certain body of texts described as "classics" deserve this special status--there is definitely a place for them in the syllabus alongside the popular-culture texts that Howard and the Murdoch press peanut-gallery so deride. Intertextuality is one good reason: pop. cult texts quote as readily from the texts of the old Canon as they do from each other, that the notion of a rigid demarcation between "high" and "popular" culture begins to look a bit silly. Second--while it is important that the subject be as relevant as possible to the everyday experiences of students (including what they are reading and viewing outside the classroom)--the texts of the old Canon are often (though not always) more demanding and challenging than their pop. cult. counterparts, if only because the register, style, grammar and vocab. of the classical texts are bound to be unfamiliar to many high school students. And presenting students with texts that are demanding, challenging or unfamiliar has educational benefits of its own."
glad to know the proper meaning of gobbledegook ... and how to spell it! lol...
Post a Comment