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Fighting City Hall...
... or at least school administration.
I have finally had it up to HERE with the choices given by the schools for summer reading, so I just sent this:
I don't expect to CHANGE things, but I feel somewhat better in having finally SAID something.
I have finally had it up to HERE with the choices given by the schools for summer reading, so I just sent this:
I've ignored this for the past few years, but I am finally driven to demand:
Why is it that EVERY reading list chosen for children, including the current list for my 10th-grader Chris, seems CALCULATED to drive kids away from actually LIKING reading? Selecting things ranging from bittersweet down to "commit suicide after reading, it's happier that way"? I would have hoped we'd have gotten away from that since I was a kid and had marvelous (note that this is extreme sarcasm) material such as "Lord of the Flies" shoved down my throat. Had I not already cultivated a love of books long before I entered school, I would give even odds that school would have solidified a long-standing hatred of the printed word.
Really, children don't need to be fed on a diet of "realistically grim" material. Upbeat, cheerful, and optimistic books not only are easier to read, they help cultivate a similar attitude in the kids. And most importantly, an attitude that maybe books aren't to be dreaded as assignments.
At least offer some choices that HIT the bright side of the spectrum, rather than the brightest one being something peeking out of a closet at dusk.
Why is it that EVERY reading list chosen for children, including the current list for my 10th-grader Chris, seems CALCULATED to drive kids away from actually LIKING reading? Selecting things ranging from bittersweet down to "commit suicide after reading, it's happier that way"? I would have hoped we'd have gotten away from that since I was a kid and had marvelous (note that this is extreme sarcasm) material such as "Lord of the Flies" shoved down my throat. Had I not already cultivated a love of books long before I entered school, I would give even odds that school would have solidified a long-standing hatred of the printed word.
Really, children don't need to be fed on a diet of "realistically grim" material. Upbeat, cheerful, and optimistic books not only are easier to read, they help cultivate a similar attitude in the kids. And most importantly, an attitude that maybe books aren't to be dreaded as assignments.
At least offer some choices that HIT the bright side of the spectrum, rather than the brightest one being something peeking out of a closet at dusk.
I don't expect to CHANGE things, but I feel somewhat better in having finally SAID something.
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Maybe to kids in the 30's or 40's or possibly the 50's some of these 'classics' might have resonated but they might as well be reading oh Bullwar-Llyton for all the kids today are going to connect to the characters in the books they are made to read. :p
I quite agree where are all the fun books designed to interest and tantalize people into reading. Why do they have to be weighty serious self important books?
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I've long thought Goldman's MARATHON MAN would be ideal high-school fare.
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There are also the books that are not horridly depressing, but seem designed to convince you that reading is at best dull and boring. I had The Great Gatsby as assigned reading in a college class. The only reason I could stand to read it was that it could be spread out throughout the semester. Characters ranged from, "I'm supposed to like this guy because...?" to "I care not one iota what happens to this character."
Fortunately my parents made it clear that they were more concerned with my reading than just what exactly I read. They might look at something I picked up and express surprise that I'd want to read it, but they wouldn't stop me from doing so. As a result I think I started reading The Right Stuff somewhere around fourth grade and IIRC made a first try at A Canticle for Leibowitz around fifth grade.
In fact the only time I can recall their taking away any books when I was a kid, was when a coworker said, "Hey, you're son likes to read, right? I've got a whole box of books my brother is done with." They looked through and pulled out a few that they decided looked like porn, but left behind the science fiction and fantasy and the rest. So the only time I can remember the doing that was with books I hadn't even picked out myself.
And while I wouldn't want to have to go through grade school again, there is one thing I miss from that time. I regularly went through at least three or four novels a week. When we would go on vacations I would read in the car and often polish off two or more a day (I think I went through the first eight Chronicles of Amber novels in two and a half days that way -- I had an aunt send them over with instructions to let her know if the most recently published book concluded the series yet).
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I do recall that every single book we read (with the exception of extra credit reading To Kill A Mockingbird) ended on the note of "everyone sucks, and they're all going to betray you for money/sex/power." I mean, one book I can't even remember the title of had a rodeo rider who had such a tormented past that he RODE THE RODEO HORSES TO DEATH. Repeatedly.
I came out of tenth grade so demoralized and traumatized that I was afraid to read books provided by the school anymore. (Admittedly, I was a sensitive child, having not been exposed to daily watchings of the news or newspapers and having not had TV to get the childhood acclimation to violence or shocking material.)
