Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Miss Havisham, people. Miss Havesham. She makes Great Expectations WORTH reading: best villain ever. She lives in a creepy old mansion alone, wearing the tattered remains of the wedding dress she first put on years and years ago when her fiance stood her up on her wedding day. She had the clocks in her mansion stopped at that time, and has the wedding spread table still set out, moldering under cobwebs. And she's OBSESSED with getting her revenge on men. So obsessed that she takes a little orphan girl and raises her to be a heartbreaking temptress, keeping her isolated in the old moldy mansion so no outside influences will halt the corruption. AND THEN, Miss Havisham invites Pip, the main character, into the creepy old mansion to meet young Estella (the little girl Miss H has warped in the hopes of carrying out her revenge).

Read it, really. So, so good.

I need to read it again. We read it in 9th grade English class in my NY state public high school, right after The Scarlet Letter (ok, so I skipped over the Custom House Sketch ... ). It doesn't bother me that an elementary school teacher would not know this -- maybe she read Billy Budd instead of Great Expectations -- but it would be horrifying if an English teacher wasn't familiar with Great Expectations.

And Miss Havisham was completely creepy! Still can't believe //SPOILER ALERT// that she wasn't Pip's benefactor.

Huh, I read it in 9th grade too, in NY. Are you from Plainview? PP - you made Miss Havisham sound SO much more interesting than my teacher did. Our focus was on Pip, not on her. You've made me want to re-read it now to focus on her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have three Master's Degrees and I am a 15+ year teacher who has taught elementary. I would have had no clue who wrote Great Expectations. I am not worried at all that I don't know this.

Not doing much to make elementary teachers look good there, sweetheart.

I have a law degree from a top 10 law school and I'm Phi Beta Kappa for undergrad.... I have never read Great Expectations and did not know the author. I don't see why OP thinks this is such a travesty for a teacher not to know this.

I would ask for a refund from those fancy-schmancy schools of yours, if I were you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found all the Dickens I was forced to read was excruciatingly long. That's when I found out his stories were not written as novels. They were written as serials that were published monthly. It's nothing more than Victorian soap opera. The stories aren't bad, they just go on for twice the length as necessary to promote magazine sales.

In my experience a lot of "great literature" is literature that survived because it was popular in its day and wasn't necessarily written with literary merit in mind. A lot of it was the Harry Potter and Twilight of its day.

Although a priceless piece of history, Beowulf written today would probably be considered some B-grade pulp monster tale, a few steps below the two popular (and widely scorned) series mentioned above. I'm not arguing that they are literary masterpieces, but it wouldn't surprise terribly if in a few centuries schoolchildren were asked to read them and write about the themes the author was trying to convey.

You make a good point but I wouldn't call the Harry Potter books "widely scorned". Many prominent literary critics actually praised them.

Anonymous wrote:It's the importance of Dickens, not whether the book is enjoyable or whether it is read in it's entirety.

Oh, I don't know. People who enjoyed Dickens in the Victorian era would have been forced to consider the plight of the poor, especially children, who suddenly thronged the cities after former rural families flocked to work at the newly emerged factories. Many of these children and families ended up in horrible situations: forced to join the criminal elements as children, or in work houses, due to no social security after parents/spouse died, etc. Victorians were forced to look at some of the social ills of their time.

Today, people can learn about the Industrial Revolution in History classes: it is mainly presented as a good thing. Literature that illustrates the negatives, and the dangers of human selfishness and greed in the face of progress, are the tap on the shoulder we need to ensure that we can't overlook those who are left behind or exploited so that we can get what we want. That experience won't happen fully if one can't "live in" and enjoy the novels. Just knowing that Dickens was concerned with the plight of the poor doesn't really communicate the essential issues in the same way that enjoying the novel can do.

That's what I think Dickens would say, anyway. As an English teacher, I do think it is my job to help students become aware of some of the social issues/culture of the original audience of a piece of literature, as this often makes the book much more interesting and enjoyable than it would have been otherwise. No matter what I say to them, though, they won't receive full benefits from the text unless they DO read it (and enjoy it enough to be fully open to the nuances and tones). Enjoying literature such as Chuck's novels helps one to a more complete understanding of history and the evolution of society. Enjoying and reading the literature is essential for this experience. This is why my History teacher colleague and I like to do cross-curricular work for some eras.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have three Master's Degrees and I am a 15+ year teacher who has taught elementary. I would have had no clue who wrote Great Expectations. I am not worried at all that I don't know this.

Not doing much to make elementary teachers look good there, sweetheart.

