Learning in the Oral Tradition

Because I am taking courses in both traditional Irish studies and regular courses, there is an interesting approach to the nature of learning. In the History course and the Literature course, the two courses in the European literary tradition, there are set texts, one goes to a lecture and listens, one goes to the tutorial and learns how to repeat back the party line that the course is teaching. At least the History lecturer frames the repetition as critical thinking, but I know it is really a game of Guess the Agenda. I know this by trial and error (my error, of course). We were talking about the concept of republic as espoused by Wolfe Tone in Ireland in the 1790's. Now, of course, the Party Line is that Wolfe Tone conceived of the republic as a goverment of the people (i.e. no monarch) in the French sense which meant parliamentary reform for Ireland. He was also in favor of Catholic emancipation. These are the Right Answers. Well, when the lecturer got to me, I had been reading about the import/export taxes and the fact that the Anglo-Irish protestants were pissed off about parliament because it was cutting into profits, and the Catholics were all about emancipation so as to have better political participation in the free market. Thus, I said there was an economic factor to Wolfe Tone's republic that was not necessarily outlined by the French idea because of this emancipation thing that would bring more people into participation in the market. The lecturer hemmed and hawed, and eventually indicated (but not in a nasty way, just in a clear way) that he did not believe that economics were an essential part of Wolfe Tone's concept of the republic for Ireland. I was annoyed, and after class, I found a reference for exactly what I said. Nevertheless, I did learn what the tutorial was for, and I will see if I play Guess the Agena better next time.

Now the folklore course, the Irish music course, and the Irish language course are firmly based in the oral tradition. There are no texts. Of course there is a bibliography of suggested readings, but the tutorials are all about Being Present. In the Folklore tutorial, we did a choral reading of a famous poem composed to keen the death of a beloved husband. We chorused the lines of the poem back to the lecturer as she said them, and the rhythm of the poem leapt out because the class was speaking. Not only that, but there were no printed words to distract so the emphasis on the spoken language was heightened. I so come from the literary tradition, that I went and found the text in the library after, but the power of the spoken poem was so much stronger than the text.

In the music class, our tutorials are expressly on doing music. I am taking a guitar tutorial. There are four other young boyz in the class and the Tutor, who I will now refer to as Eoin (/owen/). The boyz include one blues guy, one rather accomplished and tense folk player, one hard core rocker, and one clueless jock whose presence in the class is oddly fascinating due to its apparent utter randomness. Blues, Folk, and Rocker are all very interested in making sure everybody else knows They Can Play, and they make a point of doing little licks at random points such that their skill may be subtly demonstrated to each other. Eoin finally said, 'Okay, enough fancy stuff lads. Time to focus.' Eoin is the one who is truly skilled, as he should be, and I must say, he did indulge his demo licks also, but because he was alpha, I suppose it was required to get The Lads in line. As an old lady (among the 18 year olds I am a quasi Crone (in the best sense of the term, of course), I am exempt from all of these displays and can just be a highly entertained audience. Anyway, because this is a traditional music course, it is all by ear. There are no books, nothing printed. We learn the tunes by watching and hearing Eoin play them. Again, the non-text learning is so immediate and so intense. As a literary based person, it is tiring because the focus on the moment must be so complete.

The Irish language class also has no text. It is all about listening to the lecturer and repeating. There is no text because we are studying the standard European curriculum for Irish, and evidently they are still creating the written texts. I experience the same competence/performance disjunct here, as in all languages, where I am fluent inside my head but there is a static inducer somewhere between brain and mouth such that the sounds that come out of my mouth are only slightly representative of what goes on in my brain. I found the Irish language TV station and listen to the Gaeilge news in the evening. It is a strange language and with this style of learning, hard for me to get a grip on. I find that I wish there were a bit more explicit grammar. But the poor lecturer is still sorting out how to do a communicative curriculum. To his credit, he has catered to my grammar questions when I pose questions, but I can see he is a little flummoxed by how to present them. He said, "The grammar is hard." and I replied, "But all grammar is hard, but it can be fun!" Clearly he thought I was "away with the fairies" as they say.

After all this academic silliness, I went to the climbing wall and fell off the wall for 45 minutes as a break from studying and practicing guitar. The indoor climbing wall in the gym is about the size of a large living room, has two top ropes and two bouldering sections. There were a number of Europeans there looking smokey, silent, and suave as they wafted up and down the boulder routes. There was an insecure American girl talking too loudly, and two Irish lads earnestly dissecting a route. I messed around in-between the smokey guys traverses until my forearms couldn't take it, and I went home for some Toast and Tea.