At the risk of being the 20th person to do so, (and apologies in advance if I am)--Jamie's letter detached and in ascii--as Marci requested. All the Best James _____________________________________________________________ Jamie MacKinnon 127 Huron Ave. North Ottawa K1Y 0W3 November 7, 1996 Letter to the Editor of The Globe and Mail My daughter is in grade nine; my son in grade five. In their entire school lives, neither has been required by a teacher to memorize a poem. Last year, I asked two people at the Ottawa Board of Education why memory work is no longer a part of the curriculum. "Rote learning isn't very useful," a curriculum specialist told me. I spoke to a language arts specialist. I said that I thought most people benefit from knowing some poetry by heart, and that it would be a good idea for students in Ontario to be able to recite some of the same poems this, as a small step toward building a common culture. She said: "But who would choose the poems? You'd never get agreement as to what poems those should be." I suggested that at this time of the year, "In Flanders Fields" was an obvious choice. It is, I pointed out, one of Canada's greatest war poems, a eulogy that speaks to future generations, and a poem of perfect metre and a flawless register of language. "Some parents might object to the sentiment expressed," the Board employee replied. I'm not sure why memorization is out of fashion with our teachers and educational specialists. I would have thought that knowing a few classic poems by heart would be a good thing. A rich memory, one might think, is indispensable to intellectual growth. And I'm also not sure why the notion of a common culture is so difficult. Without common cultural reference points, citizens cannot converse, and cannot work toward the ideal of a civil society. The teachers themselves are too young to have fought for freedom. They can, however, help our students to understand freedom as an ideal. One way they can do this (an important way, I think) is by getting students to memorize the best of our war poetry, which provides a window on the contingency and historicity of freedom. If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, McCrae wrote. If our schools fail to encourage cultural memory, it will be the living who sleep, in an unremembering oblivion. Sincerely, Jamie MacKinnon __________________________________________________________________ -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ j a m e s b r o w n _________________________________ Associate Director Centre for the Support of Teaching YORK UNIVERSITY S Ross 834 _________________________________ [log in to unmask] 736-5754 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~