Why the "classics" don't suck

[guywithashovel]

An important thing to remember: Even the classics were "new and edgy" at one time.

Now, that doesn't mean that classics shouldn't be taught. Many of them are good, and reading them can likely be beneficial for people regardless of what paths they choose in life. However, I don't think that we should fall into the trap of thinking that just because something came out recently it's inferior to something that was written 200 years ago.

[Lace Neil Singer]

All I'm saying is at least TRY TO READ the damn books. Seriously, it's not that difficult. You might not like it, but at least it's better than saying, "I hate classics, I refuse to read them!" That makes you no different than art snobs, or the music snobs who refuse to listen to any bands who formed before the 90s, cuz they think that just cuz it's old, it's automatically going to be shite.

If you try a classic and hate it, then you have the right to say, "Such and such book is so boring". If you've never read it, then you're just trashing an entire genre thru nothing more than ignorance.

For the record, there was one set text for my GCSE that I tried my utmost to try and read, and could not. That was The Mayor Of Casterbridge and it was just so dull, that I could not read it. However, I'm sure that out there, there's a whole load of people who read and enjoyed that book. Different tastes.

Finally, I didn't particularly like doing still art when I studied art; yet it was part of basic art studies and I had to do it. Same goes for literature and English; a teacher would not be doing their job if they just let you all read trash and modern books all the time. Also, sadly, if all students were allowed to choose their books, there are quite a few who'd be picking such examples of awful writing as Twilight and Sweet Valley High, and therefore would ruin the whole idea for everyone else.

[Hyena Dandy]

I had to read some classics in class. Some I liked, some I didn't, some I was neutral on. I couldn't stand The Catcher in the Rye. I loved The Great Gatsby. Hamlet was fun, the poems of Emily Dickinson were great. I couldn't care less about Emerson and Thoreau. I love Twain. I hate Dickens. But I'm glad I took the class to get the chance to read them.

I do, however, see one of the problems with the classics is... There's a lot of Classics. And you HAVE to read them in highschool. Which leads to you not WANTING to read them in Highschool.

I liked the idea of giving a multiple choice option. Read this story, or that story, or the other story. All the stories deal with the same themes, but there's enough variation on them that people can choose what they want to read. And still learn about the themes.

[AdminAssistant]

High school literature classes are meant to provide students with a broad background in literature, not instill a lifelong love of reading. For the purposes of testing (which has to be kept in mind with high schools), students have to read some of the same things. My teacher assigned 5 required texts, and then gave us an additional list of 25 that we had to pick 5 from, everything from John Steinbeck to Mark Twain to Nathaniel Hawthorne (this was American Lit). Yeah, the material can be difficult. So what? Should I have been able to opt out of geometry because it was hard for me and not particularly useful?

[DrFaroohk]

I always felt like the love of classics was a sort of circular logic. "Why do we have to read Catcher in the Rye?"

"Because it's a classic."

"But why is it a classic? What's so effing great about it?"

"Well, we read it every year!"

"So why do we read it?"

"Because it's a classic!"

I never bothered with chorus in school either for that very reason. There was no good reason that we had to sing the crap we did. We could have gone Glee and done chorusy renditions of popular songs and it would have been better. I understand wanting to expose kids to the past and whatnot, but quit ramming it down their throats and move on. If the best way to get kids to learn is singing bon jovi songs and reading the wheel of time, then go with it. If you have to rap to get people to understand math, then do it.

[Hyena Dandy]

Wait, hold on. We're debating should the classics be taught? Because I"m all down with them being TAUGHT.

I thought we were discussing whether the classics were a reason that people didn't like reading...

[Rageaholic]

If you try a classic and hate it, then you have the right to say, "Such and such book is so boring". If you've never read it, then you're just trashing an entire genre thru nothing more than ignorance.

How is never reading something and not showing an interest in it the same as trashing it and being a snob? Trashing it would be saying "So and so sucks", not being interested it in is more like "That doesn't look that interesting to me". It is possible to not be interested in something without being a snob about it.

Like guywithashovel and a few others said, I fail to see what's so special about the "classics". It's one thing if you're a literature or arts major, but for those persuing other careers, how is it necessary to know these particular books?

[Hyena Dandy]

I think they should be taught, though, in order to give people the chance to find out if they WANT to pursue a literature career. If we all selected what we'd learn at the start of schooling, we'd never have a chance to LEARN if something appeals to us. In fact, I didn't make the decision on what I want to do until after I graduated highschool. Some don't make the situation until halfway through college. I think it makes sense to teach the classics, and any other book, to give people the chance to enjoy them that they would never have if they didn't start out wanting to.

