Know Stuff

“Know stuff,” my AP Language and Style teacher told us on the first day of class, warily and wearily eyeing our class, which, up until that moment, slumped in desks, in a mindless state of last-period bliss. We sat up, jerking out of the collective torpor, glancing around at each other with bemused looks.
One kid timidly raised his hand. “What kind of stuff, Mrs. K?”
She turned her eyes on him, narrowing them in that fear-inducing way she always did. “Just know stuff.”
Throughout that year, I began to understand her. She meant that we needed to understand references from a wide range of sources, we needed to be educated and well-versed members of our community. Know stuff. Don’t be ignorant. Mrs. K, though terrifying and strict at times, was a fantastic English teacher, and she pushed me to try harder, to learn as much as I could about everything I could. I think one of my favorite feelings is reading something, identifying a reference, and then understanding that reference, without having to go and look it up. This happened to me today, in my course focusing on British literature. Currently we’re reading Othello, and I’ve been repeating the name Iago in my mind for days. I knew I had heard it before, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Anyway, today we read act 3, scene 3. Othello asks Iago if Cassio is not honest. Iago replies with “Honest, my lord?” This banter continues (“Indeed?” “Thinking, my lord?”), Iago parroting Othello’s words back at him in the form of a question. Parroting. There it was. I remembered why that name was so familiar. In Disney’s Aladdin Jafar’s parrot is named Iago. As a kid, I watched those movies over and over and I never got where the name Iago came from. But by reading more, learning more, simple knowing stuff, one can understand references like this.