Minnie Strator's World
This is post 10 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here. For more on Minnie Strator, go here.
From the outset, her teaching at North Central did not go well. Because she came from a good school and had an interest in the Renaissance, she was assigned to teach World Literature, a course everyone had to take, regardless of reading ability. Naturally, it was hard to compete with their pastors for authority when she taught the Bible. The head of the World Lit program, a balding man with a bureaucratic paunch and backside, explained to her that in the current political climate it would be best not to insist that no reputable scholars believed that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, but instead to emphasize that scholars’ opinions were only theories, subject to question like any others. “After all,” he said, smiling encouragingly, “Who among us can really be sure what is fact and what is fiction?”
The good thing about the Bible, though, was that some of the students had read it, whereas most of them would not or could not read anything else. There was the girl with the head injury who could not remember anything (“We are required to give our disabled students every opportunity—it’s the law,” said her boss, with saintly resignation). There were the hardworking, furrowed-brow sorts, who insisted they could read but just couldn’t string the words together. There were the cheerleaders, as Chloe called them, bright and happy until they got their first grade, after which they argued over every point taken off, nagged for extra credit, and relentlessly questioned her interpretation of the works. One of these broke down in the office Chloe shared with three other teaching assistants one day. “I wanted to be an English major!” she sobbed, “But I just can’t take all this readin’ an’ rottin’!”
There were decent students, too, whose strivings produced the occasional humorous gem: “Do you mean Keats is tryin’ to get into the urn?” “Couldn’t Gregor and the Samsas just sit down and talk it out, even if he is a cockroach?” And there were even a few good students—lonely and quiet.
The trouble was, at the end of each quarter the teaching evaluations were all that counted, which evoked rising levels of paranoia in Chloe. “Encourage them,” advised her boss. “You want them to enjoy literature, not hate it, don’t you? Well then. Lighten up! Go easy on ’em.”
“O. k.,” said Chloe doubtfully. She felt that not holding students accountable for understanding what they read was unlikely to inspire a love of literature.
The administrator made a clicking noise at her, as if she were a horse he was trying to speed along, and then pretended to shoot her with his index finger. “Don’t give up!” he said.
Continue
From the outset, her teaching at North Central did not go well. Because she came from a good school and had an interest in the Renaissance, she was assigned to teach World Literature, a course everyone had to take, regardless of reading ability. Naturally, it was hard to compete with their pastors for authority when she taught the Bible. The head of the World Lit program, a balding man with a bureaucratic paunch and backside, explained to her that in the current political climate it would be best not to insist that no reputable scholars believed that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, but instead to emphasize that scholars’ opinions were only theories, subject to question like any others. “After all,” he said, smiling encouragingly, “Who among us can really be sure what is fact and what is fiction?”
The good thing about the Bible, though, was that some of the students had read it, whereas most of them would not or could not read anything else. There was the girl with the head injury who could not remember anything (“We are required to give our disabled students every opportunity—it’s the law,” said her boss, with saintly resignation). There were the hardworking, furrowed-brow sorts, who insisted they could read but just couldn’t string the words together. There were the cheerleaders, as Chloe called them, bright and happy until they got their first grade, after which they argued over every point taken off, nagged for extra credit, and relentlessly questioned her interpretation of the works. One of these broke down in the office Chloe shared with three other teaching assistants one day. “I wanted to be an English major!” she sobbed, “But I just can’t take all this readin’ an’ rottin’!”
There were decent students, too, whose strivings produced the occasional humorous gem: “Do you mean Keats is tryin’ to get into the urn?” “Couldn’t Gregor and the Samsas just sit down and talk it out, even if he is a cockroach?” And there were even a few good students—lonely and quiet.
The trouble was, at the end of each quarter the teaching evaluations were all that counted, which evoked rising levels of paranoia in Chloe. “Encourage them,” advised her boss. “You want them to enjoy literature, not hate it, don’t you? Well then. Lighten up! Go easy on ’em.”
“O. k.,” said Chloe doubtfully. She felt that not holding students accountable for understanding what they read was unlikely to inspire a love of literature.
The administrator made a clicking noise at her, as if she were a horse he was trying to speed along, and then pretended to shoot her with his index finger. “Don’t give up!” he said.
Continue
posted by Hobbes at 8:05 PM
7 Comments:
Yes. Have patience with us flies as you weave your webs of fiction constucted from ideas of reality or whatever it is. Now I am confused in a way. I thought Minnie Strator was a woman, but is it a man, or perhaps really an abstract concept reflecting the conflicting opinions of the learned on how to embed knowledge or the how to's of aquiring it into wandering wondering minds.
Icy is missing letters in her alphabet soup! That's why she's not an alpha dog!
Minnie Strator is an allegorical figure. She is female because she is a Pansi relative, because a female administrator strikes even more anger and disgust into the heart of Dr. Weirsdo than a male one (they're all the same to me, by the way), and because she evokes the administrators who interrogated Dr. Weirsdo about a sexual harassment claim made by a student who suddenly recalled she had been harassed after her grade appeal failed. (Claim was dropped after several Guantanamo-like sessions for Dr. W. because no witnesses would come forward.)
The administrator here is male; I was just straining for a cute title, and after the recent tagboard discussion, chose this one.
OK, I should object to the character with bureaucratic butt and back not being heroic, but I'll let it slide. You remind me of when I was in college. The fourth time. The professors would hold study sessions before tests and the hour would get used up with questions like "If I got a C on the midterm and Cs on the quizzes and one D, but I get an A on the final, what will my final grade be?"
That's been going on for a long time. There's a scene like that in PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN.
Yes, I would have remarked about that scene reminding me of Joyces' novel:A Portrait of an artist as a Young Man had you not...and even though I read it when I was a mere green-eyed GIRL. :)
This is quite a different novella than one normally comes across and full of information applicable to real life. The nuances and undertones run rampant in an believable manner.
Thanks, GEL. I always appreciate your careful reading.
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