Reading changes students.
From the inside, out.
Transformational learning takes place when students read literature.
Watch our Truth in Two to find out why (full text below).
Teaching-learning is not for information, but for transformation.
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Picture Credit: Luke Renoe, Snappy Goat, Scop.io
FULL TEXT
I taught a course on Gothic Horror Literature to high school seniors for many years. We would study books like Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. These stories we read and discussed are morality plays. Human nature is nowhere better understood than when we consider why Dr. Moreau thought he could remake animals in his image. We understand our true nature when we identify with the decaying portrait of Dorian Gray. And we begin to realize the tension between our dignity and depravity when reading about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
So high school seniors had to address the question, “How did reading this literature affect my person, my understanding about myself?” One semester stands out in my mind. Professors wait for these moments, moments which define when true learning has occurred. Each young person began to explain what they had learned. To a person, each high school senior all said the same thing. “After reading Gothic horror I came to realize that the real horror is inside me.”
Think about those responses for just a moment. Imagine if every young person in this culture would be so moved by literature. Imagine that students would come to the place early in their lives – uncompelled by their instructor – that they first bore responsibility for evil in themselves. Imagine how our world would change?! Self-restraint would replace state-regulation. Internal compulsion would eliminate external controls. Or said simply, if you control yourself, no one else will have to.
Whenever I talk about Gothic Horror Literature, I tell that story. All the students in one class came to the same conclusion at the same time. They realized the truth of Jesus’ statement in Mark 7, that sin is within. Literature has the power to show us our nature: from the inside, out.
For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, President of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking Truth wherever it’s found.