Page 28 - The Gonzaga Record 1990
P. 28
overstated, but it is not untrue that we have a shrinking humanities
curriculum - the classics and history in retreat, modern languages taught
increasingly as 'communications skills'. It is very much to the credit of
all involved in the creation of the new Junior Certificate courses that these
reflect the value of ' reading widely, and with enjoyment' .
In what way does 'literature' - or shall we now call it the reading
of many novels, poems, short stories, plays, autobiographies, diaries?
-in what way does this 'humanise'? It develops sides of the human being
that a teaching for technology or the market-place does not. Literature
acknowledges, illustrates, that there are more facets to the human person
than are involved in hi s or her taking a place in the world of work. Indeed,
one might do worse than start with the fact that so many nowadays find
no such place! If they do not, what have we educated them for? I'm in
the middle of a marvellously 'humanising' book at the moment - one
that I would recommend strongly to boys in I st and 2nd year.* It tells
the story of a middle-class family reduced from affluence to the most
abject of poverty in the Liverpool slums of the 1930s. It is a riveting
story. It is autobiographical. It is accessible to any reader-and as such
it prepares for a later encounter with Dickens' Hard Times. And because
it has these attributes, it has unlimited educational potential. In the first
in stance, it awakens the intellectual awareness to the possibility of a world
beyond one's own complacent and comfortable security. Secondly, it
extends the range of the reader's imagative human sympathies-because
it is a 'good' book, and because it presents a range of emotions, anger,
frustration, joy, resentment, defiance, without sentimentalising or over-
dramatising. I could add that it touches the moral being as well, on rousing
indignati on at the bureaucratic indifference and red tape of a social system
that dehumanises poverty even further. The reverse of that coin is to be
found in the book's account of many simple acts of human solidarity that
redeem the human condition. Ultimately , of course, though not for the
pre-adolescent reader, the book celebrates the triumphant survival of the
human spirit. In later life the adult who has learnt to read well will
appreciate how much there is in common between the survivors of
Liverpool or Dublin poverty, a Belfast bombing and a Beirut hostage-
taking.
There is no limit to the reading-matter of similar quality that can promote
th e kind of growth , of deepening. just suggested . It is no accident that
Helen Forrester relates how, in a moment of utter despair at the fact that
she will receive no formal educati on, she meets an old man who gives
her th e following advice:
'Then read! Read everything you can. Read the great hi storians, the
philosophers ... read autobiographies, read novels. One clay , you
* [,,·ot)('/1 1'1' To Cmss '/71(' M('J's er . by Hclcn h)J'rcstcr (Fontana).
26
curriculum - the classics and history in retreat, modern languages taught
increasingly as 'communications skills'. It is very much to the credit of
all involved in the creation of the new Junior Certificate courses that these
reflect the value of ' reading widely, and with enjoyment' .
In what way does 'literature' - or shall we now call it the reading
of many novels, poems, short stories, plays, autobiographies, diaries?
-in what way does this 'humanise'? It develops sides of the human being
that a teaching for technology or the market-place does not. Literature
acknowledges, illustrates, that there are more facets to the human person
than are involved in hi s or her taking a place in the world of work. Indeed,
one might do worse than start with the fact that so many nowadays find
no such place! If they do not, what have we educated them for? I'm in
the middle of a marvellously 'humanising' book at the moment - one
that I would recommend strongly to boys in I st and 2nd year.* It tells
the story of a middle-class family reduced from affluence to the most
abject of poverty in the Liverpool slums of the 1930s. It is a riveting
story. It is autobiographical. It is accessible to any reader-and as such
it prepares for a later encounter with Dickens' Hard Times. And because
it has these attributes, it has unlimited educational potential. In the first
in stance, it awakens the intellectual awareness to the possibility of a world
beyond one's own complacent and comfortable security. Secondly, it
extends the range of the reader's imagative human sympathies-because
it is a 'good' book, and because it presents a range of emotions, anger,
frustration, joy, resentment, defiance, without sentimentalising or over-
dramatising. I could add that it touches the moral being as well, on rousing
indignati on at the bureaucratic indifference and red tape of a social system
that dehumanises poverty even further. The reverse of that coin is to be
found in the book's account of many simple acts of human solidarity that
redeem the human condition. Ultimately , of course, though not for the
pre-adolescent reader, the book celebrates the triumphant survival of the
human spirit. In later life the adult who has learnt to read well will
appreciate how much there is in common between the survivors of
Liverpool or Dublin poverty, a Belfast bombing and a Beirut hostage-
taking.
There is no limit to the reading-matter of similar quality that can promote
th e kind of growth , of deepening. just suggested . It is no accident that
Helen Forrester relates how, in a moment of utter despair at the fact that
she will receive no formal educati on, she meets an old man who gives
her th e following advice:
'Then read! Read everything you can. Read the great hi storians, the
philosophers ... read autobiographies, read novels. One clay , you
* [,,·ot)('/1 1'1' To Cmss '/71(' M('J's er . by Hclcn h)J'rcstcr (Fontana).
26
