For centuries, poets and philosophers have debated who has the greater claim to certainty and truth. For the last century, philosophers have gained ground on the poets. Wedding science and philosophy has yielded technologies which change our world in miraculous ways. Building on the foundational axioms of set theory, for example, the philosophy of mathematics has advanced our understanding of reality, generating miraculous technological advancements. Programming Languages, data structures, networking, cryptography, and AI all begin with the development of set theory, just to take one example. Thinkers such as John Dewey exploited society's love affair with the scientific innovations born of philosophical thought in order to promulgate his own decidedly non-abstract philosophy. Dewey crafted an experience-based educational regime devoid of the practice of religion and the contemplation of fictions. In the United States, a demystification and secularization of K-12 education followed to disastrous results.
As a result, language arts in American K-12 classrooms became--in many places--a sterile and soul-crushing experience where students rarely fall in love with reading literature.
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As present-day English teachers, it is our job to reclaim the helm of language arts pedagogy by rekindling a passion for stories in the hearts of our students. This requires a two-pronged attack: first, revisiting the debate between philosophers and poets is a necessary scholarly task for all of those who teach humane letters. We need a rallying cry, a call to engage others in a discussion about how to stir a frenzied ardor for our beloved Western Canon. Second, we must fight to teach enlivening works of classic literature in the classrooms where we currently teach, with no quarter given to the utterly spent, failed, and nonsensical practices of modern language arts education. As Shakespeare's King Henry exhorts: "the game's afoot: Follow your spirit and upon this charge / Cry 'God for England Harry, and Saint George!" (Henry V, 3.1.32-24).
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Rallying cries are useless, however, if teachers remain isolated; no single individual can right this ship. Currently, most teachers in K-12 education are afraid to express an opinion or speak against the prevailing ideology. Consequently, rehashing the debate over
1) whether reading works of real literature in their entirety is worthwhile and
2) (even if we grant the truth of 1), what stories should be considered central to the proper education of American students is essential.
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Hashing out 1) and 2) requires a place where teachers are able to talk freely. We therefore need to read, discuss, and demonstrate intellectually the centrality of literature in successful K-12 education through dispassionate, extended, and vigorous discussions. Unfortunately, from college campuses to the K-12 classroom, there is an embargo on freedom of speech in the West; fear of reprisal and authoritarian repression have silenced many voices and deadened many minds. Teachers truly need a forum to civilly, creatively, and safely share ideas.
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Implicit in my assertion that teachers need a dedicated and protected dialectical stomping ground is a belief that reading literature contemplatively should be the aim of K-12 education. I have a particular viewpoint, certainly, but that does not mean I am only interested in discovering how right my already held beliefs are. Discussing opposing ideas is necessary for anyone's idea to develop and emerge as well crafted and logical notion. Discussing that which come to believe during intense sessions of contemplative reading is the best way to educate both students and teachers.
Defining what is meant by "contemplative reading" is in order. We read "contemplatively" when reading becomes an immersive aesthetic experience. Words weave their magic around us and we find ourselves breathing the same air as the characters in the story. Readers who enter deeply into the world of a story are changed by their experience and they thereby become a living instantiation of the ideas manifested therein. Two, three, four, even ten or more readings may be necessary before a truly contemplative reading experience occurs.
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In the illustration (shown on the right) drawn by Hugh Thomson (1860–1920) for Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Edwin Bertram and Fanny Price are involved in a deep conversation while trees gently sway overhead and a dog lazily eyes a bird nearby. If we actually read Jane Austen's novel, we can enter this scene as any one of these creatures: Edmund, Fanny, the dog, or even the bird. This is so, for our imagination is a power by means of which we can do more than merely read the words "sitting under the trees with Fanny" or view the details of Thomson's picture; rather, we can vicariously experience what the beings present in the tableaux experience within the confines of the narrative. It is important to note that Fanny Price is a personage well worth knowing. Reading contemplatively should shape us in a way that leaves us better than we were before, and spending time with Miss Price will certainly do just that.
During the act of reading Mansfiield Park, we, like Edmund, are able to sit under the trees alongside Fanny sharing in her experiences and, ideally, growing in virtue and knowledge, as Fanny does. Through such contemplation, as literature occasions, we may redirect our senses to attend to musings generated via the artistry of the text before us. Such experiences form our moral imagination for good or for ill. We can disagree about whom we should encounter, but not that such encounters matter. Tell me what stories matter to you (from film, gaming, books, etc.), and I can tell you how they have changed you.
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Before all else, students should be encouraged to read literature as a means to identify the good, the true, and the beautiful in our world and then they themselves will become embodiments of those very transcendentals. To put it another way, any truly intellectual life requires time sitting under trees with Fanny.
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Sitting under Trees with Fanny
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