I'm an American guy living in Taiwan and teaching English here. I've been so employed for over 20 years, with lengthy tours of duty in private kindergartens, vocational schools, cram schools, public junior high schools, public elementary schools and universities. I'm not laying out my resume to brag over it, but rather to set the stage for something far more masturbatory.
In the public elementary school where I work I have to deal with a Reader's Theater competition every fall semester. What, you ask, is a Reader's Theater competition? For those blissfully unaware of it, Reader's Theater started out as a teaching strategy wherein students read and perform from a script as a means of improving their literacy.
Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Yet in Taiwan, where even the most trivial academic activities are turned into competitions, the idea of Reader's Theater as just a teaching strategy wasn't enough. In Taiwan this teaching strategy was transformed into a fully-fledged competition, wherein students are forced to memorize (and later pretend to read) a script over a period of weeks. These students are then forced to memorize a series of movements to accompany their script, and after about two months' time teams from different schools come together in the hope of winning first place in their respective city or county Reader's Theater competition. Thus classmate is turned against classmate, child is turned against parent, and teacher is turned against teacher.
What's that, you say? Sounds like the U.S. Civil War? Why yes it does, though the Reader's Theater competition is far more polite. And where it might be said that Stowe's Abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin helped ignite the War Between the States, we can't blame her for Reader's Theater. No, for that we must blame other powers, perhaps far more sinister in nature than the slaveholding states represented in Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Narrator: Hello everybody! I'm Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of this book! I might be a little racist, I might be overwhelming in my missionary zeal, and I might not be the best at constructing tight, well-paced plots, but just the same here's the story of Uncle Tom!
Uncle Tom: Hi guys. I'm Uncle Tom. I'm a God-fearing slave in Kentucky. I love my wife! I love my fellow slaves! And life is alright if you have Jesus!
Tom's Owner: Sorry Tom, I have to sell you down the river. I don't have enough money to keep you!
Uncle Tom: That's sad! What will happen to me now? How will I get back to my wife and children?
Narrator: Uncle Tom gets sold down the river, to a man named St. Clare and his young, evangelical daughter.
Uncle Tom: Hey, life isn't so bad down here! I miss my wife and children, but this St. Clare guy is nice!
St. Clare: I'm one of the good slave owners! I don't beat my slaves! They all love me!
His Daughter: And I'm good too! Maybe we could set our slaves... free?
Uncle Tom: Great idea! What could go wrong?
His daughter: Oh no, I'm dying!
St. Clare: Oh no, I'm dying too!
Uncle Tom: Time to get sold down the river - again!
Narrator: Yes, Uncle Tom has a third owner, and this one is the worst of all!
Legree: Ha ha ha. I like molesting these slaves! I like whipping them! Life is great!
Uncle Tom: Oh no!
Legree: Take that! And that! And that!
Narrator: Uncle Tome gets whipped to death! But don't worry - he believes in JESUS, so he's going to heaven! What's a whipping compared to eternal life?
Uncle Tom: Thanks, Jesus. That whipping he gave me was bad, but hell is much worse!
Jesus: No problem, Uncle Tom. Now if we could just solve this slavery problem...
THE END
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IN CONCLUSION: Uncle Tom's Cabin is a badly written piece of Abolitionist propaganda. You could argue that its heart was in the right place, but Harriet Beecher Stowe was a terrible writer and Uncle Tom's Cabin is kinda racist. Historic? Definitely. But also a real chore to get through.
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