I found out today that Ken Macrorie died recently. He wrote the book called Telling Writing and others. He was a professor of English at Western Michigan University, among other things. He is the author of the book, Uptaught. One of the two books that most grabbed me as I thought about teaching. That book and The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey are both worth reading, whether you are a teacher or some other kind of human being.
I respected John Holt very much. His “How Children Fail” and other books were hot items for teachers and those thinking about schooling. The book What Do I Do Monday? was especially helpful and interesting as I began my college teaching. It was filled with quotes from a book called “Uptaught”. I found the book and started reading.
The ancient Greeks developed an idea that a well-educated person [read “man”] would be a good speaker, with a trained voice to carry across a crowd and a trained mind that could think fast, someone who know rhetoric. Then, along came the new technology of writing. Today, we expect an educated person to be able to write well, fluently, correctly, persuasively. So, we have English classes for high school and college students who can already speak and write English but are expected to demonstrate their skills to teachers.
The book “Uptaught” shows how the English class can shut a mind down, persuade its owner that big words show intelligence and that more words are better than fewer. Many classes show students that such tactics bring high grades while pointing students away from direct, clear thinking, speaking and writing. “Uptaught” is a wonderful book for making clear how this chilling process works, from high school to graduate school.
You can find inexpensive copies available from Barnes and Noble or in some libraries if you are interested.
