Saturday, February 18, 2006

And my reading list grows - The Graves Of Academe by Richard Mitchell

At The Common Room, The Head Mistress has several quotes from Richard Mitchell. He wrote "The Graves Of Academe," which hammers the education establishment. I had heard of him before, but hadn't paid much attention to him. After reading The Head Mistress' post I've requested "The Graves of Academe" from the library. If you are interested, you can read an online version here.

I've skimmed the online version a bit. Here is a sample of his writing:

"Therefore, whatever it is they do in the teachers' colleges of America has had and will always have tremendous consequences. By comparison with the attitudes and intellectual habits and ideological predispositions inculcated in American teachers, the acts of Congress are trivial. Indeed, the latter proceed from the former." (From Propositions Three and Seven)

"Even when I became a schoolteacher myself, quite by accident, I imagined that I had been chosen for the work because of my knowledge of the subject I was to teach. It turned out not to be exactly so, for I was soon asked to teach something else, of which my knowledge was scanty. No matter, I was told. I could bone up over the summer. Eventually, I was asked to teach something about which I knew nothing, nothing at all. Still no matter. I seemed to be a fairly effective teacher and at least smart enough to stay a lesson or two ahead of the students. That's just what I did. No one saw anything wrong with that, and the students never caught me." (From The End of the String)

The Head Mistress has more quotes.

1 comment:

Headmistress, zookeeper said...

Ah, yes. That's the thing about reading good books. The more you read, the more you want to read, the more you find references to other books that you must add to your reading list, and so, the more you read the longer your list grows.