Teacher's Bad Rowling Advice

[Rumil]

If you look at the first page of each author's first book, you'll find these two quotes-

The Bagginses have lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and most people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him.

and

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

though I do like Bethberry's elegant theory too!

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Rumil

though I do like Bethberry's elegant theory too!

Well, Rumil, Eddy does say in the Mirror article that he gave his students fantasy books to read.

Originally Posted by Teacher Eddy

Mr Eddy says that he feels partly responsible for unleashing her magical imagination by having his pupils read fantasy books.

He said: "I feel proud if I was in some way responsible for influencing her to write the Potter stories."

Why get 'em to read what you don't want 'em to write?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, Rumil, Eddy does say in the Mirror article that he gave his students fantasy books to read.

I wonder what age the pupils were when they were put onto fantasy books by Mr E? Its possible that he would have taught her up to age 11 or 12, & that he handed out the fantasy books to his pupils when they were 8 or 9, & expected them to have outgrown them by age 11. And what kind of fantasy books was he encouraging them to read? If he felt that by age 11 they should have outgrown such things its possible that the fantasy books he's talking about were 'nursery' level things.

Of course, this is by the by. Its the attitude that's the problem, the idea that fantasy is fine for kids, but as they get older & move towards being adults they should 'put away such childish things' & start on the 'gritty realism'. And this pro-'gritty realism' approach is quite pernicious - because its nothing to do with getting children to include 'adult' things like sex, violence & swearing - anyone familiar with unbowdlerised fairystories, myths & Sagas, knows that they're full of that kind of thing - its about getting them to exclude the Elves, Trolls & Dragons which can elevate even the grossest aspects of that kind of tale by introducing Magic & the sense that even in the darkest, ugliest places there is the possibility of something 'more' lurking just over the next hill.

So, this is not so much an attack on Mr E. Its an 'attack' on the attitude that 11 year olds have to be encouraged to 'outgrow' Elves & Dragons. Clearly there is a desire, a need, among the general populace for those things, while at the same time there seems to be a conviction among certain members of the 'literati' & the educational establishment that it shouldn't be there, that such desires are 'wrong', immature & need to be gotten rid of. Their anger about, & contempt in response to, the popularity among adults of LotR, Harry Potter & the like actually sets them apart from the majority of us who love such things - & I think we are in the majority (even though many people feel embarrassed to admit out love - look at the way the HP books are issued in 'Adult' covers ).

Now, I don't know if Mr E is on the extreme wing of that movement, but he seems at least to be on the fringes of it. However, I'm happy to leave him on one side & focus more on the general attitude as pointed up by Tolkien in OFS.

[Lalaith]

I get thoroughly depressed when I hear people moaning that Harry Potter is not "real" enough.. I read some article about how he should get a few ASBOs etc to make the whole story more "down with the kids."
Yeah right.
On the other hand, the literary genre that kids these days all seem to be obsessed with is horror. Which in many ways I find even more depressing than the "gritty reality" stuff. Particularly with all this nasty torture-porn Eli Roth stuff around right now....

[Nogrod]

I'm only catching up slowly as there seems to be too many things to make a comment on. But this for starters.

So going a bit back with this discussion…

The educated people in the middle ages – and indeed long forwards to the modern age (before the advent of romanticism) thought that imagination was something where human mind broke apart that which was indeed one in the world and put together those which were separate things in the world. Like a fork. There were a lots of thorns in nature as well as stems but only human imagination could bring forwards a fork combining the two! (Nicolas Cusanus, 15th century – at that time many people thought forks devilish inventions…).

Even in 1757 Charles Batteux who coined the word ‘art’ insisted that human imagination can only operate with things it has experienced and all the monsters and fairies are the result of putting together or cutting away of the characteristics of things perceived in real life (like unicorns, centaurs or hydras).