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I believe the problem to be caused by a cookie-cutter approach to education by schools who haven't the resources (or the authority) to incorporate a rational list of reading and actually search for alternatives. In other words, sheer economics. "This list handed down from above must be good--it's what these learned experts studied when they went to school!" (never mind that the list is antiquated and hasn't been updated in eons--they're classics, man!)
Rather believe laziness than suspect ill intentions (must go rinse foam from teeth)
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You'll Never Get a Newbery Medal With That Attitude
I can only assume these people are long-term fans of Russian Novels (I've talked to fans of this, and asked them if they can recommend me something that won't leave me wanting to throw myself under a bus afterwards ... they tend to think about it for a while, then suggest that Great Russian Novels may not be for me).
I honestly do wish you the best of luck with this, and hope that they do at least think about it in response to your letter.
-- Brett
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They simply told us that they'd *wanted* to have certain books on the reading list, but were told by the school administration that the books were "objectionable".
Which is how I came to read "King Rat" by Clavell. Depressing in places, but I did learn some things from it. And much of it wasn't *that* shocking, as I'd read a number of books about WWII POWs before.
On the other hand, I recall the reading list for the prep school mom tried to get me into. The only two books that I recall are Silent Spring (tried to read it and bounced) and "The Hobbit" which I also had trouble with. More because it was a bit too "kids fairy tale" at the start.
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Some of my old favorites from college turned out to be far more... mediocre than I remembered back then (that's you, Michael Moorcock). I am less tolerant of crappy pro writing since I started writing myself, and saw way too much of it in fanfic.
Some of them have aged like fine wine, turning out far better than I remembered back then (that's you, Robert E. Howard). As a young woman, I devoured genre books for the action and the "gee-whiz" factor (in movies, we call it "eye-candy"); as an older adult, I more appreciate interesting characters and settings.
I find I like many of the classics *now*; I would not have enjoyed them as an adolescent or college student. I recently read Wuthering Heights, which is a totally awesome train wreck of dysfunctional characters. The author very carefully keeps your sympathies from battening too hard on to characters doomed to destruction, and preserves the characters she finally does let us like. I greatly enjoyed the book. I would have hated it as a student and not "gotten" it. I rather doubt I'd push it on adolescents in general, as I think they'd miss half of what's going on in that story, and care about less.
I have yet to re-read The Great Gatsby to see if it still sucks as much as it did in high school, though.
Also, Shakespeare's tragedies are far more fun seen in the theater than read as scripts. My then-adolescent daughter and the rest of the family really enjoyed a kabuki-style performance of "Titus Andronicus". There's something about that over-the-top Greek-style tragedy done as a Japanese kabuki or noh drama that just fit, perfectly. I suspect actual over-the-top Greek tragedies, like "Medea", would be cool as noh or kabuki.
(Also, if you educate your children in the classics, they'll know which stories major comic-book plot arcs were stolen from... like X-Men's Madelyne Prior arc vis-a-vis Euripides' "Medea").
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And seeing ANYTHING in the theater is far LESS fun than reading it as a script, for me. I can't imagine WHY people go to theaters. I've done plenty of ACTING, and I know why I like playing on a stage, or singing to an audience, but speaking honestly I have no idea WHY there's an audience. I can't understand anything people are saying most of the time, I can't really see what they're doing, and in a play that has any fanciful content, well, dude, if I want to see clumsy representations of magical events I can always LARP and be in the middle of the action.
So the other problem (which this reading list ALSO points up) is that YMMV, and MV drastically. SOME readers might think reading angst by the ton is the best thing since sliced bread, but others will think it's more fun to start carving their initials in their arms with a dental drill.
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Huh. Never met anyone with that reaction to theater before. Well, different strokes and all that.
As for Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is pretty clearly the villain ("byronic hero" my aft! What moron came up with that analysis?), and he is magnificently dysfunctional, driven by passion and obsession and vindictive hatred. Think of the Count of Monte Cristo gone too far over the line...
A book fascinating for its characters, but not to everyone's taste. My younger self would have disdained it for the lack of obvious action or obvious supernatural horror, and wondered why everyone acted like such idiots and couldn't just get along like sensible people. My older self appreciates stories with characters that act like flawed human beings really do.
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Was my school strange that we had no choice in our reading?
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We also had summer reading lists--that is, at the end of the year or possibly during the summer, we'd be given a list of books that we were supposed to read some number of before next school year started.