A Modest Proposal: That High Schools Make Lasagna Out Of The Gutless, Sub-Literate Faculty And Administrators
A Maryland high school student successfully completes a "Write like Swift" assignment -- yes, that famous Jonathan Swift satire in which he, during a famine, suggested that the Irish sell their children to be turned into food for the rich.
That essay, full title, "A Modest Proposal For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland, from Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick," is a fabulous thing -- meant to mock Brit heartlessness toward the Irish.
Only a person with chimp-like intelligence can mistake Swift's suggestion for anything but satire. A taste:
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
And, well, assign high school students to do something in the vein of Swift and, well, if you can't predict that you're going to get some hilariously horrible stuff back, well, you're unqualified to do much more than mop the school's floors.
From Robby Soave at Reason:
Of course, one student who actually followed through on the assignment is now an object of public scorn because his Swiftian essay suggested that black people should be deported to the Sahara Desert in order to solve U.S. racism.This seems perfectly in keeping with the spirit of Swift, who, lest we forget, proposed the murder of children in his famous piece of satire. But other students complained, and the school district had this to say:
"The student chose a subject matter that was clearly insensitive and struck a nerve with students here and staff members here. And so, they have been meetings today where the staff has tried to allow students to express their opinions and say why they're hurt, why they're angered," said Bob Mosier, Anne Arundel County Schools.Meanwhile, the school itself dodged criticisms along the lines of this is exactly what Swift did by noting that the famous essayist could also be credibly accused of "insensitivity":
In a letter sent home to parents, North County Principal Julie Cares said: "Just as one could argue that the content of [the original] piece was ill-advised and insensitive, such is the case with the content of the student's piece."
Julie seems dim, spinally lacking, and not all that literate.
Consider how much better education would be over there in Anne Arundel County Schools if she'd been eaten as a baby. Perhaps in a fricassee or a ragout.
Swift didn't write his 'Modest Proposal' essay during a famine - he wrote it in 1729 while the famine began nearly 120 years later in 1845.
His piece was a protest about the chronic poverty faced by many of the Irish population at that time. It was the failure to address this issue that brought about the conditions necessary for the famine to occur in the following century.
Dick Strawkins at April 14, 2016 1:06 AM
Consider how well-received this paper would have been if the student suggested deporting whites to the Sahara to "solve racism".
Manufactured victims must be appeased.
Radwaste at April 14, 2016 4:17 AM
I want to read that kid's essay now! It looks like the student did exactly what the assignment was intended to do: Cause an uproar. Just like Swift's original work, good writing caused a big stir. A+ for that kid! Of course, only the liberal school system would stoop so low as to shame a student for doing their homework correctly.
Ellis Dee at April 14, 2016 5:03 AM
Swift didn't care who he offended. He took a scattergun approach, and not just in A Modest Proposal. Even Gulliver's Travels was a satire - of the then-popular travelogue books, which were getting more fantastical with each new one published (most were written by authors who'd never left their writing rooms).
In Gulliver, Swift also challenged the Hobbesian philosophy of the individual preceding society and questioned the value to society of scientific experimentation.
Not to mention, Gulliver expresses considerable disdain about human nature and European society in general (e.g., Lilliputian political disputes about ridiculous things such as cracking hardboiled eggs).
If this student offended a wide swath of people, he achieved at least part of his Swiftian mandate.
Conan the Grammarian at April 14, 2016 6:17 AM
"I want to read that kid's essay now!"
Me too... An essential element of satire is that it be witty. I'm having a hard time thinking of how one could come up with anything witty, starting with that particular premise. But it's entirely possible that the student thought of something I haven't thought of. And if it wasn't witty, it probably would not have gotten the reaction it is getting.
Cousin Dave at April 14, 2016 6:53 AM
Wait, are these complainers the same type of students that upon entry to a "university" will demand segregated housing, unions, and activities?
Those people? I would cheerfully spend my own money to buy one of them a one-way ticket to the black-majority African nation of their choice (but preferably Zimbabwe, it's socialist!) and plenty of documentation on how to obtain local citizenship and how to properly renounce their racist US citizenship.
(I'm afraid that the host nation would politely decline the new immigrant and deport them back)
I R A Darth Aggie at April 14, 2016 7:00 AM
I loved Swift. And really, I cut this out of the piece because it seemed like an extra line, but the style and writing of the bit I posted influenced my writing. You can see it in the absurdist humor I use in my books and column.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/402368547939911392/
And yes, providing the kid didn't screw up on grammar, etc., he should have gotten an A.
I hope his parents told him that he was right and they -- the admins, etc. -- are wrong, and they encourage him to not be squashed into intellectual submission.
Amy Alkon at April 14, 2016 7:23 AM
Same thing happened to me in high school. I was getting sick and tired of years of writing reports on the "classics" the English dept. assigned. My senior year I got ahold of a book called, I think, The Classics Re-Classified. Not only did it rip these books a new one in the Twain manner of a classic being a book that everyone talked about but no-one read but it also took to task teachers who assigned them.
I wrote a scathing report of The Scarlet Letter based on this book. There was much consternation in the Dept. Other students were shocked I turned in such a thing. It eventually resulted into a stern lecture by the Dept Head. Which I completely ignored.
Kevin at April 14, 2016 7:44 AM
PS The late biological anthropologist Marvin Harris said people are especially delicious. (Not from personal experience, i would hope.)
Kevin, love you for that. I got a C+ in American Lit for using my brain -- questioning why the symbolism mean what they said it did.
I would have given little 10th grade me an A for not taking the easy way out -- which, believe me, in anything that had to do with reading and writing, I could easily do.
Amy Alkon at April 14, 2016 10:58 AM
My senior year I got ahold of a book called, I think, The Classics Re-Classified. ~ Kevin at April 14, 2016 7:44 AM
That book was written by Richard Armour, a Harvard PhD who wrote several pun-filled books roasting the education industry's sacred cows. I read his It All Started with Columbus ("BEING AN UNEXPURGATED, UNABRIDGED, AND UNLIKELY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FROM CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS TO JOHN F. KENNEDY FOR THOSE WHO, HAVING PERUSED A VOLUME OF HISTORY IN SCHOOL, SWORE THEY WOULD NEVER READ ANOTHER.") in high school and never looked at American history the same way again.
Conan the Grammarian at April 14, 2016 2:56 PM
My high school senior history project was titled Christopher Columbus: Bigger Than Hitler, the high school valedictorians was on Pocahontas and I swear to god the only source material she used was the Disney movie
lujlp at April 16, 2016 9:27 PM
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