Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
When I was 13 the first video game console was pong & breakout.
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Heh, sounds like you and I aren't that far apart in age.
I'd disagree with you that books that kids 'don't like' shouldn't be taught to them. The approach you suggest would be great in the elementary years, but by upper Jr High they need to be learning how to do things they don't like (that's part of education too, and a valuable life skill!), and by High-School, I'd say that Shakespeare is well suited to teaching them (though I'd've agreed with you completely at the time
). Basically, though you need a teacher that who understands that Shakespeare is meant to be fun, not boring in the first place. (
Romeo and Juliet was popular entertainment at the time, after all -- merely being old doesn't make it unpleasant)
The literature you're referring to is important to study precisely because it's
not primarily about today -- a window into where we've come from culturally and historically is vital if we want our civilization to continue to develop, and not just wander off in self indulgence, and collapse under its own weight.
I think the problem is more the
way that these works are presented to groups of kids too large to really work with, often by people who don't understand the point in studying them in the first place -- how can kids see the value of these works if all they see is that they're in a cattle car and having books they didn't choose thrown at them?
I would, however, agree with you that they won't value the literature until years later, and never, if they're turned off of reading entirely. So some attention to precisely
which works are studied when is certainly in order.
And under
no circumstances should
Lord of the Flies ever be inflicted upon 9th graders -- they're messed up enough already just being 9th graders, they don't need to have that thing forced on them. I think college might be the earliest point at which kids' personalities start to stabilize enough to handle that one.
