Michael Gove, the UK Education secretary, gave a speech today criticizing a large chunk of the education establishment, for promoting a culture of "low aspirations" in education. LINK to story in The Guardian
He mentions Stephanie Meyer:
"I suspect those of us who are parents would recognise that
there are all too many children and young people only too happy to lose themselves in Stephanie Meyer, while away hours flinging electronic fowl at virtual pigs, hang out rather than shape up and dream of fame finding them rather than them pursuing glory.
And I also suspect that all of us who are parents would be delighted if our children were learning to love George Eliot, write their own computer programmes, daring to take themselves out of their comfort zone and aspiring to be faster, higher or stronger."
And again at the end:
"Stephenie Meyer cannot hold a flaming pitch torch to George Eliot. There is a Great Tradition of English Literature - a Canon of transcendent works - and Breaking Dawn is not part of it."
Hey, Gove knew the name of the last book. Which means his wife and kids are probably reading it (see campfire below).
Anyway, this made me think about my Literature education in High School, long ago in the US, where we had to read an endless number of classics. Very few modern novels were deemed worthy. (We were the first year AP classes were offered in schools,btw. Yes, I am a pioneer.)
My son and daughter, however, here in the UK, have read far fewer British Greats than I ever did. Sometimes they only read part of a great novel, particularly Dickens, instead of the whole thing. Iain Banks 'The Wasp Factory' (1984) was the most modern novel they read. They read one Steinbeck and one Poe. No Dostoyevsky or any translated works.
I am still in shock that my kids have read so few.
Was anyone here assigned a really light novel in high/secondary school?
Do you feel you were challenged enough with your required reading?
What was the most difficult novel you had to read as a teen?