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

[Kafka's Crow]

I am glad I live in a country where English is regarded as one of the very few 'real' disciplines as opposed to other 'Mickey Mouse' subjects. English is the only 'traditional' subject left among the top 10 most subscribed courses in UK universities.

[stlukesguild]

Unfortunately, to many the sole purpose of education is the practical, utilitarian preparation or the student for the workplace. This has been the mindset of education for years: education for employment. And of course we must focus upon those forms of employment that are most "important" to maintaining our economic and military hegemony: mathematics and science. Everything else is but "filler": art, music, literature especially. In most cases these subjects are justified merely as planning periods for the classroom teachers who teach the important stuff or by arguing that the study of one or another of these disciplines aids in the more important ones: ie. those who study music have a greater understanding of mathematics. Never do we need to justify math or science thus (those who study science do better at music).

[Orpheus]

Man can survive only with instinct, and with hands on learning in a wilderness. It is the advancement of thought which places man above beasts.

Literature has shaped and is shaping the world. Why not allow people to understand it. Language is the most powerful thing in this world, and what makes man the most dominant thing in the universe.

The Universe is a big place, my friend, one of which we know very little. However, I do agree that words have a lot of power.

[Shalot]

How is maths important for someone who won't do a math related job? How is history important for someone who will do a job that has nothing to do with history, etc. etc.? Two things: Development of different brain capacities and a general basic knowledge of different areas, so that we do not produce simply working machines but people, and people who has a perspective as broad as possible, especially important in such society as we live in (I'm not saying that we DO succeed in "producing" people with a perspective or a general culture whatsoever...) But again, I could go farther in why I believe such a general culture is important, but I'd be rambling all day long having to go through other waters to introduce or develop certain points, which I will spare you and do not feel like doing anyways.

This is a funny paragraph and a great example of why studying literature is useful. If you read well written sentences, you will learn to write them as well. But, you can convey basic messages with lousy writing and sometimes that's all that is required in the work world. And if the majority of the population is poorly educated or unable to comprehend say, a finance or agreement for example, then you can screw a lot of people and make money off of their ignorance. Maybe this is why education is a joke in America, unless you pay for it. And even then, how can you be sure you're getting what you paid for.

[Watershed]

I never said literture didn't have educational value. In the original post I clearly stated that it did, and all I said was that we should offer a choice to students. If a student is going into a pure technical field, let them study just writing versus the more cultural discipline of literature. If someone desires a liberal arts education, let them have literary education.

We should always teach how to convey your ideas through writing, and a class on linguistics in English would all be about that. That's the whole point. It would teach you the proper way to form sentences and utilize vocabulary and write most effectively and comprehension would be a huge point. It would merely ignore the cultural dimension involving literature. If someone wants a traditional English class instead, let them have it.

[Watershed]

And wait guys, how does studying literature improve communication? Whenever I took writing lessons from the books I read in school, I got an F. I was reading Oliver Twist in my English class, and I was in a Charles Dickens mood, so I wrote my history midterm like that, and it made no sense. The reading of literature improved my ability to write fiction, but it has either had no effect on my expository writing, or whenever I tried to write an essay like a narrative, I did extremely poorly.

Effective expository writing of a techical nature is entirely different that of literary writing, and it is learned entirely through the study of technical writing and not the study of literature. If you study good technical writing, you learn how to be a good technical writer. Literary writing is written so differently with so different intentions, it will only help other literary writers improve. That's not to say that the cultural and comprehension benefits still aren't there, because they are there, and they are huge plusses of studying literature, but I definitely take objection with this idea that studying literature will make people better writers in a technical sense.

[Kafka's Crow]

So if one wants to write effective 'technical' pieces, he should read a Periodic Table or a list of formulae? Most of the bosses at my workplace have MBAs and other such degrees, the standard of written communications is absolutely appalling. There is no substitute for effective communication-skills, period. Most top CEOs are chosen for their presentation and communication-skills, their ability to convince, motivate, negotiate and communicate. Middle managers are the 'technical' people who write memos full of greengrocers' apostrophes and become laughing-stock of their subordinates. This happens all the time. Maybe the dental situation and this apostrophe are unique to my fellow countrymen alone (I bloody hope so!). Communication, communication, communication. Literature does help improve communication. You can't blame Oliver Twist for someone else's short-comings. A sense of linguistic prowess is at the root of all good utterances. Whether you accept it or not, there, still, are good jobs for English graduates and they do make positive contribution whether in the offices of newspapers, in broadcasting houses or in classrooms and boardrooms. This is just to answer the utilitarian objections. I would not even touch upon the intrinsic value of cultural studies in the continuation and advancement of civilisation.

