Make ‘Em Read the Classics?
Decatur Metro | September 1, 2009Did anyone else read the New York Times article this past Sunday about the Jonesboro, Georgia teacher who is letting her students pick the books they read in class – within certain limits – instead of assigning the standardized classics?
It’s an article that gets to the heart of many recent conversations about the importance of writing and asks the question, “What is more important: instilling kids with a habit of reading or giving them a solid foundation of classic literature before sending them off into the world?”
An apt question on the eve of a festival o’ books.
I can imagine that there have been endless discussions and seminars by far-smarter educators tackling this very topics, so I do not pretend to be able to argue the educator’s point of view. But I can craft the argument of a one-time student, who was always told he wasn’t “living up to his potential”.
I’m loving the classics. And I say so in the clear-and-present-tense, since it’s only now that I’m exploring their true meaning and complexities. As a student, I read and ignored countless classics dumped on my desk by a more-than-willing English teacher, hoping to relay his/her passion to a group of religiously uninterested students. But in the past 5 years or so, without the threat of a test or book report just over the horizon, I am finally feel free to enjoy classic novels like Moby Dick, The Merchant of Venice, and All the King’s Men and take from them whatever I please.
These are books that I can only begin to understand at 30. At 14, 16, 18 years-old, at most I could conceive the plot and, if I was lucky, some of the motivations of a character. But goodness knows I couldn’t understand the lessons of “the Boss” and his initial quest for fairness and ultimate corruption or the complexities of Ahab’s obsession with a whale. Metaphors are so silly to a literal teenager. So, perhaps letting students choose the Twilight series over Jane Eyre was the answer for me, right?
To employ my favorite word: Maybe.
But I have trouble casting aside the looming retort. The one that makes the old argument that teaching the classics can instill both a love of them and provide a valuable foundation of life lessons early on. And these arguments often emerge in the silence of a busy day after finding something entirely profound in the depths of a novel, like Penn Warren’s passing description of a parent’s “blood-lust” or Melville’s ethereal description of a pod of whales just below the water’s surface. I feel eons behind my former fellow student who somehow could ignore the generational and ageless siren calls of our youth and take in and process these small miracles.
Perhaps it is such a tough question to answer because it’s basis goes well beyond classroom instruction. Looking more broadly the true question seems to be “Should classic literature serve as a foundation for learning about the world or should our life’s foundation serve to instruct our reading of the classics?”
It’s a complex two-way street that defies resolution in the classroom and beyond.
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“But goodness knows I couldn’t understand the lessons “the Boss” and his initial quest for fairness and ultimate corruption or the complexities of Ahab’s obsession with a whale. Metaphors are so silly to a literal teenager.”
I’ve read and re-read many classics and one thing that I’ve observed is not that metaphors and meanings are lost on teenagers. It’s that the meanings change for the individual as they grow older, gain more experience and, through that, perspective.
In my humble opinion classics are such not because of interesting plot twists – but because they had something meaningful to say about the human condition.
This argument reminds me of Billy Collins’ keynote address last year at the DBF. He talked about how the way to introduce kids to poetry is not by shoving Keats and Yeats down their throats.
Instead, he prefers to get the kids hooked on more contemporary, accessible stuff so that they themselves will find themselves wanting to explore the classics later.
At least, I think that’s what he said. I’m pretty sure has something to do with it: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/
I like having read a lot of the classics in high school, then reading them now and thinking about what an idiot I was then. I imagine the same thing will happen when I reread ‘em 10 years from now.
That seems to be a common refrain among professional poets these days. Mary Oliver promotes reading poetry in reverse chronology as an introduction.
Even though I was an advanced reader as a child, reading at an adult level by 4th grade, I was not ready for certain classics until I was in college or later. Some of that unreadyness had to do with the maturity of the content, some of it had to do with writing style, and some of it had to do with who taught the classic. I had a high school French teacher who made reading Gargantua by Rabelais interesting IN FRENCH!!! (I believe the middle ages French was translated to modern French, but still…..). Other teachers made units covering Moby Dick, Lord of the Flies, and Shakespeare deadly dull.
