Mansfield Park
So we're re-reading the Austen Canon and A. has just finished Mansfield Park with many disgusted comments on the caddishness of Mr. Crawford. It's funny to see her get so hepped up about obnoxious characters - I think she uses them vicariously to vent about similar types at school. Speaking of which - it may be naive of me, but wasn't school the place you used to go to become educated. Maybe time and wilfull sumblimation has created false memory syndrome.
A.'s English teacher saw her reading M.P. and said she found it really confusing. Confusing? Jane Austen? Okay - maybe the Victorian idiom is a bit convoluted & occasionally you have to reread the sentence before you get that she's being ironic (again). If I were an English teacher, a) I wouldn't admit that I found any novel confusing. b) rejoice that there was hope in the up-coming generations. c) try and draw my students into intelligent discussions about the books they were reading for themselves.
THAT would be an education.
On any given day, if I ask what they did in school (Gr. 10), they will have watched at least one movie/video (often more). In Family Studies they are watching Magic Schoolbus...not that there's anything wrong with that...to learn about the digestive system. They should just invite a dyspeptic old man into class and find out way more than they need to know about the human digestive system.
Getting back to Mansfield Park; we got the 'old' Fox movie from the library - the 2-vol. 5 hr version. It will be interesting to compare it to Patricia Rozema's version. I thought she badly misrepresented Fanny Price. I think she got her heroines mixed up and subbed Lizzie in for Fanny. It was disappointing.
So it looks like we're going to have a Victorian kind of weekend in front of the tube. Weather is crappy - an icestorm is supposed to be on its way - though the announcers these days do so much squawking about nothing. Regardless - we've got two or three classics to get us thru the storm - providing the power doesn't go out!
Now I must sit down and wrap my head around today's art class...I'm waiting for the phone call to say they've closed the centre - but I probably won't be that lucky...so I better have something ready. I know - we'll go outside and make snow sculptures! Brilliant!