Teaching certain English set texts
often involves discussing and touching upon subjects that wouldn't be
out of place in PSHE lessons. In the last term I've had a series of
memorable lessons, involving sexual content. When lessons have taken
an unexpected turn, students have asked if I'm embarrassed and as I'm
pretty desensitised these days and used to be the only girl in an
otherwise all-male house, the answer is always “No”.
The first unforgettable discussion
during a lesson came about after I asked students what Curley wearing
a glove full of Vaseline on one hand might reveal about his character
(Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men). I'd expected answers involving
Curley having rough hands from manual labour or that he cares about
his wife but instead was met with the response: “His wife has a dry
vagina.” After that lesson, I dreaded marking the books to find
student had all added this piece of information to their notes –
thankfully, they hadn't!
Several weeks later, I was reading
Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go with a top set year nine class. I
own the book and had never got round to reading it but knew what to
expect from seeing the film. Unfortunately I managed to overlook the
fact things may well get a bit racy and read a chapter to the group
that described certain characters masturbating and getting “wet”.
During my reading, I could hear a lot of embarrassed giggles and
after I'd finished the section, a certain male student raised his
hand. Looking genuinely quite confused, he asked me how that was
possible, referring in particular to the female protagonist.
Now teaching in a different school, I
am doing Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with an all male group
and suffering from a lack of play texts. As students have to share
copies of the book, I was planning on letting them read through
certain scenes together to afterwards deduce word meanings from the
glossary at the back. Testing the usefulness of the glossary, I came
across a rather shocking explanation quoted below:
“Cut’: (a) a docked horse; (b) a
gelding; c) cunt (vulgar slang for the vulva)"
(Taken from Act 2, Scene 4 of the 2001
edition)
While the C-word doesn't offend me, I
am honestly pretty shocked Wordsworth Classics deem its inclusion
acceptable and were unable to find a less offensive suitable
alternative. Their most inconsiderate choice of explanatory
vocabulary means I am now going to have to include a mini-lesson
about the etymology of this controversial word:
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