And kids’ tastes have changed. At the elementary school level, I LOVED the entire Little House on the Prairie series and read each book several times, even the boy-oriented Farmer Boy. Both my boy and girl have been bored when I’ve tried to read any of the series to them. Sigh. They like the fantasy fiction that is so popular for kids now.
At the elementary school level, I think you just have to get the kids to read. A lot. If they like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, great. If not, let them read Diary of a Wimpy Kid. If they are superstar readers, try the classics on them but don’t make them miserable or they may conclude that reading classics is a drag. At the middle school and high school level, present a range of genres and styles of literature, including the classics. But don’t get discouraged if the classics don’t catch on. What’s classic today may been scandalous and berated when it first came out.
I enjoyed the “classics” in high school, most of the time, except for Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer. When I went to college and majored in English, I managed to avoid ever having to read those three. Also, I learned that the whole concept of “classics” is flawed. But the fact that I allowed myself to be challenged in high school, and to succeed sometimes and fail sometimes, gave me a good foundation for rigorous inquiry and independent judgment later on.
Now I’m all growed up, and I don’t call them classics, but I love those old guys from back in before-the-day, like Shakespeare, Milton and Chaucer. And I just discovered Henry James, another old boy I used to avoid like the plague. And I love love love Henry James.
But hey, why should it be either/or? I say, teach both contemporary and older works. Plenty of good stuff to go around.
I see and understand both sides of this debate, and agree there is no easy answer. I can only speak from my own experience.
Bryan makes a good point about what constitutes a “classic.” Laugh if you will, but to me, Stephen King’s “The Stand” is a classic. When I first read it as a teenager, I considered it brilliant. Thirty years later, my opinion hasn’t changed. No, it’s not “The Red Badge of Courage” or “The Wife of Bath.” But it had a lasting impact on me that no other “classic” ever had, and I read (or tried to read) many of them.
On the other hand, if my teacher hadn’t assigned me “All Quiet on the Western Front,” I would have missed out on a truly great novel. Of course, I still haven’t forgiven her for “A Separate Peace.”
Anyway, I like the idea. I remember how excited parents were that their kids were turning off the TV to read the new Harry Potter books. If it takes a modern book like that to get kids away from the electronic babysitter, I’m all for it.
Yes, we can’t discount the contemporary books that I believe can be considered classics. After all, your life is not complete until you’ve read “A Prayer for Owen Meany,” now, is it?
I was an avid and gifted reader as a child and it came as a shock to me when my own children were reluctant readers. My oldest is fine now, but it took her a long time to learn to love reading. My now 5th grader was a slow and reluctant reader but was “turned on” this summer by the Lemony Snicket books, and is on Book the Eleventh in a matter of a couple of months. I think it just depends on the reader–but if you can get kids interested in reading, no matter what it is, that’s the important thing at first. The nerdiest of us can just take AP English and rave about Shakespeare and “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” (which, btw, was my fave book in high school).
So no one is upset at the loss of the shared knowledge base that regimented reading of the “classics” provided?
That’s a good point. It’s analagous to what you miss in art, literature, and culture if you never learned Bible stories or Aesop’s fables. One problem is that the number of classics grows over time and you just can’t cover them all in the 13 years you have after kids learn to read and before they go off to college. I think exposing kids to a range of genres and time periods is the best you can do.
I’ve had a couple of friends who grew up with no TV at all at home and they have a different problem–they don’t understand many of the social and cultural references to TV shows and characters, e.g. being a “June Cleaver” mother or being a “Meathead” or being a X0-something (e.g. 30-something).
I’ve found that “knowledge base” to more closely resemble an insider’s club, where if one person makes a reference to a classic, and another person doesn’t understand it, it serves as a point of snobbery for the first. “You mean to tell me you haven’t read The Old Man and the Sea? Wow, aren’t you…provincial.”
I read, on average, one to two books per week. A good number of them are military science fiction. I always have a book with me whereever I go, but I never tell people what I read, because I get the inevitable look that says, “not exactly Shakespeare there, pal.” But the fact is, I read a LOT; I just happen to read things that I find more enjoyable than the “classics.”
