The Problem with English Teaching

Midway through her 9 a.m. Intro to American Literature course Thursday, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Professor Elizabeth Mabrey suddenly realized that her students would accept, without question, literally any words that came out of her mouth as absolute, incontrovertible fact, sources confirmed. “I could say that On the Road was an overt metaphor for the Vietnam War and they would jot it down in their notebooks without any hesitation whatsoever,” said Mabrey, adding that, come midterms, her students will, as if on cue, mindlessly regurgitate whatever she tells them, whether it’s that the character of Dean Moriarty is supposed to be a figment of Sal Paradise’s imagination, or that the entire novel is meant to be read backwards. “I could, honest to God, ask them to tear their copies of the novel in half because that’s what Kerouac ‘intended the reader to do,’ and they would do it. I mean, what are they going to do? Disagree with me?”

This is satire, but the subjective nature of the subject makes this a real problem for students.