Teaching Kiddie Literature

                                    Note: Any resemblance to persons living or dead may be a coincidence. 

We have too many Kiddie Literature teachers in this department. At the last count there were four of them. At one point there were six. The dean thought that hiring more would attract students to the English program. It worked. We got a lot of pointed-ears-and-no-neck football players who thought children's literature would be a breeze. 

Some of those courses were designed for the six year-old mind, which is okay if we're teaching six year-olds.

But we're not.

We are teaching adults who will graduate and become contributing members of society. (That's a tall order for some of the numpties that I've taught through the years, but that's the assumption).

A few years ago, yours truly taught a course in Children's Literature. I am qualified by the standards of the department: I am a former child, and I read "Peter Cottontail" and "Winnie the Pooh" when I was small. 

Half of the enrollees didn't show for the second class. They read the syllabus, and apparently, they didn't like where Wind in the Willows was headed. The themes scared them off. 

A Commentary on British Society, Animal Ettiquette, Self-Destructive Impulses. 

My favorite lecture was titled Patriarchy and Sexual Innuendo in Little Red Riding Hood. That got the class bible thumpers in huff, but it was fun to argue with them. Those who finished the class may have learned something.

It was a night class, and somebody invited Reverend Flavius  Smithers, the city's notorious God-botherer, to attend. What a blast that was. He said that I was perverting education. 

Nah. Sometimes you have to throw a monkey wrench into the way that people think. Sometimes it hurts, but nobody said that life going to be a weekend at Chuck E. Cheese.

Maybe they didn't like my take on Peter Cottontail. Beatrice Potter's book is the Communist Manifesto for children. 

Mr. McGregor is a wealthy land owner. The rabbits are the oppressed proletariat who barely get by in life. There are so many class power dynamics you'd have to be dead to miss them. 

Or just not show up for class.