So to answer your question, DM, no, I am not upset at the loss.
I hear ya Eric. There certainly is a degree of snobbery involved. But that’s more the result of the loss of the wide appeal (and resultant niche) of the classics than anything else isn’t it?
Woodhouse was a pop author in his age and everyone understood his Greek and Shakespearean references. Today most of his references are lost on us.
I also certainly see where Snowflake is coming from, but sometimes when you read classic literature, you find yourself saying “YES! This is the answer! (to some sort of deep philosophical question that’s bothered you for years)” and you realize the book was written 400 years ago! A regimented list assisted folks in getting a foundation of knowledge built over thousands of years and said “Here’s the best of the best thus far. Start here and move forward.” I know that there are issues with choosing what is considered “best”, but without it we all start from square one, lost in the noise like we were a civilization without the benefit of a past.
Good points, DM, and well said. I have only one issue…the last deep philosophical question I asked myself was “Outback or Longhorn?”
The problem is that for centuries the questions of what is “best” and what are “classics” have been answered by uniquely privileged white males who chose members of their own class as the best. If you judged history by what was contained in the “classics,” you’d think the southern hemisphere was a kind of hell. But if we are to have an inclusive community, we must let more minds in on the project.
Communal references to specific details in “classics” are not nearly as important as values, ways of seeing, ways of relating. Can communal knowledge of references ever really have anything to do with the building of community and wisdom?
I must admit that after being berated endlessly by several people I hold in high regard about never having read “The Brothers Karamazov,” I decided to take the plunge and read it. Unfortunately it took up a large part of my life that I will never get back. I hated that book and still have nightmares about actually having read it. So while there were several people in my life who were astonished that I’d never read it, and I was somewhat embarrassed at having never read it, I admit now that I should have remained blissfully ignorant.
I’ve also never read Midsummer Night’s Dream (though I’ve seen the ballet), Moby Dick, or Wuthering Heights–or any Jane Austen, in fact–but I don’t feel like I’m necessarily out of the loop. I am a well-rounded enough person without having read them, I believe.
I was going to mention that point earlier, Metro–that without having read these classics, many of our kids will not understand future references to the “albatross around our necks” or why I might yell “Get thee to a nunnery!” to my teenage daughter. But they also may not understand the appeal of Elvis Presley or the Beatles. At some point perhaps we have to let it go? If reading at all is the ultimately the more important goal?
Some thoughts from the outer fringe… For centuries, our shared cultural project was the pursuit of universal truths. Many of these truths wormed their way into literature and the “classics” became effective vehicles for transmission from one generation to another.
We’ve now powered through around a hundred years where universal truths have given way to relative truths. We’re a culture of reinvention now and one side effect has been an apparent need to constantly redefine truth and the perception of truth with each new innovation. In such a world, it’s no surprise that the “classics” would lose perceived relevance.
If our present system is enduring, I guess an ever-diminishing focus on the classics will prove no big deal. But if the whole thing crashes and burns, those centuries of accumulated wisdom may start to look attractive again.
You may now resume more coherent programming…
Very well said, Scott.
And let it be known that I agree in large part with Bryan and others that an increased level of inclusiveness has made up for any sort of loss of “shared knowledge.” But I do feel like we’ve gotten to a point where we’ve thrown far to many babies out with the bathwater in the name of ease and production.
I sometimes feel like I sit at the edge of a lonely generation. One that has been given everything and nothing all at the same time. We have no history, only a sense of entitlement. Many of us would love to latch onto just a couple universal truths, be it found in Plato or in the local food movement.
All of that fits into what you’ve already said about relative vs. universal truths. Pretty interesting stuff.
I’m torn about this. On the one hand, I was forced to read Jane Eyre in the 7th grade, hated it, and didn’t pick up another Bronte novel for 10 years. I later discovered on my own that I love this book. On the other hand, sometimes some books are better read in the classroom setting, where a teacher’s guidance and class discussion can add depth and understanding to the experience. So, I guess I have to ask why does this have to be an “all or nothing” proposition? It seems like there could be room for both assigned, guided reading and self-driven reading in the classroom.
