English Lesson, Part 2

After one full class of reading Shakespeare in Language Arts, Sam's class has now moved on to doing plot summaries of unrelated short stories. I'm not surprised by this.

I'm not sure how I feel about all of this, but I think I commend the teacher for trying. It's good to expose him, or any kid, to something like this. But I'm pretty relieved to see that they have moved on to something else. The problem is not that reading Shakespeare would have been a challenge for Sam. The problem is that it would have been just shy of impossible for Sam.

When Sam first told me about the Shakespeare stuff, I picked a random quote, just to juxtapose it with what I know about Sam. This is the quote, "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."  To say that Sam would struggle with this would be an understatement.

I think with a lot of effort, Sam might get the meaning- and maybe even retain it for a little while. But to what end? There would be a lot of frustration involved- on his part, and on the teacher's part. And I think that Sam, being Sam, would easily read the teacher's frustration, and that frustration, along with his own, would make him feel more and more like a failure.

I would struggle if someone forced me to learn, never mind understand, Chinese. And I would get pretty nervous and frustrated if someone put me in front of a piano and expected me to play. It's not that I wouldn't want to be able to do these things. It's just that they are not within my abilities to do so.

I can remember reading Shakespeare in school, and I remember struggling with it. And I remember wishing that it came easier to me and, especially, that I enjoyed it more. I remember feeling like the kids that really enjoyed it were in on some secret that I just didn't have the ability to easily understand - no matter how hard I tried. It was work for me, and it was frustrating - and I felt left out. It was like being stuck outside of a party and trying to look in through a fog covered window.

I worry that there are a lot of things in life that are like that for Sam.

So, I'm glad, I think, that he was exposed to this. But I'm more than glad that he wasn't made to feel like an idiot for not understanding it. I'm glad he tried but I'm glad they didn't push and push and then get mad at him for not being able to understand Chinese.