I have a law degree from a top 10 law school and I'm Phi Beta Kappa for undergrad.... I have never read Great Expectations and did not know the author. I don't see why OP thinks this is such a travesty for a teacher not to know this.

I have a law degree from a top 5 and did read it. Maybe that's your problem.

Anonymous wrote:I have three Master's Degrees and I am a 15+ year teacher who has taught elementary. I would have had no clue who wrote Great Expectations. I am not worried at all that I don't know this.

Jesus, that's really pathetic.

The people boasting about their PhDs and high fallutin' degrees should hang their red faces in shame that they don't know Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations.

Anonymous wrote:it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

That's A Tale of Two Cities. Different people have different interests; that's doesn't mean they're uneducated.

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Anonymous wrote:This is common knowledge among educated people who pursue life long learning.

Is it? Is it really? Do you have a list? I would say it is not uncommon knowledge, but I wouldn't say it's that fundamental. I would say most people would know about Dickens as the author of A Christmas Carol, and probably A Tale of Two Cities, but I think that's about as far as "common knowledge" stretches.

We expect teachers to be among this class of people, or at least we used to. So, yes, not a good thing if a fourth grade teacher doesn't know this. It shows that the teacher isn't reading enough outside her teaching to pick this type of knowledge up ambiently.

Really? Maybe she's focusing on American literature, or Russian, or Japanese. Maybe she reads History or Philosophy. Maybe she likes to study Science or Mathematics. Does she go to museums? Spend time in the natural world? Travel? I think all of these would add to her general knowledge, have nothing to do with Dickens, and probably do much more to enrich her students's lives than reading a somewhat mediocre book which her students won't study for years (if at all). Maybe she's too busy working a second job to supplement her income as many teacher's I've known do, because we generally underpay them for their qualifications (including expecting them to know random trivia like this). Maybe, after planning lessons, teaching classes of possibly unruly kids, grading papers, attending meetings, wading through bureaucratic paperwork and interacting with parents (as charming as we are), she might want to take some time as a human being to spend time with her family, play games like Trivial Pursuit with her friends, read something without literary merit or even (the scandal!) watch TV.

I knew this in seventh grade before I had even read a Dickens book. Not necessary for her to have read this book as others have said, but she should know Dickens wrote it.

Congratulations! You get a gold star. By the time I reached seventh grade, I had read two books by Dickens (A Christmas Carol and David Copperfield). I can't honestly tell you whether I identified Dickens as the author of Great Expectations at that point or not.

Imagine how respect for teachers would go up if they all actually the core common knowledge of educated people.

If we could agree on a core of common knowledge you might be right. You talk about life long learning which indicates that learning is an ongoing process and not a task that can be accomplished. You've had a number of well-educated people in this discussion say that they don't consider the author of Great Expectations to be vital knowledge. I bet each of us, if we talked to you long enough might uncover some "common knowledge" that you lack. We might even beat you in Trivial Pursuit.

I read Great Expectations and wrote a report on it in school. I've also read other books written by Dickens. I would not remember who the author is offhand during a game because it wasn't a memorable story. Most of us read it because it was required for an English or Humanities class. Not seeing the big deal here.

Anonymous wrote:An elementary school teacher is supposed to be a specialist in teaching basic skills: decoding, handwriting, composition, reading comprehension, number sense, math facts, problem solving...And a generalist in terms of general knowledge of world and US and state history, literature, civics, geography, meteorology, physics, biology, geology

This.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have three Master's Degrees and I am a 15+ year teacher who has taught elementary. I would have had no clue who wrote Great Expectations. I am not worried at all that I don't know this.

Not doing much to make elementary teachers look good there, sweetheart.

I have a law degree from a top 10 law school and I'm Phi Beta Kappa for undergrad.... I have never read Great Expectations and did not know the author. I don't see why OP thinks this is such a travesty for a teacher not to know this.

Yuck. So disappointing that yr education failed to educate you in a broad fashion.

An elementary school teacher is supposed to be a specialist in teaching basic skills: decoding, handwriting, composition, reading comprehension, number sense, math facts, problem solving...And a generalist in terms of general knowledge of world and US and state history, literature, civics, geography, meteorology, physics, biology, geology

This is common knowledge among educated people who pursue life long learning.

We expect teachers to be among this class of people, or at least we used to. So, yes, not a good thing if a fourth grade teacher doesn't know this. It shows that the teacher isn't reading enough outside her teaching to pick this type of knowledge up ambiently. I knew this in seventh grade before I had even read a Dickens book. Not necessary for her to have read this book as others have said, but she should know Dickens wrote it.

Imagine how respect for teachers would go up if they all actually the core common knowledge of educated people.