This view was held up to the romanticism era, when people suddenly got a boost to their egos and started slowly thinking that their personal or “own” imaginations could be greater than the world as it is. Goethe was one of those who got in the middle of this then current dispute when he answered the inquirer whether his appreciation of the beautiful sunset on the mountains were lessened because he knew of the science of colours and how they behaved. Goethe scorned the question, of course it was even heightened experience when he knew how the rays of light acted!

I think Tolkien was torn in between the thin line between the earlier times he admired and the newer romaticism he belonged to - and finally gave up and fell to romanticism (because of the war-experiences, his love-affair etc.).

So as davem asked in his first post,

Originally Posted by Davem

Shouldn't teachers be encouraging children to use their imagination to the full?

So how are they using it in the first place and how they should use it? What is the role of our personal imagination in the first place?

As an anecdote I should point to this. The pope Gregorious (Gregorius the Great, on 7th century) decided to establish a canon of Christian music while so far people in different parts of the world had praised God in very different manners. He had only one requirement to the people who would accomplish this task leading to what is nowadays known as gregorian chant: keep it simple so as a layman standing in the backrow could easily sing along after hearing it once.

Now put your hand in your heart and say whether you can follow a gregorian melody after one hearing?

So are we the ones who can say that the greatest stories and the most imaginative things come from within our individual selves today?

"Inspiratrion" in roman latin meant in-spirare - breathing in. So taking in something outside us not bringing forwards our outstandingly differentiated individuality. Romanticism brought forwards the idea that the genius is innate and personal.

While the class-structure was breaking down and the elite were not any more seen as born to that higher recognition there was a chance for the poor intellectuals to claim their place... As we know that never happened in a grander scale even if some flourished.

I'm a bit lost about this overall...

What would be the full imagination then the teachers should encourage? Aren't the prevailing theories of the universe by physics imaginative enough? Which one is more imaginative and more awesome: the pantheon of the early Greeks or the universe of the quantum-physics?

I love the Greek mythology and understand barely nothing of quantum physics, but still I think this begs the question as I myself am quite ready to accept my knowledge is shallow... and maybe Goethe had a point?

[Morthoron]

Having majored in English Lit. for my B.A. before moving on to Medieval Studies for my M.A. (I know, could I have chosen two more frivolous degrees?), I would have to say that there are 'acceptable' fantasies in the curriculum of most schools, such as Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Beowulf, the study of Greek and Roman pantheons (which are usually relegated to Comparative Religion classes), and, of course, the odd Shakespeare play; however, those have received the patina of legitimacy based on centuries of study. It would have been unheard of to discuss Tolkien's cosmology with any of my professors (although quite acceptable to debate his exquisite philological research regarding Beowulf, Gawaine and the Green Knight, Orfeo or Pearl).

I cannot speak for British universities, but in the U.S. the English departments are highly politicized and agendized, either left or right wing leaning dependent on their department heads; therefore, as in my case, I was more likely to be studying Kafka, Camus, Hemingway, Faulkner, Cheever, Bellow, Rand, D.H. Lawrence, etc., rather than literature I really cared for (T.H. White, Tolkien, Yeats, Huxley, etc.) because it did not fit the agenda. Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath were compulsory not because they were classics of modern literature in their own right, but because of the inherent political message they inferred.

Many of the folks I knew who went on into the teaching profession maintained the ingrained ideologies impressed upon them in school, a certain political correctness I abhor, and do not deviate from the curriculums they were browbeaten with years before. A friend of mine is getting her Masters at the same university I attended twenty years previously, and I was appalled at her syllabus: it read like an extended sociology curriculum rather than English Lit. It has gotten even worse!

