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RIP Bradbury. Martian Chronicles is indirectly one of the most influential books in my life, due to an interesting twist... In high school, we had a literatur
by valuegram 14y ago
RIP Bradbury. Martian Chronicles is indirectly one of the most influential books in my life, due to an interesting twist...
In high school, we had a literature class where there was a list of a couple hundred books we could choose from to read each month. At the end of the month, the teacher had a canned test she had purchased somewhere for each book, that we would take to prove our comprehension. For those of you who haven't read Martian Chronicles, it's a series of around 30 stories with mostly independent characters and story lines.
The test I was given was a "match the character to their description" test. Not only am I normally bad with names, but with 30 stories featuring unique charters, I had no idea on a majority of the names.
So, I flipped over the multiple choice test, and wrote an essay about how I read, comprehended, and loved the book,but this was an outrageous assessment, and a poor way to judge my aptitude.
Although I scored less than 30/100 on the multiple choice, the teacher gave me an A on the test.
I learned to think outside the box, and the power of reasoning and discussion. All the credit in the world to my teacher for having an open mind.
...Anyways, totally off topic, but it's something that will always stick with me. Bradbury was a great author who will be sorely missed.
- Turing_Machine 14y agoBradbury himself would have been pleased by that story, I think.
- hkmurakami 14y agoThe very fact that the teacher allowed students to choose what they wanted to read, rather than the books that the teacher him/herself liked (which was the unfortunate case for me), is wonderful. Had I been afforded such a situation, it probably wouldn't have taken me 10 years (after High School) to finally enjoy reading for myself.
- freditup 14y agoAnd the fact that the teacher saw the flaw with the test and appreciated what you wrote. A teacher/professor who is unwilling to be wrong is the most dangerous kind there is. This teacher clearly was not one of those.
- planetguy 14y agoOn the other hand you're not doing your students any favours if you let them only read the stuff they're interested in; or rather, the stuff they think they're interested in at the age of twelve. Gotta force them to broaden their horizons and read something else once in a while or they'll become... well, the kind of adults who only read science fiction.
- TruthElixirX 14y ago>well, the kind of adults who only read science fiction. The horror.
- ktizo 14y agoThe horror indeed, for what should we do when we see these dastardly creatures? Should we wave pitchforks, or just ring the church bells to warn others, while we cower inside and pray?
- SoftwareMaven 14y agoGiven that every great science fiction novel I've read is an essay on either how good the human race could be (often with some instructions) or how bad the human race could be (often with steps from here to there outlined), I think there are far worse things than being an adult who reads only SciFi. Similar arguments hold for most forms of fiction, which is why I'm always unimpressed with people who don't read fiction because they "only want to read things that will help them grow". The fiction I've read has provided more avenues for personal growth than almost all non-fiction I've read.