Those of us who teach in independent schools are fortunate in many ways. One benefit that I think about frequently and value highly is the freedom most independent school teachers are given to choose and modify curriculum as they see fit, and to adopt teaching methods they believe to be most effective. By and large, independent school administrators and department heads believe that their faculty members are professionals who do not have to be guided every step of the way. In fact, private school teachers are usually urged to be innovative, resourceful, and creative. In particular, private school educators are given wide latitude to incorporate their special interests and areas of expertise into their classrooms. Even when that interest is far afield from one’s primary teaching area, independent school teachers are encouraged and supported to pursue their passion. That is how I, a math teacher, got to teach an English class last year.
I am a compulsive reader and have been all my adult life. Until about 15 years ago my reading consisted primarily of nonfiction. I always read a new novel by Bellow or Roth, but essays were my first love. Then, I discovered 20th century European and South American fiction and I was hooked. Writers such as W. G. Sebald, Bruno Schulz, Borges, Javier Marias, Fernando Pessoa, and others delighted and challenged me with their “modernist” writing. I decided that it would be fun to offer an Independent Study Project to juniors and seniors at my school called “Books in Translation” so that I could share my passion for reading translated fiction with students and, at the same time, get their “take” on books I enjoyed so much. Would they like what I liked? What would these books “say” to them? Would the books be too strange or difficult? Would they be bored? I didn’t know and was eager to find out.
With the permission and encouragement of the heads of the English department and the upper school director I offered the ISP. More than a dozen students showed interest but only four had a free period when I did so the class proceeded with them. Our reading list was:
- The Emmigrants by W. G. Sebald (German)
- Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin (Russian)
- Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas (Spanish)
- Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz (Polish)
- Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa (Portuguese)
The operating procedure of the class was simple.
- We would meet three times during our school’s eight-day rotation (other classes meet six days during the cycle).
- We would discuss approximately 40 pages of text for each class.
- Each student was to write a short paper (2-3 pages) on each book.
- The papers and discussions would be given letter grades, not pass/fail.
Selecting the books was a relatively easy decision. I wanted books and authors with which I was familiar; I didn’t want to be reading books for the first time since this was my first time teaching a literature class. I also wanted works of fiction written in the “modernist” tradition, books and authors that were new to the students, and, of course, novels and short stories written originally in another language. I also tried to choose each author’s most “accessible” work so that the challenge wouldn’t be too great.
A more complicated and difficult decision for me was determining what the goal of the class should be, i.e. what did I want the students to get out of reading these books? This required more thought. It had to be more than just acquainting them with new, unusual writing. I also knew that “analyzing” each text – trying to puzzle out the author’s meaning – was not what I was after because, as I knew from my own reading experience, explication is often an impossible task. Far better, I decided, to ask the students to “respond” to the text, to ask themselves what their reactions were to what they were reading, what the text meant to them, did the text speak to their lives in any way, and if so, how? After all, that is how I read these books and I find the experience enjoyable, thought-provoking, and stimulating. An English teacher colleague once told me that the best way to read difficult, modernist fiction is to think of it in the same way one looks at a Chagall painting, to appreciate and enjoy the seemingly unrelatable or incomprehensible parts – the cow flying through the air, an angel whispering into a child’s ear, etc. – but not try to make one coherent narrative out of everything. My hope was that the students would learn to read this way and, in the process, have a new world of fiction opened up to them.
I don’t know what I expected to happen in our classes. Did I think that each student would be fully engaged with each book in every class? No, of course not. We had many good discussions, a few that were a struggle to get through, and one or two in which I did a lot of talking. We scratched our heads over many passages, struggling to understand. The students clearly preferred some books over others; The Emigrants and Street of Crocodiles were big favorites, Summer in Baden-Baden and Bartleby not so much. They liked Sebald and Schulz because, as one student put it, “Although done in different ways, both novels appear to be a way for the author to express [himself] during a time of oppression.” The students said many fascinating things about the authors we read. One wrote in a paper, “Vila-Matas and Pessoa both write books that in a way serve to justify or at least try and explain the way they feel about writing and their lifestyle.” Another wrote, “Tsypkin seems to long for Dostoyevsky’s company, seeking the company of someone is his predicament, and possibly even guidance from one of the most innovative writers of the [nineteenth] century. But Dostoyevsky’s anti-Semitism, a trait that he refuses to abandon, shatters the beautiful fantasy that Tsypkin constructs.” Class after class, I was impressed with how seriously they took the reading and how thoughtful and perceptive their comments were about the authors and their books.
One of the benefits for me of teaching “Books in Translation” was the chance to see former math students of mine in an entirely different light, just as they got to see another side of me. One of my English teacher colleagues joked that “since you’re teaching English I guess I can teach a calculus class!” One student in “Books in Translation” who had been an average math student two years previously, turned out to be a wonderful, introspective writer, one who thought deeply about the process of writing itself. She finished her final paper asking, “Is an author shaped by his life experiences? Or does his writing of his life experiences shape the type of person he must be in order to remain true to himself? It is certainly true that people’ s minds can change, but up to what degree is this change of attitude acceptable in order for someone to not be a hypocrite?” Earlier, she had concluded her paper on Sebald writing, “[The past] is the state of greatest despair and desperation, all one can do is see what one did wrong and understand that we are helpless, the past is unchangeable and eternal.”
I consider my experiment teaching English to be a huge success. The students read outstanding fiction by foreign authors they had never heard of, let alone read; they learned to read modernist writing; we had fascinating, probing discussions; finally, I think that these students gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of how literature can inform them about their lives and the lives of others. I feel strongly that one of the main goals of education is to help a student get “out of herself,” introduce her to new ideas and ways of thinking. “Books in Translation” certainly did that for these four students.