Last Tuesday I walked into my Year 11 class in a rage. I was full of what my father once called ‘Steve’s white hot indignation’. I’d just read a number of comments on our class Ning that indicated that some of the boys were not taking the course (which I wrote about in ‘Searching for meaning in the English classroom’) as seriously as I thought it deserved.

So I let fly. I talked about rigour, discipline, responsibility, attention and standards. I said how unacceptable I found it that some interpreted openness as vagueness, flexibility as laxness, a relaxed classroom atmosphere as an excuse to goof off.

The boys sat silently during my rant.

That night when I logged onto our class Ning, I saw that a number of boys had written about our lesson. One boy (I’ll call him Leonardo) called his blog post ‘Play the game’. He wrote:

".. in Years 11 and 12, it’s barely even about the learning at all. … In most subjects, we learn how to pass the exams… how to structure an essay, how to deliver a speech the way they want it, etc. School is all about how you play the game these days. It’s all about doing what you can to get an A, regardless of what you’re learning. … And I guess it does teach you stuff about the real world. Teaches you to try to beat the system, that menial busywork sometimes is what you need to do to do well in life, and, most importantly, no matter how much you hate your job, the best revenge is success.
I don’t think this is what the people who planned this school system had in mind. I guess those guys at the Board of Studies think that the system as it stands is a genuine attempt to educate kids in the subjects they selected for us. Simply put, they’re wrong.
…The reason why we (I) am having trouble with this course at times is because I have been trained to think like that. I do what I can to do well in the HSC. And I think some others in the class (although they may not know it) think the same way. Blogs aren’t marked, so I don’t do them; projects require organised creativity as opposed to just knowing sh*t, and suddenly I’m confused; Dr. Shann asks for dedication to the course but he can’t put a date or a number on it, so we just don’t try, et cetera, et cetera."

Another student, Allen, wrote:

"Leonardo’s blog ‘Play the Game’ pretty much sums up how I feel about the course. It’s school, I’m here to do my Higher School Certificate (HSC) and get ready for uni, and while all the other courses seem to concur with this, English Extension doesn’t and hasn’t. I think this is why I don’t blog regularly or in depth. It’s like Leonardo said, “It’s all about doing what you can to get an A…”, as long as it helps me to do well in the HSC, the rest doesn’t seem too important. The creativity and responsibility inherent in the course has tripped me up; I’m looking at how I get marks in assessment pieces, not looking for the ’something else’ that’s expected."

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As I read these blogs by Leonardo and Allen, I thought about the book I’m currently reading, Stanley Fish’s Is there a text in this class: the authority of interpretive communities? It’s an immensely stimulating read. In it, Fish argues that the way we make sense of the word (indeed what we actually see and experience in the world) is determined by the norms, values and expectations of the communities to which we belong.