Regarding literature, I'll give an opposite opinion. Being forced to read the classics in school led me to not caring about them at all because I just couldn't relate at all, I had not had the requisite life experience for them to make an impact on me. Now, being an adult and having the life experience, reading them again makes me think more deeply and I can actually relate. So I think in school, we actually shouldn't read high literature lest we hate reading them as adults, which is really when they should be read, not before.
Not only this, but also the impact having to read something has on enjoyment. There are books like To Kill A Mockingbird that I didn’t care for in high school simply because I had to read it. When I revisited it years later of my own volition, I enjoyed it greatly.
I’d say this is by design. Exposure, not enjoyment.
There’s a number of classics I read at the time that I didn’t enjoy until adulthood. Reading them early on gave me a framework for understanding them later on in life.
I rather enjoyed wading through antiquated language in an attempt to understand. Honestly I don't recall if the prose in To Kill a Mockingbird was difficult to grasp and I suspect it wasn't but there were so many other books that we were "forced" to read that really were an enjoyable challenge. Shakespeare for instance.
I don’t think this is always true. I enjoyed reading before school forced me to, and while I mildly resented being forced to read something I didn’t particularly want to read, it never made me enjoy reading less.
I also read a few books I otherwise would’ve never picked up that ended up very interesting.
I don't think they're saying they disliked reading totally, but that they disliked books they were forced to read. Although, if that happened to be every single book in the syllabus, then sure, someone might mistakenly think they don't actually like reading.
Ultimately, sacrifices get made to try and get mass education working; the current system is barely scalable, so anything even more personalized is pretty much out of the question.
So? Many others do enjoy reading even if for school. Should we stop teaching math cuz kids don’t like it in the hopes they’ll teach themselves as adults? School will never be all things to all kids.
I think their comment was, if anything, an hint to check out some of those classics again, even if you didn’t enjoy them when you were made to read them in school.
Maybe the vast majority of adults don’t read books because as kids they were forced to read “classic” works they didn’t identify with nor enjoy and have thus been conditioned to see books as boring and worthless.
Perhaps the solution is to not force specific books on anyone. If kids want to read Twilight for class, let them. Maybe it’s more important (and effective) to have them read anything and enjoy it than cramming “high literature” down their throats.
I posit that a person who enjoys the experience of reading a bad book is likely to later on pick up several good ones, while someone who was forced to read a handful of ostensibly good books they weren’t ready for is likely to never pick up a book again.
> Perhaps the solution is to not force specific books on anyone. If kids want to read Twilight for class, let them. Maybe it’s more important (and effective) to have them read anything and enjoy it than cramming “high literature” down their throats.
We had two separate classes in school, one for English, and one just called "reading". In it, we could read whatever we wanted, as long as we read for the entire period. Sometimes we'd discuss our books. It was great.
I would actually really have enjoyed "reading" class. Free periods where we got to read whatever were always the best in middle school, wish those continued. I'd just read whatever if I could anyway - and hell, sometimes that was the classics after all.
There's always "that book" for everyone. That one they finally click with. And then they can't shut up about it, such as the davinci-code... or outliers (my daughter's first)... but so few books hit you like lightning... I think part of it is just trying to get to that point where one hits you so expose people to books, who know what will stick. Worked for my daughter.
For me it was axctually the first novel I read. My aunt gave me The Malloreon. I was bored in winter break in the late 80s and I felt guilty I hadn't used my aunt's gift. So I read it. Now I recall spending an entire day curled up with a quick trip insulated mug in our breakfast nook when it was below freezing out reading the next book next to my mom. It'd take about 3 hours to finish that herbal tea.
Shortly after my dad gave me unlimited allowance for books. It was a smart but mildly costly move.
My dad did the same, and I have to thank him for that. It may have been expensive but no more so than doing some equivalent with video games or the like, none of which would have aided me as much as reading did.
I agree in general, but for me it wasn't so much just having to read them as it was having to do a bunch of silly assignments based on them. My high school completely ruined The Great Gatsby for me that way.
I think most educators and teachers know that students won't get the classics. The goal is to at least make the students comfortable with the difficult language of the classics, and make them realize that analysis of these books yields deep insights.
If they instead taught students easier books in schools, student would never develop the reading skills to tackle the classics, and a much smaller percentage of adults would ever bother rereading the classics or even acknowledge their power.
Of course, the teaching has to be improved so that students never hate it.
Man, my literature classes in high school were a complete joke. The "deep insights" were all just arbitrary memes that had little to no correlation with reality
Stuff like: "What was the meaning of the yellow curtains?"
They pretty much ruined my enjoyment of every book I had to read, even though I did and still do love reading. For books required by classes, I just read the cliff's notes.
That's also true. To be honest, I don't know what the midpoint should be. For Shakespeare, we watched movie adaptations which made a lot more sense than just reading a somewhat dry play.
For plays, performance is an important part of what they are, so a theater program is also good.
The issue is that performance arts, or the arts in general, usually are the first on the chopping block at schools that are either facing budgetary pressures or need to improve standardized test scores.
Well they were movie adaptations, not plays themselves, so cutting performance arts didn't make much of a difference for those in English class. But I agree, it's a shame that they're cut in many schools.
