Literature set books, above learners’ heads

24 May, 2019 - 00:05 0 Views

The ManicaPost

Morris Mtisi Education Correspondent
WHILE every mind-set is busy adjusting and transforming perceptions about how to do things in a new Zimbabwe; education changing from the old to the new curriculum; Education 3,0 to Education 5.0; the criteria used to choose set books for schools seems to have changed in many ways but one.

Those with power invested in them to choose what literature learners must study have visibly changed things here and there. Thank you. We cannot say every change was for the better, especially as the overall pass rate in ‘A’ level Literature ironically never shifted significantly from the bottom, but they were important changes on the whole. There is need to repeat to say thank you.

What these changes have failed to do is make Literature join the Histories and Divinities in the Arts and Business Studies/Accounts in the Commercials and of course the sciences like Biologies, Chemistries and Mathematics at the top of the pass rate.

‘A’ level students continue to fail Literature, some schools continuing to have Grade Cs and Ds as their best. Everybody knows this trend but no one seems to understand why? Instead of investigate the challenges and problems and finding a solution, many schools stop offering Literature citing reasons that are not only childish but laughable and obviously wrong and mischievous.

The truth though is that there is something wrong no one has yet quite put a finger to.

Let me suggest one possible reason and one reason possibly one of the major ones if not the major one.

One hidden reason is the choices of set books . . . the prescription of study material. Most of the set books handle stories and issues way above the heads of the learners’ experiences. Most of the learners are between 17 and 19 in Form 5 or 6.

They can all rot-learn or cram enormous amounts of stuff. They can remember it and reproduce it as found in text books with amazing accuracy. But in this age group how many learners are mature enough to comprehend, in adequate depth and sensitivity, issues brought about in most of the Literature set books?

Most of the set books rigmarole around political themes: conspiracy leading to assassinations, bloody struggles, tensions and coups, power corrupting those who have it and absolute power corrupting absolutely; love themes and other complex regimes of social interactions . . . dilemmas, fears, anxieties and joys of adult characters. There are not many set books that feature in their plots or narratives the life experiences of the learners. How are they supposed to grapple with such huge, sometimes ‘‘irrelevant’’ issues of life?

How are these ‘‘baby’’ learners supposed to understand Justice and Injustice, Conspiracy and Betrayal, things that appear one thing and yet are another in reality, Reversal of values and other complex regimes about life that are not and cannot be subjected to a formula?

These are huge concerns and issues that affect adults? Are they adults yet, at 17 and 19? What do they know about love? Adults have not understood love since the first romantic couple Adam and Eve. How can children understand it?

How are these babies supposed to match brain-cell to brain-cell soliloquies spoken and inner conflicts experienced by English kings and queens in Shakespearean masterpieces-Julius Caesar, Macbeth, King Henry . . . the list is too long? How are they supposed to understand the complexities of the characters of Julius Caesar, Brutus and Mark Antony?

The cheap ambitious nature of Macbeth and the reversal of values by Lady Macbeth; the complexity of simple allegoric narrative and the frailty or futility of political ideology in Animal Farm! How are ‘‘children’’ supposed to get to the bottom of these difficult issues evasive even to adults?

How many of these 17 and 18 year olds understand the realities and the  shenanigans of a political plot; the depths and complexities of love, its pleasures and pains; the ugliness, hostility and meaninglessness of the world, especially the one we live today? These are issues adults are grappling with to understand and find too puzzling to contend with. What more of children studying the books?

They are expected (these children) to understand what elders find to be permanent puzzles of life. They are expected to make sense . . . to comprehend the nonsense adults find incomprehensible. They are expected to resolve issues that adults find irresolvable and stretching far beyond their range of understanding life.

Let us look at She No Longer Weeps (Tsitsi Dangarembga): Fascinating story! No doubt about that! And what do teachers do? They literally tell students what they ought to and must know. They share their interpretations of the life in the story. In the name of teaching, they force their own understanding of characters on the learners and say ‘‘This is what this character stands for and this is what Tsitsi meant and wanted to show?’’