[Watershed]

So if one wants to write effective 'technical' pieces, he should read a Periodic Table or a list of formulae? Most of the bosses at my workplace have MBAs and other such degrees, the standard of written communications is absolutely appalling. There is no substitute for effective communication-skills, period. Most top CEOs are chosen for their presentation and communication-skills, their ability to convince, motivate, negotiate and communicate. Middle managers are the 'technical' people who write memos full of greengrocers' apostrophes and become laughing-stock of their subordinates. This happens all the time. Maybe the dental situation and this apostrophe are unique to my fellow countrymen alone (I bloody hope so!). Communication, communication, communication. Literature does help improve communication. You can't blame Oliver Twist for someone else's short-comings. A sense of linguistic prowess is at the root of all good utterances. Whether you accept it or not, there, still, are good jobs for English graduates and they do make positive contribution whether in the offices of newspapers, in broadcasting houses or in classrooms and boardrooms. This is just to answer the utilitarian objections. I would not even touch upon the intrinsic value of cultural studies in the continuation and advancement of civilisation.

I agree with you, and that's why we should teach them English linguistics, so they understand the best way to communicate with the English langauge rather than just making them memorize facts about olden books. They should be learning how to write effectively in a technically way by studying well-written memos and all that.

An English major is great. I'm talking about a literature major. A lot of these technical people should study the language of English, so if they had a choice in their high school to focus on that instead of the cultural study of literature, then maybe they would be better writers.

[Remarkable]

I cannot believe that this debate has been brought up!This is exactly why I never want to live in the States in the first place!

High School is all about preparing your background and giving you general knowledge.If one goes at university,than one might select their own subject as they wish.Literature is the basis for all the future references:a person that has not read cannot make a good discussion,cannot critisise simply because of lack of culture.I might say now why do we learn about electricity when I'm not going to be an engeneer?It is outrageous to want to put literature aside!And watershed,if you had an F,that might be because of your poor litetary skills.There is no shame on that,I know people that are wonderful at science but can't even write an interesting pharagraph.Language is not the only thing;and then,still,reading improves it much better,makes you a master.As of history,you have much more sense when you have read a lot,you can express it better,you can justify it in a way that it could be very convincing.

[Etienne]

And wait guys, how does studying literature improve communication? Whenever I took writing lessons from the books I read in school, I got an F. I was reading Oliver Twist in my English class, and I was in a Charles Dickens mood, so I wrote my history midterm like that, and it made no sense. The reading of literature improved my ability to write fiction, but it has either had no effect on my expository writing, or whenever I tried to write an essay like a narrative, I did extremely poorly.

I'm not sure if you expected anyone to take this argument seriously "I've read a book and I got an F in an history paper after, thus reading is useless"? That makes absolutely no sense as an argument.

[nathank]

If nothing else reading a wide range of literature will expose you to a much broader array of life experiences than the average person could ever have in a lifetime. Reading books like "Raisin in the sun," "Grapes of wrath," "Invisible man," even "War and peace"," really makes you reflect on your views of the world and the people in it. Of course, for this to actually happen in a school setting you would probably need of VERY open minded teacher who is willing to be challenged be his or her students (something I've almost never seen).

[stlukesguild]

I cannot believe that this debate has been brought up!This is exactly why I never want to live in the States in the first place!

The idea of education for employment... and stressing only the most "practical" fields of study is most certainly not limited to the U.S. Math and Science followed by Reading and Writing sit atop the educational hierarchies around the world. Art, music, literature, theater, poetry, dance, philosophy, etc... these are often seen as just so much "filler". Personally, I believe that education up to a certain level... preferably college/university... should be as broad as possible. The notion that the student drawn to technical or mathematic/scientific fields should be able to choose only to study those fields is nonsense. We already have far too many one-dimensional human beings. I know with a certainty that had I been given the choice I would not have taken any mathematics or science in high-school... and might have passed on history and social sciences as well. While I've rarely ever put any of the advanced algebraic formulas to work in my private of my professional life (although I do employ geometry as an artist), I do not regret having made the effort to study something beyond my personal field of expertise. How many students drawn to the more "practical" or "utilitarian" fields of study will choose to study literature or music or art if given the choice not to? Our culture is already largely dominated by the mass media and popular culture... for many, the exposure to the arts they receive in school will be the only glimpse of a culture beyond pop culture they will know. For many others it will provide the spark leading them to investigate further on their own.

The following link offers some interesting thoughts on how we go about educating children today. The clip is quite humorous... but makes some interesting points or raises some interesting questions with regard to this notion of teaching with an eye to the practical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

[Aiculík]

You know, if we start thinking this way - what is necessary to learn for life after school - we could easily come to conclusion that there's not that much, besides basic skills of reading, writing and counting. We should only teach kids these, and then wait till they're old enough to choose what they want to study and do in their life. They'd be uncultural, unitelligent and ignorant to everything in the society besides their own work, but to hell with that. That won't help them to make money, and money is the only thing that matters.