I also meant to add this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/review/Straight-t.html?ref=books
It’s about the widespread use of software called “Accelerated Reader”, which assigns point values to various books.
I agree that it should not be either/or, and if a “classic” can’t speak to us today then it’s not really a classic. But there are indeed classics. But it requires some effort to foster a taste for them. A taste for what’s current comes more easily and is reinforced by a belief in progress, that the old = the outdated. Now, I happen to teach classics — philosophy and literature — and it can be a hard sell. But there are many student for whom it is quite a revelation to find that an old book really speaks to them. ANd in fact, for precisely the reason Scott mentions, many find that these old books have more to say than contemporary ones — older books that are debating universal truths rather than assuming that there are none. So I say teach both. But if contemporary lit gets short shrift, I don’t fear it will get lost. If the classics get short shrift, they’re at greater risk and something important could be lost. But your account of your own rediscovery of the classics, DM, suggests that real classic can fend for themselves too sometimes.
I will also add that one of the favorite books of my daughter (age 10) over the last year or two is Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (written 1830 or so and, warning, needs some parental editing). Because of that, I’ve taken her to the Shakespeare Tavern twice and she’s done their Shakespeare camp at Glennwood. She loves it. The first trip to the Shakespeare tavern was a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream, a weekday afternoon performance with almost all school-age children in the audience — say, 10-15 years old. They followed intently, laughed loudly, and erupted in applause and cheering at the end.
Thanks for chiming in here, Judd. You basically said what I wish I’d said the first time.
This thread’s getting long and presumably at risk of going away so I’d like to chime in, too. First, I note in the NYT article that there are several recognitions that it doesn’t need to be / shouldn’t be all classics or no classics – agreed; Also, I feel there is great value of a shared set of historical / cultural references (George Steiner makes this point in a wonderful little book, Bluebeard’s Castle, re. the very valuable shorhand provided via what he calls ‘cultural primatives’ .. commonly understood cultural set-pieces, if you will, which may be built upon to move communication / understanding further along. When that language is lost, as someone noted earlier, you’re back to square one.. Kind of like losing the Rosetta Stone. OK – rambling now.. To wrap up, I’m kind of sanguine about the diversity question, as the ‘canon’ has been augmented richly over the past few (or more) decades with quite a few diversely sourced additions (Morrison, Naipaul, Langston Hughes -mentioned in NYT article- and Ursula LeGuin [my pick - does SciFi count?], etc…) Further back, one finds Beecher-Stowe, Dickinson, Austen, and Eliot (though she chose to use a male pen-name). IMHO, It’s good to spend your reading time on material that’s a bit demanding (if it’s rewarding, too), but sometimes a page-turner is what’s needed. For that, I like Stephen King or Robert B. Parker, among others. Then there’s the more ‘classical’ A. C. Doyle, too.. Let ‘em choose, but also expose ‘em to stuff they might never find otherwise. (Now the thread’s WAY long..)
The great irony of that NY Times article was that the teacher hyped “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle” to her students as a book they might like, and succeeded in getting one student interested enough to borrow it. Unfortunately, because that student will have had no instruction on the classics, she won’t know that the book is a contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and therefore may think the plot makes little sense, will miss why the characters behave the way they do, and will not interpret how the author sees one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays as relevant to humanity.
It’s extremely important that we teach kids to love to read, particularly as our culture becomes more and more digital and attention dividing with more focus on immediate gratification. And certainly we do a disservice to kids in assigning classics they are not at a level to understand. But if teachers spent more time drawing kids into the world in which a classic work was created, giving them the context of the time and place, and pushing them to understand how that work is relevant to today’s society, perhaps it would make more sense to kids who are being asked to read “classics” like The Scarlet Letter, or Hamlet. With “the classics” we can cultivate an appreciation of the craft of storytelling and writing that will help them understand WHY they should love reading.