2008 March | Layla.Miltsov.org

Monthly Archive March, 2008

In Praise of the Wild: Discussion of Jeannette Walls’ “The Glass Castle”

March 21, 2008

Layla, guest speaker on the programme: In the Motherhood, hosted by Trixie Dumont
CKUT, 6pm Wednesday, 19th March, 2008
Discussion of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls mp3

(correction: Of course, I meant “winter” and NOT”summer” when I was talking on the show about the family who melted snow to get water and warmth in Quebec. It […]

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KALEIDOSCOPE

March 18, 2008

This work is a compilation of sketches I have written in the last two decades. First, there is the poetry that I wrote at the very beginning of the 1990s when my relationship to colonial language was pushing away my native tongue. At the time, I was overcome by the urgency of […]

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Hapgood, David: The Screwing of the Average Man.

Warning: This book is not for the weak of heart. If you were everwondering where to invest your old age, how to sue your landlord,which bank, health insurance, or pension fund to bless with yourblood and sweat, this book will shatter all illusions (that is, ifyou still managed to retain any innocence with regard to organisedcrime and society). Even if it was written in the 1970s, the book isas relevant today as it was when it first appeared. Hapgood presentsa brilliant analysis of how bankers, stock- and insurance brokers, lawyers, other professionals, and government screw up your average Homo Sapien. This quote speaks for itself: "Theaverage man has of course always been a loser, at least since theinvention of agriculture made it profitable for one person to exploitanother... Sometime in the late sixties, the average man's domesticeconomy stalled... In 1974 a group of congressmen led by John McFallof California estimated that wealth was being transferred to therichest one fifth of the population from those below them at the rateof $10 billion a year... This divine right of hustlers flourishedfrom the earliest days in America... ".
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson Metaphors We Live By.

This is an important classic, whose astute analysis of the metaphoric nature of language exposes the process through which language fosters specific belligerent and problematic social relations and values even when one attempts to restructure those relations. The authors raise vital questions about language and reality and, overall, present a convincing case for the role of metaphor in human perception of war and peace, world and self, even if at times they make some problematic interpretations of causal relationships in a few specific examples. I give a more thorough analysis of this book in my second chapter of my doctoral dissertation that will soon appear here (link) and I highly recommend it.
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Tayeb Salih Season of Migration to the North / The Wedding of Zein.

This Sudanese author writes about the village life in Northern Sudan with depth yet which sparkles with humour and wit while conveying love and respect for these human characters. The Season of Migration to the North was at one point acclaimed as THE novel of the 20^th century Arabic literature. It tells a poignant story of a narrator who returns to his native village in the North of Sudan after several years of higher education in England to meet a mysterious character who reveals to him his own relationship to colonialism, education, racism, and the classical Arabic literary demarcation of reason and madness. A beautiful read that transcends culture and society in our striving for flight towards true human freedom, beyond politics and beyond our social and individual constraints.
Margaret Peterson Haddix, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting contemporary authors, who is unfortunately categorized as a writer for young adults and sometimes children, but whose effective manner of writing with respect for her readers' intelligence and whose fascinating and critically vital themes should, in fact, reach people of all ages - anywhere between 0 and 300 years or more. Just Ella is a realistic book narrated effectively in first person by Ella who is more commonly known around the world as Cinderella and who tells us what “really” happened when she almost married a prince.

She presents a highly convincing explanation of how her story ended up being interpreted as a tale of magical pumpkins, fairy godmothers, and glass slippers and how she finally learnt from her mistakes. Haddix presents a lively narrative, humorous and thoughtful. An excellent book that raises questions of social injustice and outrageous abuse in a reflective, dignifying and powerful language that never once falls into the trap of pity or resignation.
Escape from Memory. This book is at once far-fetched yet credible in Haddix’ ability to portray human nature as striving for goodness and its constant encounter with greed and power.