Literature teaches you to understand texts, to analyse and interpret them, to read also 'between lines", to decode different meaning of the text. And that's more than useful in every day life, even for matematicians. We have to read, analyse and interpret many texts: news, articles, reports... If people wouldn't be able to understand, e.g. what politician in TV really says (they very rarely say something directly) it would be very easy to manipulate them. To make them understand only what somebody else wants them to understand.

And as for literature improving communication skills - people who read a lot, have much bigger vocabulary, can use different registers, use different styles, create correct syntactic constructions more easily, and their spelling is much better. Their speech is more fluent, without fillers like "er..", they can usually express exactly what they want and are better in formulating their arguments - in both oral and written form.

[PeterL]

Effective expository writing of a techical nature is entirely different that of literary writing, and it is learned entirely through the study of technical writing and not the study of literature. If you study good technical writing, you learn how to be a good technical writer. Literary writing is written so differently with so different intentions, it will only help other literary writers improve. That's not to say that the cultural and comprehension benefits still aren't there, because they are there, and they are huge plusses of studying literature, but I definitely take objection with this idea that studying literature will make people better writers in a technical sense.

There is no fundamental difference between technical writing and writing fiction. The differences are form and the type of content, but both are written to communicate something in written language.

[kilted exile]

The idea of education for employment... and stressing only the most "practical" fields of study is most certainly not limited to the U.S. Math and Science followed by Reading and Writing sit atop the educational hierarchies around the world. Art, music, literature, theater, poetry, dance, philosophy, etc... these are often seen as just so much "filler". Personally, I believe that education up to a certain level... preferably college/university... should be as broad as possible. The notion that the student drawn to technical or mathematic/scientific fields should be able to choose only to study those fields is nonsense. We already have far too many one-dimensional human beings. I know with a certainty that had I been given the choice I would not have taken any mathematics or science in high-school... and might have passed on history and social sciences as well. While I've rarely ever put any of the advanced algebraic formulas to work in my private of my professional life (although I do employ geometry as an artist), I do not regret having made the effort to study something beyond my personal field of expertise. How many students drawn to the more "practical" or "utilitarian" fields of study will choose to study literature or music or art if given the choice not to? Our culture is already largely dominated by the mass media and popular culture... for many, the exposure to the arts they receive in school will be the only glimpse of a culture beyond pop culture they will know. For many others it will provide the spark leading them to investigate further on their own.

The following link offers some interesting thoughts on how we go about educating children today. The clip is quite humorous... but makes some interesting points or raises some interesting questions with regard to this notion of teaching with an eye to the practical:

OK, I have a few general points to make & also to address some of the parts in this post relating to my experience with school system etc.

1) English Literature is important to study because understanding literature develops skills in understanding all written & spoken language - connotation, irony, tone etc.

2) The teaching of English should also cover topics on grammer & report writing. I know my spelling & grammer skills became progressively worse after the age of 16 when grammer was no longer mentioned & instead all the time was devoted to critical analysis of literature.


All right, now to St.Lukes post. I do agree that high school should provide a well rounded curriculum, however as students become closer to graduation this becomes difficult to do whilst still providing an adequate level of information in the class. I will use the system of school I went to for an example.

Throughout the ages of 13 - 14, all students studied every subject available at the school, this usually meant around 2hrs per subject per week in class. Just enough for the pupil to get to know what the subject is about and whether they would enjoy studying it at a more advanced level.

At 15, we got to choose for the first time what subjects we wanted to study, however there were strict guidelines: Everyone had to take English & Mathematics; One Social Studies (History, Geography, Modern Studies or Religious Studies) subject was required; One technical subject (Craft & Design; Graphic Communication; or Technological Studies (electronics, pneumatics etc)); One Secondary Language (French; German; Spanish; Urdu or Latin; One Science (Biology; Chemistry; Physics; Human Biology); Two elective classes (anything so long as it fitted on the schedule/timetable) & One modular class (pure enjoyment, no exams to speak of). At this stage it would be generally 3hrs a week for the main classes & 1hr for the module. These are the same subjects studied for the next two years. A large percentage of pupils in the area I went to school leave after these 2yrs, it is typically only those intending to go on to further education that reamain

After that the number of courses is reduced to 5 - again with English & Maths both as pre-requisites. The other three can be anything you wish, that you studied over the previous 2 years (as an example mine were Biology;Chemistry; & Physics) This last year is very advanced with regards to the amount of information given as it is a university prep year in all but name.
Typically there is 5hrs in class time for each subject with the rest of the time given for private study & report work.

Now, in order to provide the pupil with the correct level of knowledge to continue their studies at university this amount of time is required, I do not see it as feasible to make all students study all subjects after the age of 14.