What Do We Do?

At a recent party, I was asked “Why read Shakespeare? Kids [meaning high schoolers] don’t like it. They aren’t going to try. It doesn’t matter to them.” My response? Foolishly, I tried to play the canon card — I said “Ask the people you meet tomorrow if they know or have read Shakespeare. I bet all of them will know his name, and 95% will have read something he wrote.” “But,” was the reply, “People today don’t enjoy reading his work. They just have to in school.”

Ugh!

Upon later reflection, it seems to me that English departments have done a horrible job of selling themselves. And academia, both college and el-high, has moved on. What are English departments traditionally supposed to do? Study the language. Teach people how to read, understand, and interpret words, both written and spoken — and then respond to the ideas they present. And what do we do? Cultural studies. Film studies. “Fun” stuff, not “rigorous” stuff. Why? Because we need to keep up enrollment. (And, yes, we enjoy teaching it... but then, we also enjoy teaching Shakespeare and other stuff that's not "enjoyable," by my friend's implicit standards.) It seems we've lost sight of our initial mission, and we've not really defined a new one for ourselves.

But we'll never disappear — we’re the workhorses of colleges, walking all freshmen through composition for the benefit of every other program. We’re also the broom closet of the college, as a colleague argues. Our comp classes are the places where students have to not only learn how to produce research papers, which is fair, but they also learn how to use the library, how to use word processing programs (usually Microsoft Word), basic grammar and punctuation, and often some introduction to public speaking. Oh, and since we have to write about something, add in some content.

There's still the idea that we’re not teaching “marketable skills” when we get to do what we want (i.e., read texts) — that is the province of other programs: science, business, etc.

Is this because we learn to read as children, and the skill we use is considered mastered before college? Not perfected, perhaps, but good enough by 6th grade to get through bestsellers? (Yeah, I’m thinking of Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer, and J. K. Rowling, however much I enjoyed reading Harry Potter.) Is anything that demands a higher reading ability just not worth the effort? Or is it not profitable? That is, my ability to read Shakespeare (or Chaucer) is really just showing off, and won’t get me a better job because it is, somehow, not valued by society. Or by the sectors that pay well.

Yeah, I’m frustrated. But so it goes. I wouldn’t choose another discipline. I am happy with my choices, with my direction. I do like teaching English, I like teaching literature, I even enjoy teaching composition. I just don’t enjoy being the freak that didn’t pursue a career that promises big paychecks.

I’m too smart for that.