Is literature education a real necessity to teach in public schools?

Literature tends to deal with human experience in a radical and subversive way. The student of literature is invited to lay aside prejudices and preconceptions in understanding the meaning conveyed.

Unfortunately schools, as the bastion of conventional values and perspectives, are ill-suited to encouraging the student in this task. Instead schools tend to undermine understanding and discourage critical thinking through a conservative, majority-rules approach to interpreting a text - the ignorant leading the blind. Nevertheless a few students do manage to see anyway.

Is literature education worth it for the few?

I agree that the institution of schools are inherently conservative. As institutions, could they be otherwise? Indeed, is not the very notion that we should look toward an institution to promote a challenge to conventions somewhat absurd? Of course, part of what should be taught in school is the ability to think critically which will allow the individual; to develop his or her own understandings... even to question conventional wisdom or entrenched thinking. The problem, I believe, does not lie so much with teachers, but rather with the administration. Administrators in general seem to be a rather conservative lot and have little concept of the worth of art or culture beyond its value in financial terms... or as a means of promoting that which is truly important: literacy skills, math skills... the things which show up on standardized proficiency tests. It never dawns on them that music may have worth beyond its link with mathematics, or that visual art may have a value beyond a means of further illuminating history or geometry or other practical fields of study.

For quite some time, the arts have been employed as a means of conveying certain conventional moral or ethical ideas. I remember the continual push to recognize the moral or the message that the writer or artist sought to convey... and I agree with you that there is often this notion that only the interpretation agreed upon by the teacher and the majority holds any value. The possibility that Shakespeare challenges traditional notions of the clear separation of "good" and "evil" and the eventual triumph of "good" is not something likely to be popular with educational leaders. It wasn't even popular with Tolstoy. Can we really expect that the institution of education will embrace the questionable ideas put forth by Blake, Shelley, Emerson, etc...? Are we really surprised that not only the Beats or radical thinkers such as Sartre and Nietzsche represent a threat to traditional/conventional values... but that Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Goethe, Shakespeare, even Dante do as well? Can we really be surprised at the efforts of school leaders to clean up the arts when we consider that a vast portion of the whole of art deals with such issues as sex and violence? Its no surprise that so many young readers flock to certain writers such as Rimbaud and the Beats and Dostoevsky when so many of the great writers of the past have been sanitized and painted in the most boring manner. One of the greatest joys, I think, is rediscovering great literature for oneself... but unfortunately the lock-step mode of teaching it can turn a great many potential readers from ever wishing to explore it on their own.

"Can we really be surprised at the efforts of school leaders to clean up the arts when we consider that a vast portion of the whole of art deals with such issues as sex and violence? Its no surprise that so many young readers flock to certain writers such as Rimbaud and the Beats and Dostoevsky when so many of the great writers of the past have been sanitized and painted in the most boring manner. One of the greatest joys, I think, is rediscovering great literature for oneself... but unfortunately the lock-step mode of teaching it can turn a great many potential readers from ever wishing to explore it on their own."


I totally agree here, The Shakespeare I was taught at school was mundane and dull, but now that I am reading Hamlet I am seeing a new side, the true side, of a man who challenged convention and belief just as much as Rimbaud or Ginsberg did. By painting certain writers in the light of sanitized moralists and conveyers of the beliefs of institution, it kills their image in sorts, it kills the very beauty of their art, newness, new thought, new beauty, new ! that is what all the greats were, radical innovators, yet we are shown many of them in this unflattering light which kills any interest in them.

Your discussion is interesting, but I believe there is only one response needed: yes. Do we want our children taught deeply and well? Then their teachers should also be well-educated. And we should want them well taught in literature, science, math, history. It is the foundation from which all else in their life springs. It may be idealistic, but not to strive for this would be a travesty.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Of course, part of what should be taught in school is the ability to think critically which will allow the individual; to develop his or her own understandings... even to question conventional wisdom or entrenched thinking.

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On radio this week, an Australian academic proposed that: universities (and I would include schools) do so much teach critical thinking as reward those students who have already acquired that skill.

It is more heartening, of course, to suppose that critical thinking can be taught.

"Higher order thinking skills" and "critical thinking" are both catch phrases used in education as part of the Progressive ideas of teaching. I have posted this before, but I suppose it deals with the question at hand. Progressive education in America is something rooted in theories of Rousseau and Dewey and promotes the notion of eliminating a set curriculum or agreed upon body of knowledge, facts, and skills... and instead focusing upon helping the student to develop the so-called "higher order thinking skills"... abilities such as analysis, synthesis, comparison, etc... The problem that is ignored by the Progressive educators is that these abstract concepts of learning and thinking cannot be taught or developed within a vacuum. The idea that it could be is just as idealistic and unrealistic as the concept of "whole language" where phonics, spelling, vocabulary, etc... were thrown out the window in the belief that a child could learn language simply through immersion by the process of osmosis.

