Is the purpose of school to make you do things that you'll enjoy?

That is one of the 3 purposes of school. The other two are to get a good job, and to make you a better citizen of the world... (there might be more, but those are the 3 I've come up with).

Animal Farm tries to be the last, but the flaws in it mean I can't take it seriously and so it fails. Well maybe it soft of works because nearly everybody has read it, but again, the flaws are so bad I can't take anyone seriously who cites it and so I consider it a failure.

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foldr 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I think you're quite confused about what Animal Farm is. It's a short work of fiction. It's not something that you'd "cite" in support of a particular point, and it wasn't written with the intention of making the reader "a better citizen of the world". Of course it has obvious satirical and allegorical elements, but there's no He-Man-style PSA at the end of it.

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bluGill 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The purpose was to make a statement about communism which in turn means it was intended to be the last.

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hackyhacky 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> which in turn means it was intended to be the last.

That's a bold and misguided assertion of authorial intent.

Since you're a fan of the scientific method: you can please cite sources in support of your claim?

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bluGill 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Read all the other replies. In particular foldr (sibling to yours) is a very good analysis that makes my point while looking like a rebuttal.

	▲	hackyhacky 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I read it. It's definitely a rebuttal.

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foldr 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's a non sequitur. But you see, this is the exactly kind of thing that a high school literature class could usefully dig into.

We know that Orwell was thinking of the Russian Revolution when he wrote the book. Many events in the story have obvious historical parallels to it.

On the other hand, Orwell was also a political journalist who wrote political essays. If his primary aim in writing the book was to make a specific critique of communism, why did he decide to express that critique as a work of fiction with talking animals? He would certainly have been aware that such a work is inherently open to wider interpretation.

Do you really think that a class of reasonably intelligent high school students couldn't find any moral in the story that's not inherently tied to communism? There are clearly all sorts of analogies that can be drawn between the story and historical or current events. And there are all sorts of conclusions you can draw. Maybe the animals should never have had a revolution in the first place; maybe they should have, but they went about it the wrong way, etc. etc.

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john_strinlai 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>Is the purpose of school to make you do things that you'll enjoy?

ideally, yes, enjoyment should be one purpose of school. it's much easier to teach when students are enjoying learning.

learning to engage with something that you don't enjoy is also important, though, and why i think some of "the classics" should still be required reading.

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