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[kaijyuu]

We seem to have tangented away from this, but previously many were complaining about not unnecessarily colouring one's view of a book by reading up on the author, but I think that's backwards. Rather, one should read up on the author so one knows what biases are present and can account for them.

Mmmm, yes and no. I'm somewhere in between those two standpoints.


Personally I believe fully in Death of the Author. Works stand completely separate from their authors. However, insight into the author can bring to light subtle details about the work because you have hints of what to look for. If the author's racist, the cruel treatment of a minority character might take on a different light due to knowing how the author wanted that character to be portrayed. Also, for modern works, authors often leave hints and shout outs to previous works of theirs, which gives you insight into jokes and possibly further depth of meaning.

[FearfulJesuit]

Charles Darwin also had very interesting views on education that may not accord with some of you.

Explain?

[Owlbread]

Charles Darwin also had very interesting views on education that may not accord with some of you.

Explain?

As far as I know, it was something like Darwin believed that the poor should not be well educated because if education was available for all, the number of intellectuals would decrease as the quality of education would fall.

[DarkWolfXV]

Charles Darwin also had very interesting views on education that may not accord with some of you.

Explain?

As far as I know, it was something like Darwin believed that the poor should not be well educated because if education was available for all, the number of intellectuals would decrease as the quality of education would fall.

The quality of education is already going horribly low.

[Owlbread]

Charles Darwin also had very interesting views on education that may not accord with some of you.

Explain?

As far as I know, it was something like Darwin believed that the poor should not be well educated because if education was available for all, the number of intellectuals would decrease as the quality of education would fall.

The quality of education is already going horribly low.

Maybe so, but I'm thankful every day my parents had the education they had or I would most probably be working in the mines right now. Or a factory.

[Eagleon]

Charles Darwin also had very interesting views on education that may not accord with some of you.

Explain?

As far as I know, it was something like Darwin believed that the poor should not be well educated because if education was available for all, the number of intellectuals would decrease as the quality of education would fall.

To be fair, he's pretty much right if you accept that money = quality. Better teachers need better educations themselves, which costs more money, which means accepting a public school salary in the US could mean condemning yourself to lifelong debt. Instead the better teachers very reasonably go to private schools and happily breed the next generation of elite conartistseconomists and lawyers. Better, or rather more qualified - I had a few excellent teachers that made plenty of silly mistakes, and it wasn't a big deal because they were so enthusiastic about their work.

If we just paid our teachers a living wage (or just made studying education cheaper or, *gasp*, free) we might get more people a little happier to devote their lives to struggling with our uncooperative larval forms. There are obviously other problems, such as our hyperinflated emphasis on testing and correctness (not the same thing as success), but this is a big one.