three roles

History Boys: Three Teachers Reprise their Roles

At the heart of THE HISTORY BOYS is the battle between two types of teachers almost everyone has encountered the wickedly smart, polished modern teacher who is focused on test scores and impressing college admissions boards; and the eccentric, passionate lover of knowledge who tries to pass on the beauty of learning and often inspires their students long into adulthood. In Irwin and Hector, these two wholly opposite teachers, and philosophies, come to life. Levy.

History Never a simple story

History never a simple story
By BRETT OPPEGAARD, for The Columbian
Sunday, April 27, 2008

A fuller vision of it, though, extends well beyond a litany of wars, dates and numbers to encompass everything that every person has ever done.
That can’t all be taught. Alan Bennett’s acclaimed new play “The History Boys” examines what is and why.

This piece, which won six Tony awards in 2006, including best play, will get its regional premiere this weekend at Portland’s Artists Repertory Theatre.
It’s an intense study of the many facets of history education as well as the gray areas of teacher-student relationships.

“This play is about so many things, just like history is about so many things,” the play’s director, Jon Kretzu, said. “But it constantly expands the parallels of how history keeps repeating itself and how history is one random event after another tied together in an obscure and bizarre fashion.”

Hot for teachers

Hot for teacher
by Brian Jewell
Arts editor
Wednesday Apr 30, 2008

MySouthEnd.com - Local news and entertainment for Boston's Historic South End

Throw in two teachers with diametrically opposed philosophies of education, who are united only in their struggles with their erotic interest in their students, and you’ve got the makings of a comic drama to put Dead Poets’ Society to shame.

Process of maturation

the picture of durian gray: #228

my favourite pieces of literature somehow or other involve the process of maturation, and i think that's because of how closely i relate to the process of growing up. the catcher in the rye, for example, revolves around an antihero who grapples with the contradiction between the innocence of childhood and the cruelness of adulthood through martyrdom. the giver tells the story of an adolescent who is designated the historian of their community, whose sins also he must bear. the little prince concerned an adult pilot who slowly learns that the same world looks different through the eyes of a child and that mortality is but another process we have yet to understand.

the history boys is similar: it captures the gradual development of a group of classmates intellectually, professionally, sexually and emotionally as they reach the cusp of their pubescence, realising that the paths of their lives will be dependent on a single university entrance examination.

and i think i've finally realised that before i can decide who i want to become, i have to know who i am. that's where the whole issue of growing up becomes relevant, i think: in my struggle for self-identification i have allowed myself to stagnate into a totem of indecisiveness and anxiety, and what literature does is allow me to watch characters very much like myself engage in the same brawl and develop in the manner i cannot.

Audio Books

Audio Book Club For You: Alan Bennett - Untold Stories Part 3: Written On The Body (Audiobook)

Alan Bennett reads five more extracts from Untold Stories , his major collection of new writings.
Untold Stories . Alan Bennett's first major collection of prose since his bestselling Writing Home , brings together the finest and funniest of his writing over the last ten years.
Following on from Untold Stories: Part I: Stories and Part 2: The Diaries , Part 3: Written on the Body is both a reflection on Alan Bennett's childhood and schooldays and a meditation on writing.
Written on the Body is a sideways look at Bennett's schooldays at Leeds Modern School, and a recollection of the growing pains of puberty. Seeing Stars is a nostalgic view of the movies of the Forties, seen by Bennett and his family in any one of the half a dozen cinemas in their district in Leeds, including the Western, the Clifton, the Picturedrome and the Lyric.
Finally, Staring Out of the Window lets us into Bennett's creative process, which apparently consists of a good deal of... well... staring out of the window.

Audio Book Club For You: Alan Bennett - Untold Stories Part 3: Written On The Body (Audiobook)

Alan Bennett reads five more extracts from Untold Stories , his major collection of new writings.
Untold Stories . Alan Bennett's first major collection of prose since his bestselling Writing Home , brings together the finest and funniest of his writing over the last ten years.
Following on from Untold Stories: Part I: Stories and Part 2: The Diaries , Part 3: Written on the Body is both a reflection on Alan Bennett's childhood and schooldays and a meditation on writing.
Written on the Body is a sideways look at Bennett's schooldays at Leeds Modern School, and a recollection of the growing pains of puberty. Seeing Stars is a nostalgic view of the movies of the Forties, seen by Bennett and his family in any one of the half a dozen cinemas in their district in Leeds, including the Western, the Clifton, the Picturedrome and the Lyric.
Finally, Staring Out of the Window lets us into Bennett's creative process, which apparently consists of a good deal of... well... staring out of the window.

Love/hate review

Shanna's Journal - Movie Monday

The History Boys -- I had a love/hate response to this movie. The dialogue is great and the performances are wonderful, but I felt like it totally disintegrated at the end into your standard Inspiring (But Troubled) Teacher Story. Upon further thought, I realized that what I liked most about it was the really rigorous and exciting-sounding education, since my history teachers were all coaches who followed the advanced pedagogical method of making us read the chapter in the textbook and answer the questions at the end while they read the newspaper sports section. The cliches were all the way through the movie, but I only really noticed them when the story turned almost entirely away from the teaching and focused on the personal relationships. I was a little icked-out at the implication that what made this teacher so inspiring was the fact that he was a little in love with his students, and the mean old administrator just couldn't get over the fact that he was caught fondling a student in public.