Religious Instruction — An Anachronism?
The time has come to remove poetry from the curriculum of general education. For too long we have imposed on students a form of experience — poetry — which is the plaything chiefly of a particular social group, a cultural elite. At the least, in a democratic society, the study of poetry should be av...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1974
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| In: |
Journal of Christian education
Year: 1974, Volume: 17, Issue: 2, Pages: 35-45 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The time has come to remove poetry from the curriculum of general education. For too long we have imposed on students a form of experience — poetry — which is the plaything chiefly of a particular social group, a cultural elite. At the least, in a democratic society, the study of poetry should be available merely as an option, certainly not as a compulsory subject. At best, it should probably be deleted altogether. The enjoyment and production of poetry are very personal things, depending more on subjective inclination than pedagogic instruction. Again, literary criticism is notoriously subjective; more a product of one's own imagination than a valid analysis of someone else's. For these and other reasons, poetry cannot legitimately be regarded as a form of knowledge, amenable to proof. Treated as a school subject, poetry either functions as a holiday from serious work or degenerates into a mechanical sifting of metaphors and similes from unnecessary cryptic stanzas. We cannot allow a curriculum for democratic education to be hamstrung by such an anachronism. Let those who still believe in the teaching of poetry teach it in their own way to whomever they can cajole to listen, outside the boundary of the public school. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of Christian education
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/002196577401700206 |