Dickinson College Humanities Program in Norwich

Picture obtained from: http://www.musicaltheatrenews.com/les-miserables.html

Given our readings like Watching the English and our everyday observations of English, the subject of accents has come up a lot on our trip. Many ‘English’ seem to be very conscientious of one’s accent, and can determine one’s native origin and class based on a few sentences. While I have come to expect different situations surrounding speech during my time here in London, one place I did not expect to encounter the topic was at last night’s performance of Les Miserables.

After all, the show takes place in France about 150 years ago. If any accents are going to pop up in the show, you would expect them to be French. This was definitely not the case. All of the characters primarily associated with the lower classes, and usually the ones used for comedic effect (For those familiar with the show, The Thenardiers and Gavroche primarily) had Cockney accents. It struck me as particularly odd. The show as it was performed was, apparently, responding to the English social cue that Cockney accents are associated with a lower class. Therefore, even though it makes no sense for French characters to have Cockney accents, it made sense to the director for these actors to employ them anyway.

I find this very distinct from my experience in the United States. If a show/film is set in a different country than the U.S., all of the actors will either use an accent, all speak in one distinct type of American accent, or use their own accent. While the U.S. certainly attributes certain stereotypes to certain accents, I cannot imagine any show or film using one regional accent to denote someone of a lower class. I think this may be because the Americans simply do not associate speech with class as strongly as the English do. The only case, that I can think of, where the characters from a lower class employ different accents is, interestingly enough, the U.S. version of Les Mis. Even more interesting, in that version (at least on the CD and I’m pretty sure the performance I saw), Cockney accents are employed as well. I never even thought about it until last night, but that leads to a whole slew of questions concerning why the U.S. would employ an English dialect in a show about France. Certainly, the U.S. show was imported from the West End, but it still seems odd they would continue to use Cockney accents.

I am curious to see what others think about this: Is this fixation on accents distinctly English? Why does the U.S. version use Cockney accents as well? I find it very interesting that speech and class find their way, inadvertently, into the arts in London. 

If you want more information about the show, you can visit the website: http://www.lesmis.com/

Last night I went to hear the conductor, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, speak on his life as a composer, conductor, and teacher. I really enjoyed what I heard of his speech, he was a very passionate and witty man, however as an education minor I greatly disagreed with some of what he said. When he got to talking about education he said that educators should not underestimate students and that “people like to be challenged” and that students should not be talked down to because “they are not stupid”. This I agree with students deserve to be challenged because if a teacher set the bar high then they will learn more than if you expect little of them. However, he then goes on to say that he believes that government officials make decisions regarding education so student “remain ignorant in a state of mind where they cannot criticize the government, where they have not got any qualifications”. I feel that at least in America things are FAR more complex than this. There are so many more factors in the quality of education in public schools (Note: I am using public school in the American way). The reason public schools, especially urban public schools, do not do as well as suburban and private schools is because the high quality teachers want to go where they will get paid the most and have the fewest problems. Urban public schools do not pay as much as private schools and often have more disciplinary problems. This and White Flight combine to drag down the public school systems in both the United States and England, it is not simply the government holding down the proletariat.

He later says that he does not understand why schools have stopped teaching Latin and Shakespeare, because he feels that students are fully capable of learning them (however I cannot find the direct quotation in the link). I do not believe that Latin is being taken off school curriculum is because they don’t feel that students are able to learn it, but rather because it has become obsolete. One of the readings that I had in my Kaleidoscope education book (I really wish I had it with me) specifically talked about this issue. The article in the book was an abstract story that told about a caveman-like society, within the story the elders wanted the youngsters to learn about the certain extinct animals and how to kill them rather than teach them how to kill the animals that they would encounter in everyday life. This article, though abstract, is specifically talking about subjects like Latin in the modern education system. How often is an American or British student going to encounter Latin? Now how often are they going to encounter Spanish or French in their lifetimes? Obviously Spanish and French are much more useful than Latin or Ancient Greek, so the school district decides to cut Latin and add a French department. The school district does not do this simply because they do not think the students are capable of learning Latin, as Sir Peter Maxwell Davies suggests, but rather because it is becoming extinct and there are more useful things to be taught.

Overall, I enjoyed Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ speech however I found that he oversimplified many major educational issues that are very important to me. So, I felt it necessary to set the record straight and blog about eduction here and in the US, as we do face many of the very same problems.

If you would like to listen to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ speak on education and his life here is a link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00mj5xs