E.D. Hirsch in his book, The Schools We Need (and why we don't have them) confronted many of the problems with Progressive teaching methods.. Hirsch was a great champion of a liberal idea of public education... the notion that all children should be given an equal access to the quality education needed to succeed in our society... an idea one would hope that everyone... regardless of political leaning, is on board with. Hirsch noticed that a great many of the liberal/progressive educational strategies (such as the "feel-good/no losers" approach, and the avoidance of memorization of objective "facts") actually had the exact opposite effect... especially in the poor schools which needed education the most. Hirsch discovered that the Italian politician and theorist, Antonio Gramsci (imprisoned by Mussolini) had recognized the problem of progressive education as early as the 1930s:

"The new concept of Schooling is in its Romatic phase (ala Rousseau) in which the replacement of "mechanical" by "natural" methods has become unhealthily exaggerated... Previously pupils at least acquired a certain baggage of concrete facts. Now there will no longer be any baggage to put in order... The most paradoxical aspect of it all is that this new aspect of school is being advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences, but crystallize them in Chinese complexities."

The "romantic" progressive concepts of schooling avoid the learning of "facts" because it is feared these will perpetuate stereotypes... the notion that one writer, one artist, one historical personage is more important than another. This was seen as unacceptable to educational progressives as "Multiculturalism" and "Egalitarianism" became the catch-phrases of the day. This, in the US, is then combined with the lack of any real federal or national standards resulting in a system in which almost every school has its own curriculum... makes its own choices about what books to read and what facts to present. When this is further combined with No Child Left Behind which has resulted in schools focusing more upon teaching strategies for taking tests as a means of grabbing the needed scores as opposed to actually teaching a curriculum that is aligned with what the student will be tested upon, the result is an absolute mess in which we cannot be certain that a child in this school at this age will be expected to have mastered the same knowledge and skills as a student in another school just around the block... let alone across the country. Such an approach to teaching is surely not conducive to developing critical thinking, either. Indeed, if anything, one can imagine it would lead to a deal of frustration, cynicism... and even the increased occurrences of cheating. After all... if schools spend more time trying to cheat the system than teach facts and skills, these facts and skills surely must not be something of the greatest importance.:(

Hirsch recognized that in order to succeed in education and in our society one must accumulate a certain agreed upon body of knowledge. One cannot master reading... let alone "higher order thinking skills" such as analysis, comparison, synthesis, etc... without a body of concrete facts. Progressive educators argue that a curriculum based upon such facts is inherently bound to be racist, sexist, nationalistic. The problem is that the alternative handicaps those very students it claims to assist. The reality is that public education is not the end-all/be-all. Once a student has mastered certain facts, reading, math, etc... he or she is certainly free... and more important, able to branch out and explore other alternative ideas and voices... and certainly higher education should be expected to offer just that. At present, however, higher education needs to begin at a remedial level... teaching many of the basic skills and body of knowledge that should have been mastered in elementary and secondary school.

Of course it is to be expected that an institution such as public education would focus upon certain conservatives conventions when dealing with literature... or the arts in general. In spite of all the lip-service and idealizations, the primary role of public education is to produce productive, contributing members of society able to function in the economic realities of the time. It is thus little surprise that schools often avoid the more subversive aspects of the arts... the manner in which they question or challenge many of the values of society. In the US we continually read about ultra-conservative parents becoming irate over the audacity of a teacher's attempt to present alternative ways of thinking about religion, politics, history, etc... The danger, of course, is that a democracy depends upon the thinking abilities of the larger populace, and this demands a critical thinking ability. The manner in which vast numbers accept the most outrageous claims made by extremist on the right or the left is disheartening... and disturbing. The manner in which extremists on either side challenge the very notion of critical thinking... of checking sources... of looking at the arguments and facts presented by both sides... is increasingly scary. If only as a tonic for such group think, I would argue that teaching literature is a necessity in our schools.

Meh, Rousseau is probably the last person we should be emulating for child-care and education. It's all a mask anyway. Truth be told, it doesn't really come down to rich or poor in education, as rich people always have the fall-back of private school. What it really comes down to is the fact that parents a) don't like their kids to work, and b) don't like to work themselves. If you look at the quality of education in other countries, in the most objective of all subjects, mathematics, you will find that forcing education on Children is always the better method.

