Comments on: Fairytale of New York

By: Jamie Keddie

Jamie Keddie — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 00:31:16 +0000

Thanks Michael
I suppose you could use the activity without telling students that it takes place at Christmas. Or perhaps you should wait until December or your students might think you are a bit weird! Who is to say what is right and wrong?
In any case, I am glad that you are not offended!
Jamie :)

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:43:55 +0000

Huge huge fan of your site Jamie. I have used several of your lesson plans and am beginning to find the site rather indispensable.
Sadly only found this lesson plan today and will have to wait a year to use it (although I showed my students the Christmas socks I was wearing yesterday, a christmas themed lesson might be a step too far).

On the above, being Irish myself, I in no way find this lesson offensive.
Please keep up the good work and thanks for helping to teach my students!
Michael

By: Jamie Keddie

Jamie Keddie — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 09:22:25 +0000

Ha ha
Thank you Rebecca!
Jamie :)

By: Rebecca SCHURTZ

Rebecca SCHURTZ — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 15:38:26 +0000

Wonderful lesson plan, as usual! Thank you so much, Jamie! And this song is now one of my favourites…
To hell with half-baked nitwits!
Cheers
Rebecca :)

By: Jamie Keddie

Jamie Keddie — Sun, 20 May 2012 08:49:10 +0000

Thank you Enrique
Nice to hear from you. Hope all is well in Peru
Jamie :)

By: Enrique Liñan

Enrique Liñan — Sat, 19 May 2012 03:06:36 +0000

I think it requires a great deal of professionalism to create such a thorough lesson plan. You have have definitely catered for different types of learnes and have planned the lesson in such a way that it makes students feel motivated.
I think you are doing a great educational job by sharing and helping us help our students develop their productive skills.

Greetings from peru.

keep up the good work.

Enrique

By: shaun

shaun — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:03:42 +0000

Hmmm. Anyone else think someone’s over-reacting?

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:36:25 +0000

I understand how conflicted you must feel: you worked hard making the present unit. You don’t want to waste it. But it taints you. Any serious professional aware of intergroup relations (ethnicity!) will note a decidedly and unnecessary negative portrayal of Irishness here.

Yet following your own logic, the protagonist of the story is actually British and arrives in NYC from England! But you would not want to teach foreign people negative things about your own people, so why not dump it on an Anglo out-group!

Most people won’t say anything, but you will be tainted as having ignorance. Indeed recent news came that a major research study found a strong correlation (inversely) between intelligence and racial prejudice. The 21st century is a new age recognizing that human existence depends on cooperation between all peoples; that racism is folly, for it is akin to shooting one’s own foot. The racial barriers you make could be what stops the next scientific discovery from saving your life!

Fixing your present unit would be easy and reap big benefits. Otherwise, you will only live to regret it.

By: Jamie Keddie

Jamie Keddie — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:07:23 +0000

Tom - I reiterate that the activity aim is to use interactive storytelling to communicate the same story that is told in the song. Irishness, alcoholism, substance abuse and homelessness are all there, even if reference to them is implicit. In some cases, that which was not so obvious became apparent after watching a number of interviews with the Pogues and those involved with the song.

However ...

After these exchanges, I feel that there are a number of aspects about this activity which could be improved. For example, it could be redesigned in such a way so as not to draw attention to the specific time, place and ethnicity of the protagonists. In that way it could be used to deal with the wider issues of immigration.

I will have a fresh look at it before Christmas 2012. In the mean time, it stays up with a comment at the top of the page (scroll up) which draws attention to your dispute.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:40:50 +0000

Truly I find this unit both shocking and unfortunate. I should think that you want to uphold high standards of professionalism. Perhaps you do and so you might want to consider the following.
Shane MacGowan is not only a known drunk* but also a wannabe Irishman*; meaning that he was born in England and spend most of his life there*. As a known “plastic Paddy,” MacGowan is not authentically Irish.** Yet you falsely characterize the song and story as the telling about an Irish immigrant. In point of fact, you deliberately chose the character in the story/song as MacGowan himself and further falsely concluded that this character must be an Irish immigrant. Actually MacGowan is more British than Irish and so your whole thesis about its characterization and storyline is false.
*See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_MacGowan
** See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_Paddy
Even if this story involves Irish, you state that the dashing of the couples’ dream was due to “alcoholism, substance abuse and homelessness.” Was it? What grounds do you have to say so? None! It comes from your own inference. As you agreed Irish identity of the characters is not explicit.
Besides the problem of your false assumptions is the fact that you have no educational purpose other than to reinvent, reinforce negative stereotypes about Irish. If you want to do that please don’t choose a non-Irish character of MacGowan! Make an authentic choice!
You don’t provide any educational purpose other than showing “homelessness.” Yet you do so in the context of homelessness caused by addiction. Is that what you want to teach? That homelessness is caused by addiction? Yeah, tell that to the millions of homelessness around the world caused so by economic disruptions or the misfortune of birth.
And you further shroud all of this in the false association of Irishness with addiction while never cautioning teachers/students against such false generalizations. You have a professional, if not ethical, responsibility to represent culture and their people with fairness and objectivity. Instead you have super-imposed a wannabe Irishman’s supposed story about an Irish couple in New York onto Irishness as something representatively so. If not, then why do you recommend students give the unnmamed couple, “Irish names,” two people you explain later are “bums”!
Finally, you give no good reason for this topic of “homelessness at Christmas” and your choice of the MacGowan song. Of course homelessness is a social issue and could be a reasonable and appropriate topic for an ELT class. But you give no explanations for your topic and subject choices. We then can only conclude that you are promoting negative stereotypes about Irish. Again as I have pointed out, you have no solid grounds for making Irish the “bums” of the story. Thus your unit is racism against Irish.