Coming of Age in Canada

 

Last week, I helped a student edit a poem for his high school English class. It was required to be on the theme of “coming of age.” He thought of the metaphor of a ship casting off the lines and leaving the pier for the open sea. I thought it was quite beautiful.

But the teacher was unhappy with it, and without revision threatened a low mark. To begin with, she took the word “tack,” referring to directing a ship, for an error. She was sure enough of herself not to look it up in the dictionary. So he lost marks.

Perhaps to her dictionaries are oppressive, lest they contradict her “lived experience.”

But the bigger problem was that the poem gave no “cause” for “coming of age.” At last we puzzled out that she was expecting some rebellion against parents and society. It was not permissible to see growing up just as striking off on your own. It had to involve rejecting whatever your parents had taught you.

This was a special problem for my student, because he is Chinese. Not Chinese-Canadian. Chinese, attending a Canadian high school. To him, the thought was shocking. Filial piety and respect for your ancestors is among the deepest of Confucian values.

I found it admirable that, on figuring out this is what his teacher wanted, he declared that, rather than accede he would take a lower mark.

But it illustrates how harmful our schools may have become. The agenda of this teacher at least—and she is not alone—is not to educate, but to de-educate, to dismantle anything the student might already know.