As for literature, it depends how much a culture values its traditions - for instance, how many people today use Erasmus' Adages? They aren't quoted, so aren't taught. In contrast, Chinese 4 character idioms are necessary to properly read and write, so they are taught, along with the literature behind them (generally short stories), as well as other classics (generally there is a surprisingly lost list of poems that anybody who grew up in China and had a middle-school education would know by heart).

The problem with Western education is that it is run by lazy people, for lazy people. Anybody who wants to learn anything, and is encouraged to do so, will do so. Everyone who is emulating lazy parents will turn out lazy themselves, unless the system forces them otherwise.

The question comes down to how much should schools force children to learn. It's been proven time and time again that stricter discipline leads to better results - that's why the son of a rich kid whose parents push him does better on average than the son of the poor kid, whose parents neglect him.

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Originally Posted by annakarina

That this should even be brought up is the very reason I won't be raising my kids in North America.

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+1! :thumbsup:

In the UK there s change afoot in the standard 16 year old's Engish qualification- GCSE. Formerly the course required the study of a Shakespeare play, a 19th C novel, media and a creative writi piece. These led to the submission of 4 essays. The exams (2) tested essay writing on poetry as well as compehension and unseen essays.

The change to functional skills will instead focus upon supervised essay writing in class for coursework (to stop internet plagiarism and electronic assistance such as spellchecking). There will be an exam question on a poem, but the novel and Shakespeare will be dropped.

Although I think there is a lot of value in literature, too often it has been fed to disinterested kids who develop a negative view of the classic stuff, which may put them off going to it in the future. Shakespeare as a read text is difficult for 14-16 year olds who perhaps need to develop the basics to be able to express themselves adequately.
20% of UK kids leave school with inadequate reading writing spelling grammar etc. How much more inadequate do they feel after struggling with Shakespeare? It would be much better to cover in media studies.

Of course there are further Literture courses which can be taken up once the basics have been established, but these will be done by kids who have an interest in literature.

What careers can you get with a top notch literary education?


That's the number 1 question.

Academic careers based solely on a lit ed, though there's always the writing jobs, but they require more skills than a literary ed would give.

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Originally Posted by annakarina

That this should even be brought up is the very reason I won't be raising my kids in North America.

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I am going to have to agree with the sentiment here. I fear book burning is step 2, after all, the literature may all (by someone's editing standards) be available electronically anyway. I'm not a fan of those electronic things, a computer, at a friends or at the library is as close as I care to be to electronics at my age.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

Academic careers based solely on a lit ed, though there's always the writing jobs, but they require more skills than a literary ed would give.

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True. There are exceptions, but for the majority you'll end up with a academic career.

Like I said earlier, you can get through life without EVER having read Shakespeare, but you won't get far without knowing that 2+2=4.

Like I said earlier, you can get through life without EVER having read Shakespeare, but you won't get far without knowing that 2+2=4.

Yes, yes... and we all ignored it the first time because its a stupid analogy. You are comparing the achievements of a single individual within a given discipline with an entire field of study: Shakespeare vs Mathematics. A more logical analogy would be to compare the necessity of Mathematics vs that of reading and writing. And then you might bring up the question of whether the goal of education should be solely focused upon the practical... and the materialistic? Do you measure the value of things solely in monetary terms?

You should first try and understand what I'm saying. There's no need to try and insult me by calling what I said stupid.

I use Shakespeare as merely an example to represent literature and 2+2=4 to represent math. You can replace Shakespeare's name with any writer of fiction that you choose and it'll be the same.

I'm not saying that Literature is irrelevant, I'm just saying that if you want to get a job and put a roof over your head, food in your stomach, and clothes on your back, which are the basic necessities, you don't need a education in literature. If you have basic reading and writing skills you can get a good job.

The same can be said for math as well, but an advanced education in math will probably get you a higher paying job than an advanced education in Literature.

I remember when I was in high school and I asked my teacher what kind of job could I get with an English degree and she flat out said "nothing".

I wasn't even going to read this thread, because the title sounded as if it were baiting the forum; it is a Liturature Network Forum after all.

However, I decided to respond, not to any poster other than the opening title. Yes, I do believe that Liturature should be taught. My interest in becoming a serious student was sparked by a Lit class I took in High School. It was billed as a College Prep class and I took it as a challenge to myself. I had always liked to read, but I learned how to think about it and how to express my thoughts, how to sometimes look beyond the written word and into the meaning and sometimes to read the words on the page and take them at their value.

This has been the best lesson in LIFE I have yet received. I have much math under my belt, as was required for my B.Sc. degree and my early computer programming days, then even in my technical writing and on into other written work, as well. So feel safe in saying, yes, it is as important as any other class.

I might say that what I could have lived without was Biology, Chemistry, and other sciences, but I'm sure it has helped enrich my life even though I do not see where it has.