The Education Wars

With the movement towards allowing kids to read any books they please, including reading graphic novels, for reading classes in middle school, the standards keep a-tumblin' down.

Yes, many classic novels, especially the likes of Great Expectations and that godawful Heart of Darkness (the latter which I read in college over 30 years ago and singlehandedly killed my enjoyment of fiction) can bore the tears out of people being forced to read them, but teachers who let kids "pick" their books don't seem to understand the reason students have been required to read those books in the past. It has to do with understanding American and western culture, about students having a common base of knowledge in order to be considered educated, "cultured" human beings. Letting students pick whatever the hell they want in formal literature classes just further dumbs down education. So-called "sustained silent reading" or SSR is done routinely in elementary schools; the middle school where I taught also had a 20-minute of SSR each day. It's questionable whether this method is really effective, but it's popular. However, this should not be allowed in formal literature classes.

Reading Judy Blume and Danielle Steel just don't cut it. Knowing about a giant in literature and one of the great wits of all time, Mark Twain, does, whether you like him or not.

Don't forget, if kids are allowed to pick their books, that's much less work for teachers to have to teach units about a particular novel.

"Readers' workshop" is just another form of educational malpractice.