Kevin Hall

I'm over at Bluesky now.

@MatRyanELATeach @Ed_Realist @TheLizMac Your insistence that what works for you would work for public school teachers probably comes across as smug to most public school teachers. Like, "make them read" and "just give reading quizzes." It's like a doctor who says, "I'd just tell my patients not to be overweight."

@Ed_Realist @TheLizMac Those who follow me know I'm not smug. I just care passionately about good books. The anonymous users like you who have the protection of a pseudonym are free to treat others rudely.

I really have to stop engaging with anonymous Twitter accounts.

@MatRyanELATeach Some folks prefer to go with this attitude toward life (an approach I find abhorrent): x.com/atrupar/status…

"But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

@MatRyanELATeach @kalezelden Well, I think this conversation has reached its natural endpoint. I don't know if you learned anything about my perspective, but perhaps so. I find your take to be quite extreme.

@ijkijKevin @kalezelden Humanity. Culture isn't just genealogy or lineage. It’s embedded in the language we speak, the way we think about ambition, love, and tragedy. Shakespeare has shaped our lives and will continue to do so.

In my discussion with @kalezelden, I offered the following claim about English teachers: “I don’t even know if it’s possible to be a good teacher if you’re not working with good books.” It may sound a bit harsh, but I believe it’s true. youtu.be/82ct9Lj1efA?si…

@MatRyanELATeach @kalezelden Whose culture? How do you define the "we" whose culture counts as "our" culture? My family came over on the Mayflower. I still don't think of Shakespeare as my culture at all. Because each generation chooses which aspects of the culture to keep and pass down.

@ijkijKevin @kalezelden I appreciate the compliments. I would argue that while their taste may matter in the sense it is part of their identity, it should be used to make curriculum decisions because they simply don't have the expertise. And it isn't about imposing a culture; Shakespeare IS our culture.

@MatRyanELATeach @kalezelden The teacher constrains the options to high-quality texts. But then the younger generation's taste matters. If they want to replace the Odyssey with the Ramayana, or Shakespeare with Austin, it's their free choice. Certainly in public schools, we can't impose a culture on them.

@MatRyanELATeach @kalezelden I also think your goal of making sure students are engaged with very high-quality texts is good. Where I disagree is that in your taste vs judgment distinction, I think student taste should matter a lot in text selection. They are selecting which elements of culture to pass down.

@kalezelden @MatRyanELATeach @jonmedeiros @Teacher_Fulton What if a kid said, "Dante, Milton, Chaucer, etc are traditional texts. I do not like 'trad' culture (tradwives, etc). All this emphasis on traditional texts is an attempt by Mr. Zelden to 'establish cultural continuity' with a culture I don't want to embody. It's not my culture"

@kalezelden @MatRyanELATeach @jonmedeiros @Teacher_Fulton Are you suggesting that I was accusing you of being a right-winger? That's not what I said.

@kalezelden @MatRyanELATeach @jonmedeiros @Teacher_Fulton This is why it's so unfortunate that the right-wingers have twisted the meaning of traditional culture. Jesus of Nazareth used to be one of the culture's models of masculinity: tough, kind, honest, able to bear incredible pain. Now it's Andrew Tate and Donald Trump.

@kalezelden @MatRyanELATeach @jonmedeiros @Teacher_Fulton Before any discontinuity, it is clear whose culture to maintain connection to. After the discontinuity, the question arises. Whose culture to maintain? You can't wish the question away. Once it's no longer their culture, it's no longer their culture.

@kalezelden @MatRyanELATeach @jonmedeiros @Teacher_Fulton What if the next generation wants high-quality texts and cultural discontinuity?

@MatRyanELATeach @jonmedeiros @Teacher_Fulton Agree with all this. I have a generous take on the canon thing…but I think we need a more serious convo because the practice of reading is vanishing fast. So if they only read 10 books in a high school career, which are most vital to establish cultural continuity?

@MatRyanELATeach @kalezelden When you want to constrain that aliveness so kids express it in the same way you do, that's when it becomes political. And in that sense, you are quite political as teachers.

@MatRyanELATeach @kalezelden ...at any time without thinking that they are losing some part of their humanity. When you teach well (as I believe you do), you are awakening something in kids, knowing that it has a life of its own. If they give up baseball, it's not bad or a loss.

@kalezelden @MatRyanELATeach A further thought: I found the evidence in this book persuasive that the original source of a lot of Enlightenment thinking was Native Americans, whose non-hierarchical thinking was transmitted to France via French Jesuits. amazon.com/Dawn-Everythin…

@kalezelden @MatRyanELATeach Anyways, I think I'm going to bow out of this conversation now.

My liberal and leftist friends are going to have to get past coding the great books as right-wing coded. It’s cultural suicide to do such a thing, not to mention wrongheaded and false.

@MatRyanELATeach @kalezelden I don't know the history of other pro-democracy movements around the world, but I doubt they were grounded in pre-Locke thought. I bet Gandhi had his own completely valid ways of thinking when he fought for independence and democracy. And I wouldn't doubt his grasp of it.

@ijkijKevin @kalezelden We can accept the truths, but this is different that "truly grasping," no?