It is becoming somewhat of a dilemma for middle school and high school teachers today, local and nationwide, as to whether or not to teach the classics or to teach the modern popular novels that are selling in the millions of copies.
Teachers themselves may not have the time nor savvy to be updated on the modern popular “literature,” and thus it might be more difficult for them to teach it. They may not even be able to relate to the newer books in the way that the kids would need them too, the way the kids do, while going the other way is not so difficult for the students. So teach the classics.
Parents should also have their young-adults reading on their own throughout the school year, and especially during the off seasons of winter, spring, and summer breaks.
Further, there is always time during the school year for one or two “any book you want” projects. But the majority of the class should be structured around the classics, otherwise they will not get read by the majority of students, who would then miss out on not only great books, but on major parts of history that is represented in the classics.
The modern books necessarily portray the modern young-adult mind, but there are major issues with just that mind, too vast to be tackled here. Teaching books that represent that mind is only going to concretize that mind when we should be trying to help the kids over or through it. One point is that the kids today have lost the lion’s share of the faculty for critical self-reflection. The modern novels don’t help them see it, they only reinforce it. Teach the classics.
Where is Puck in modern literature, where Henry V and Falstaff, indeed, where Socrates himself? They are absent and nowhere to be found. Where, even, are the classics from merely a generation ago, characters such as Lenny and Boo Radley, and where are writers such as Steinbeck and Edgar Lee Masters, indeed, where is the whole of the canon represented in today’s classroom? It has nearly disappeared in just the last three or four years, and this experiment is going to have disastrous consequences.
Don’t get me wrong, and despite their faults, I’m not trying to take away anything from modern popular novels, but their quality is not that of the novels from the last three centuries, books that defined the periods and created culture. The books today are merely cultural products, having no true religious and philosophical import, not being radical or having the power to change things as literature once did. And it’s not for lack of things that need changing, personally and collectively. Modern novels just don’t have the it-factors that pull from religion and philosophy in order to make us better as people and as a culture. As O. Henry put it, they are mere plagiarizers of form, having no transcendent content other than escape, the worst of all reasons and methods of literature. Teach the classics. The kids are going to read the popular books anyway, so teach the classics they will otherwise not even hear of.
This might even be against the “no student left behind” policy because the modern novels, being deprived of all true intellectual content, are so much easier to read. However, that being the case the kids will read those anyway, and further, it is the parents job to raise their children as literate and if they don’t, why is that everyone else’s fault. Send them to a private school where they don’t do any real work, since that seems to be the parent’s intention anyhow. There should not be a “no student left behind” program, rather there should be a “no child left alone at home doing nothing but playing video games” program. If you took offense at what I just said, then do something about it, for you’re the guilty one. And if necessary, teachers, find a way to inspire your students to read, and to read better books, at least for classroom discussion and activities.
I can see no middle ground here unless one wants to transform junior high and high school English classes into comparative literature classes, the modern novels being the secondary and the classics primary sources. Allison Eck, author of the article “Reading list limbo” in The Buffalo News of August 24, suggests a “Battle of the Books” where kids quiz each other on classics that would otherwise not be read. In such a contest students could win prizes for their correct answers on the classics.
Teachers should definitely be concerned over the state of literature and the books kids are reading today. Parents should likewise be facing the same questions as teachers on this dilemma. Kids will read what they will, and we shouldn’t ever tell them they can’t read a certain book. But there is plenty of time when they are not reading, but rather wasting their time with video games and television. We can tell them to turn those off, or limit them in daily usage. And we can tell them they need to read some books that are truly literature, and quiz them on those as well. Or perhaps give them Hero with a Thousand Faces so that they know how to read in the first place. But I digress…
The real issue here, as I mentioned above, is the state of modern literature. It is meant only to entertain and provide escape from reality. Not only are the classics important, but we are in desperate need of something new for our literary palates. I can only hope that the modern novel is a transition from the something old to the something new. The old should not go away, but the something new hasn’t arrived yet, and what is currently passing for literature is something that should be meant for “infant readers,” as Katherine Mansfield put it a century ago about some of the work that was emerging then. The true modern novel, one that will represent our time for posterity, has yet to make itself known. Joseph Campbell himself was both intimating and waiting for the “modern myth” to emerge. To date we have yet to see it. Let’s hope the coming generation has something of more substance to tell the future than that we were obsessed with sparkling vampires, boy magicians, and dead Greek gods.
This has been my opinion, what’s yours? Agree with me, disagree with me: let me hear it. Things need to change; this is your chance to tell the universe how. And don’t forget to “subscribe” to be reminded every time I post a new article.
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