Every set book . . . has an answer book . . . a commentary, written or not written, imposed by the author and teachers or independent commentators . . . a literature hymn book of sorts for all to sing from.

Where does the democratisation of learning come in? Where are and how are the learners’ opinions and points of view expected to thrive? In your mind? In your blackboard notes? In the commentary?

Everybody ‘‘agrees’’ in those rigid classes that Tsitsi is saying this or that and teaching this and that? Every author strives to do so. Let me ask this. In her attack of Patriarchy is Dangarembga saying Feminism is better? In her anger is she saying stupid and suppressive men, like Freddy, must be killed? Were all the Freddies we have in these troubled marriages taught by African culture dubbed Patriarchy to behave like wild animals in a home . . . in a marriage? Who told these writers that this is what Patriarchy stood for? Who told them?

Does anybody qualify to take anyone’s life on account of being wronged, abused or bullied? What is Tsitsi saying? Is she saying it would be right to kill all women who today hate men for whatever reason? Is it right to perceive man as the devil, exempting the only devil we know to be roaring against God and what belongs to Him everywhere he is . . . all the time? Satan is the devil we know. He is the cause of all hell on earth. If he uses either man or woman to destroy what God loves, is it wise to advocate elimination of the tools he uses? How correct or wrong is any human being who sees life without the inclusion of the Creator?

Instead of teaching humanity to identify the devil . . . the real Satan and his works, we teach each other to hate and kill one another in relationships and marriages. When admittedly our persecutor dies, we call that a relief…a reason to make a spouse who was dancing the same unhealthy dance in the dark . . . not knowing what to do and what must be done . . . we call that reason good enough to no longer weep?

Where is the rightness . . .the righteousness if you like, of that kind of thinking?   Do we correct the ungodliness of marriages by killing those we claim to be the culprits in the battle of sexes?

Once you think it is your wife, you kill her and enjoy matrimonial relief? If you think it is Freddy, you kill him and no longer weep? Here is one set book people have not started analysing intelligently.  The set book is old but its readers and learners need to re-arrange their critical thinking and deepen their perception of the motive or agenda behind the book.

What good is this set book doing to our future mothers and fathers . . . our children in the schools? How do you know what you think it is teaching is what they are learning from it? If you stop ‘‘feeding’’ them and telling them what you want, what is the learners’ own interpretation of the same story? Try it. Ask the learners.

Do not patronize them or intimidate them with threats of poor marks. You will be shocked at how they do not agree with a lot of the heresy forced upon them by outside political correctness championed by ‘‘simple’’ teachers.

And yet She No Longer Weeps is a fantastic set book! It opens a Pandora’s Box no one can claim to be containing what is correct or wrong. It opens a can of worms no one can claim to be harmful or harmless. And that is what good literature does. It provides food for thought that is not limited to the narrow-mindedness or whims of a few angry minds. Good Literature exhibits what is good, what is bad and what is ugly about itself.

This is only an illustrative digression. Remember the point I was making . . . I am making, is that the set books learners are studying today . . . most of them, are above the heads of most learners at 17, 18 or 19.

Are 17, 18 and 19 year old Literature learners mature enough to see that far beyond the set books schools ‘‘force’’ them to study? Or they remain in the ordinariness . . . in the narrow-mindedness. . . let us call them intellectual limitations, of their teachers and writers of books they study for examinations?

If we teach our children that Literature is an exploration of real life; let us not teach it as if we mean it is only stuff to feed examination markers.

We must teach it to teach the right values and perceptions about life.

Literature must teach the right values in life . . . teach the correct growth, and not just be a hotchpotch of abstract intellectual gamut. Literature must be an intellectual practical subject, not a source of theories and ideals of life. It must be perfect Guidance and Counselling.

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