The plot of this book revolves around an imaginary village called Crythe. Crythians find themselves torn between two great warring powers: the US and USSR. Both powers don't give a damn about individual lives and human suffering. The Russians are portrayed as brutal and the Americans as greedy. This stereotypical depiction is justified through the narrative because it finally all depends on the specific choices that a people make with regards to their social organization. In this particular plot, we find the main character, an all-American girl from a small town in Ohio, after a game of hypnosis going through a turbulent adventure unveiling dark secrets of human relations, her own relationship with her mother, her encounter with Aunt Memory and discovery of a cruel reality outside her home town. The book ties in the themes of memory, history, community, and war. What is people’s meaning in this world? Is it to preserve memory? What is memory? The Crythians respond with the implementation of a tradition that would ensure the transmission of specific memory. Sounds familiar? Aunt Memory is usually this adult who transmits to her “niece” the meaning of the clan and is an important link between the past and the future. The main point of the book seems to be: So, why don't we write hopeful, beautiful narratives rather than keep repeating useless mythical facts that harbour fear, hatred, and breed violent havoc. Apart from being a story on human choices, love and relationships, this book is also about the relations of children and parents and where the link in memory continues, breaks, should continue or should break.
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John Holt: How Children Failand How Children Learnare lively accounts of Holt's observations as a school teacher on exactly what they announce: how children learn or fail.

These books have challenged modern pedagogical theory most of which is based on the assumption that children are either in need of “correctional” methods or are passive receptacles of knowledge to be filled, programmed and modelled into “decent” human beings. Holt argues that authoritarian approach to learning, in fact hinders natural curiosity and blunts the child's thirst for learning, fostering instead passivity and indifference. Holt calls to trust and respect the child's natural striving to learn and be in love with her world and her ability to learn wholesomely without the bribery of professional approval, peer pressure, or grades which are the basis of most of children's “failure”. This is an important foundation for the theory of unschooling and happy childhood.

Elegantly written, these books offer an important yet pleasant read that leaves a deepmark on any one striving to give the best to their children.
JohnTaylor Gatto is an important contemporary critic of pedagogy whom I cite often. A former school teacher, he shocked the pedagogical world of New York when after receiving Best Teacher's Award, he delivered his famous speech, titled The Seven Lesson School Teacher(link) in which he exposes what he “really” “teaches” . In a powerful language, Gatto confesses that he has done an excellent job in fulfilling the schoolmandate teaching kids indifference, passivity, shattering theirself-esteem, cruelty, etc. through the system of bells, grades, constant evaluation and various forms of coercion and punishment that ensure conformity and downright stupidity. This speech served as the basis for a powerful critique of contemporary obligatory schooling titled Dumbing Us Down. I highly recommend it.

The Underground History of American Educationis another important book by John Taylor Gatto in which he explores thehistorical argumentation for and structuring of contemporary schools, a project that has been fostered by the need in hierarchical societies for docile soldiers, workers, consumers, et al, at the service of warring rulers in Europe and industrialist capitalists inthe US. An extremeley important critique of culture and pedagogy.

You can also access some of his books on-line at:http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/or at the public library.
Ivan Illich: Deschooling Society.

This is one of the most important books that at once offers acritique of culture and social institutions and offers feasible waysfor de-institutionalising society and most import deschooling it.Already in 1971, the book already made reference to popularising knowledge and information through libraries and technologies of thetext, such as web nets. Ivan Illich was a brilliant philosopher andany of his books are, in fact, a must to read. If you haven't yet, I'd recommend you start with this book.
Taha Hussein: The Days. A trilogy that beautifully renders the reality of a blind boy growingup in rural Egypt.

It is a rare account of the details of an experience of life through senses excluding our most taken forgranted sense of sight. This autobiographical narrative in third person (although the third part was translated into English in the first person) raises important questions of knowledge and experience, clash of civilizations and most important of social class in a softmanner that sounds like the easy gurgle of the river of life. Infact, the title itself, the Days, in Arabic has many connotations,among which destiny and life. This was my first book of Arabic literature that I read by myself when I was 10.

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