I took a look at reflection 1-3, which encourages us to think about what English as a subject is. I don't think that "What is English?" is as easily answered as the same sort of question for other disciplines because English blends and bleeds into so many fields. You can pretty much define the edges of say chemistry, even though it bleeds into physics and biology because it's a study of a particular kind of thing, in a particular way. English is harder, because there isn't as clear an object of study. You might say we study the language, but then you leave literature and writing- the use of the language- out in the cold. We bleed into so many fields. Neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, history, art- and those are just some of the easiest to trace. The book puts forth a list of things that might be English: language study (grammar), language skills, writing, speaking, listening, reading, viewing, print literature, non-print literature (film, music), communication skills, students' own lives, social/cultural context of students' lives, other. It asks which we find appropriate for a high school English course. I'd have to say all of them (though maybe not all in one semester). I'm pretty sure the authors expected that answer, because their next question asks us to define English in some way, if it can't really be defined in terms of content. That's not easy. English for me is about connections, between people, events, text, disciplines, times, thoughts. We connect the students to great authors, to each other, their community, and ideas. English is one of the few disciplines (especially in school) where connections can be made between robots, dinosaurs, Shakespeare, and pop music (might take a bit of doing, but I KNOW we can pull it off). This connective property is I think why English is prominent in many schools, though I'm not sure that policymakers think of it that way (assuming that they think about it at all- I suspect for many it's important because it has been for a long time). Or if it isn't why, maybe it should be. I feel there are opportunities and creativity lost when we don't encourage interdisciplinary thinking. So much of the really interesting and engaging things happen at intersections. One quick example- I'm the lead writer for a video game project, I'm in charge of the script, but I'm constantly working with, inspiring and being inspired by the artists, the musicians, and the programmers. Most of us on the project double- or multi- dip into departments other than our main, and that's how I think it should be. In schools the departments rarely collaborate. Science is distinct from art, they're apart from music and English is a whole different thing. Why? Isn't the role of school to prepare us for the working world, make us productive citizens? Why then doesn't school reflect this intersecting of fields? In one English class I've had here at MU the professor asked a friend from the Physics department to come take over class one day to help us understand the relationship between the books we read and the actual science going on right now. Why not do that more?
The Time article expresses a similar thought on interdisciplinary learning, or rather the lack thereof. I can see the schools starting to move in the right direction though, and perhaps once we break the inertia that makes change so ponderous, momentum will take over and these necessary ideas, global, creative, interdisciplinary learning will come to the front. It won't be easy- it'll take a great deal of thought and a broad knowledge base to teach in this way- more collaboration, messier scheduling, and complex assessment, but it's the way our world is running. Our kids need to know how to look at a problem in many ways, find and evaluate information, write and explain and test in all sorts of ways. They need to understand how they can use this stuff outside of school too and if we can't explain when they might use the knowledge or skill we're teaching, then why are we teaching it?
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