Education Rant

Yesterday I was talking with a barista at one of the coffee shops about books. I asked her what titles was she required to read in high school and she honestly told me that the ones she was required to read she had not read. She also said she cheated on the computer tests for these books by having friends who did read the books take the test for her. I have forgotten to ask what titles were assigned, but instead I asked her if any of the books were ones I remembered reading or being required to read. Books such as George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984, stories like "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe, Lord of the Flies, and goodness, she has never read or heard of T. S. Eliot, nevermind his "Love Song for J. Alfred Prufrock" and The Wasteland. She'd never read Wuthering Heights, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and A Separate Peace. No Fahrenheit 451 for her. I wasn't going to bother asking if she'd read Crime and Punishment, Madame Bovary, Heart of Darkness, The Awakening, or anything by Thomas Hardy. Can't bother with Emerson or Thoreau. I really am curious. I want to give her a test, one she can't pass or fail but would satisfy my curiosity of which books that I was once assigned to read are still being assigned to high schoolers. I am indeed curious.

I am sure my mother's generation might have wondered the same thing when they saw what books I was required to read and that the list did not include books they were required to read in high school. These are books which made me grow, look around myself at a larger world, appreciate other cultures and contemplate relationships. Thoreau and Walt Whitman brought out the nature-lover in me, lover of landscapes: pastures, forests edging creeks, mountains in the distance, desert sunsets, and especially the simplicity of a single tree. I was the only one in my senior A.P. World Literature class that had actually read Crime and Punishment (not the Cliff Notes) and loved it. Yes, loved it. I summarized it as a psychological thriller. But I will delve into more bookish memories in childhood memory posts for another date.

This particular individual I spoke with also told me that she doesn't like to read anyway. I couldn't fault her for that, since not everyone finds enjoyment in a good book. But I was surprised that she'd never heard of these other books, which led me to think that the school she attended did not include them on the required books for reading list or even the optional one. What happened? They cannot be archaic as I can claim that many of the stories can still apply today. Many of the lessons to be learned in those books still apply today. Many of those lives are still present in our society now, just in a slightly different representation.

So what happened to good reading? Why are these books abandoned?