The Tutor by Bertolt Brecht
RevSocialist اش... Thu, 08/19/2010 - 12:44
This play (55pgs) by Bertolt Brecht is about the subservience of education to the demands and interests of the upper classes, using as a metaphor a german tutor to the nobility during the 1700's. And as the main character points out at the beginning of the play, just as previously tutors, teachers, and professors were subservient to the nobility, now they are subservient to the bourgeois, and on the whole make sure to teach what they want them to. It also shows how some students' opposition to the mainstream, and rebellion against authority, is easily overcome when they want a job as a teacher or professor: then they have no problem teaching what the ruling classes want them to and selling out. And if a teacher does rebel or go against the mainstream of things, the upper classes try to cut them down to size and make them miserable so that they submit and teach their students the crap that other teachers teach their students. Thus this play shows, somewhat comedically, the utter bankruptcy of almost all formal education, and leaves one with the strong desire for a revolution, which would sweep away this disgusting and useless form of education and bring into being education which is actually focused on enlightening and educating children and giving them a chance to develop their own interests and strenths and be able to pursue them without opposition. Enjoy comrades:
Liberation:
Add new comment