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Kaze no Ryuu wrote:

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Also, did any of you ever read too fast? Like you had to read chapter every few days in class (not even out loud), and you'd end up finishing the book during the first one? I think I did that at least once I can remember.

If I hadn't read a book before we were told to in class (Which happened only a few times), I would be halfway through it by the end of the first class. And EACH and EVERY time they came to me, the teacher would act disgusted that I hadn't been paying attention to other students struggling with four letter words, and disbelieving that I was so far ahead. Several of my friends sitting next to me would slide their book over, their finger on the starting point.

The problem is, English teachers - well, the ones I dealt with in school (As I'm friends with a teacher in my everyday life now) - don't really CARE. I had English teachers that told us to read out loud and handed out questions. I've had others that would go on about how a certain book had such a message in it, and wasn't it obvious to all of us... I had one English teacher that made us watch the Leonardo DeCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet for chrissakes. As a side note, I suspect Shakesphere is brilliant on stage, but I've never seen it, much to my regret. All I've had is English teachers slap the scripts down in front of me and say "Can't you see the glory?"

They were given books chosen by a committee, and they simply pass on their own required comments and opinions. Often, they were confused, and rather annoyed, when I pulled together rather different messages from a book then they'd told us to take away from it... The most memorable of this one was Caberet, the movie (The really old one I think. I'm not sure, it's been nearly eight years). They arranged for it to be shown at a local cinema, and one day, the entire year level walked down and watched it on the big screen, "as all great movies deserve to be seen."

I hated it. Actually, the entire year level hated it, and many walked out to get food or something, certain they wouldn't be missing quality. We were given a big lecture by furious teachers for not understanding the vision and the glory and such. Then they asked us to do an oral review, where they actively said "give your honest opinion." So I did. In front of about twenty of my peers and an increasingly angry woman in her late twenties, I criticized the acting, the script, the layout of the reveals and themes (When a love triangle is revealed that all both of the main couple are having sex with the third man, despite both men seemingly hating each other, it needs to be handled a lot better, even IF that was a workable cover for the two men with gay/bi preferences in the 1930s), so on and so on.

In fact, looking back on it, the only parts I did like were the parts with the Nazis, because these people that would, only a few years later, be some of the primary victims of these monsters, looked upon them with such admiration and respect. My teacher went on about how it showed the desire of those that were different to conform, to be accepted as 'normal'. Personally, I saw it as more an example of how the Nazis were able to manipulate the public, making scapegoats and targets of hate, to the point that they were seen as grand and noble, no matter what crimes they committed openly, even in the mid-30s. Naturally, my teacher was upset at me.

So for me, English teachers weren't about the writing, but their specific opinions, and god help you if you didn't share them. They didn't teach the language. I'm embarrassed to admit that, even now, I honestly don't know what verbs and nouns are, or what the difference between them is. I've been a bookworm all my life. What does that mean for people that don't grasp the written word so easily? People who, like I said at the start of this somewhat random rant, were having difficulty sounding out four letter words?