And so, to draw my diatribe to a close, the fantasy element in literature is indeed frowned upon and deemed intellectually inferior, or as in Tolkien's case, perhaps a bit too quaint and certainly too chauvinistic and tainted with religious symbolism for the PC palate of many teachers. As a parent of a soon-to-be second-grader, it is too early to tell what reading curriculum will be deemed acceptable when she hits 11 or 12, but I do remember a fractious school board meeting I attended where I had to defend books authored by Mark Twain that were scheduled to be removed from the library shelves. I am becoming quite leery of the U.S. educational system, but fortunately for my daughter we have already read fantasies like The Hobbit, Charlotte's Web and Alice in Wonderland, much to her delight. I hope that, like myself, she maintains that delight throughout her adult life.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

What would be the full imagination then the teachers should encourage? Aren't the prevailing theories of the universe by physics imaginative enough? Which one is more imaginative and more awesome: the pantheon of the early Greeks or the universe of the quantum-physics?

You need both. And just because it is science does not mean quantum physics is in any way 'gritty'. Sit me down with say a Stephen Hawking book and you will soon see getting all mad and cosmic - to me they are like mystic texts and they make me feel "....................................". Sorry but I cannot describe the sensation when reading about something like a Black Hole or the End of the Universe.

In fact, you only have to look at the high fantasy of Doctor Who to see how science can be utterly mind-bending and imaginative.

Originally Posted by Lalaith

I get thoroughly depressed when I hear people moaning that Harry Potter is not "real" enough.. I read some article about how he should get a few ASBOs etc to make the whole story more "down with the kids."
Yeah right.

And the biggest critics of all if they did make Harry Potter more 'street' would be kids themselves - they have an uncanny knack of being able to detect the brown and smelly stuff that's meant to be 'on their level'. Kids want heroes and what kind of hero has an ASBO?! Harry is just right - he breaks some rules, yes, but he does nothing out of malice and likewise he is not a prig. Like most kids he struggles against the odds, makes a few mistakes along the way but at heart is a great person, and what could be more 'real' than being like that?

Originally Posted by davem

Clearly there is a desire, a need, among the general populace for those things, while at the same time there seems to be a conviction among certain members of the 'literati' & the educational establishment that it shouldn't be there, that such desires are 'wrong', immature & need to be gotten rid of.

People who try and stop kids from reading and writing fantasy are the same kind of curmudgeonly Victor Meldrews who also tell their little ones that Father Christmas is not real so they 'learn to be grateful to their parents' or give them no gifts apart from a waterpump for an African village for Christmas as they don't want their kids to grow up 'not knowing the real meaning of Christmas' or something. And the well meaning parents who drag the nippers to classes in this and that every single evening so they will never be bored (because of course, being bored equals causing trouble or doing something so heinous as daring to watch TV or look at a comic!) - when being bored makes you use your imagination. It all seems so Scroogey, goblin-like and mean. Kids need some time to be kids and just have mad imaginations and fun.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

So how are they using it in the first place and how they should use it? What is the role of our personal imagination in the first place?

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

But if you look very close, the heart of the problem is probably that most people see fantasy only as the Dragonlance/Robert Jordan/Weis&Hickman/Eddings (whose books I actually do like unlike the others on this list ) stuff. The clumsy and pompous badly-written and cheap-looking stuff with too much everything just seems to rule the popular image of fantasy.

Originally Posted by alatar

Another thing about fantasy is that, to me, it's even harder to write...well

I think the three of you are onto a possibility in this story of Rowlings and her teacher. After all, we don't know what kind of writing she was producing when she was 11 and 12. For all we know, it could have been very, very twee and her teacher was hoping to wean her of that sentimental streak using a kind of simplistic comparison he thought appropriate for the age. After all, how many teachers tell ten year olds simply "Never start a sentence with because" because the teachers figure the formal explanation of the grammar of compound/complex sentences is a bit much for the tender development of that age?

Frankly, I think this dichotomy between fantasy and "gritty realism" is a bit of a broad stroke. Just think of the novels of Iain Banks, aka Iain M. Banks. His 'realistic' works are incredibly macabre fantasies. Now there's one writer who is definitely making fantasy mainstream!