[Rageaholic]

I think they should be taught, though, in order to give people the chance to find out if they WANT to pursue a literature career. If we all selected what we'd learn at the start of schooling, we'd never have a chance to LEARN if something appeals to us. In fact, I didn't make the decision on what I want to do until after I graduated highschool. Some don't make the situation until halfway through college. I think it makes sense to teach the classics, and any other book, to give people the chance to enjoy them that they would never have if they didn't start out wanting to.

Well if you put it that way, I agree. It should be taught to give people a choice, but for people like myself, literature is just another hoop to jump through. I knew I wasn't going to be majoring into lit for a while, but I'm still taking classes in it. WTF?

[muses_nightmare]

I took as many English courses as a I could through school (which up until grade 12, was like 1 a year, but I digress). I'll admit I'm not a fan of a lot of the classics we had to read, at least the Jane Austen type of stuff. I have read them, and I'm glad I had to. School isn't meant to be easy, do you get to chose not to learn any particular math section because it doesn't interest you? No. Why should English be any different?

Also, in junior high English we read Brave New World and the Chrysalids, both of which I really enjoyed. I also took a literature class in high school, we read a variety of material, novels, short stories, poetry. (I was always disappointed when the poetry sections never covered Bukowski, not that I'd expect them to, but he's my favorite writer :P)

[jackfaire]

High school literature classes are meant to provide students with a broad background in literature, not instill a lifelong love of reading. For the purposes of testing (which has to be kept in mind with high schools), students have to read some of the same things. My teacher assigned 5 required texts, and then gave us an additional list of 25 that we had to pick 5 from, everything from John Steinbeck to Mark Twain to Nathaniel Hawthorne (this was American Lit). Yeah, the material can be difficult. So what? Should I have been able to opt out of geometry because it was hard for me and not particularly useful?

Again I am not talking about HIGH SCHOOL! In HIGH SCHOOL LITERATURE CLASSES SHOULD TEACH EVERYTHING FROM THE CLASSICS TO MODERN LITERATURE AND YES THEY DAMN WELL BETTER READ THEM.

I am talking about the fact that in Elementary school and early Junior high when the goal is to give children the love of reading and has jack all to do with giving them a broad background. See you keep focusing on high school and college which have little to do with enjoyment and everything to do with learning.

Honestly kids that had teachers who helped them develop a love of reading by reading whatever they wanted as kids are more receptive to then studying the classics and also more able to understand them.

You didn't learn geometry in Elementary school and it's not like being able to opt out of it but rather saying, "I would like to learn to add and subtract before I learn quadratic equations" If you can understand Beowulf when your in the 3rd grade awesome not everyone can. I didn't learn to read by reading War and Peace I learned to read with a book called the Christmas Tree.

I worked my way up to classics from modern books before I couldn't understand the classics and having gone back enjoyed some now that I didn't then because now I can understand them having background in literature to work with.

[smileyeagle1021]

Wait, hold on. We're debating should the classics be taught? Because I"m all down with them being TAUGHT.

I agree with you, the problem is how they are taught.
I've got a major problem with how often old=classic.
There is a lot of old stuff, that quite frankly, is crap.
That said, the stuff that is good is really good, and can be an amazing teaching tool.

I liked how my teachers always handled it, they took a three prong approach, they taught it for it's literary value, its historical context, and its modern comparison.
The Scarlet Letter was a good example.
It is a very distinctive literary style worth studying. It has a lot of historical value in demonstrating the values and attitudes of the time. And, it is a great mirror to hold up against modern times. When we read it in high school, the teacher made a point of asking several times during the story "where do you still see this today"
She asked the same question for Romeo and Juliet, same question for Huck Finn, same question for Great Gatsby, etc. The classics can be an extremely good teaching tool in how times have changed and how they have stayed the same, something which history books can't really teach.

That said, people have mentioned sci-fi, science fiction can be used for the exact same way, taking an imagined future and holding it up as a mirror to the present. This is an amazingly good way to analyze social topics today. I had a professor who made the point "you can get an audience to swallow anything as long as you put it far enough into the future". As was mentioned in the polygamy thread a while back, the doctor on Star Trek Enterprise with three wives, each of whom had three husbands, put that into modern times and in a local (IE Earth) setting and no one would buy it, they'd reject it as obviously false. Put it in the future with an alien species, and now people ask themselves "well, I wonder how that works? Is that something that would be good or bad? Would that work here?"
That is the power of writing, it allows the impossible to, very briefly, be possible.

[Hobbs]

I am talking about the fact that in Elementary school and early Junior high when the goal is to give children the love of reading and has jack all to do with giving them a broad background. See you keep focusing on high school and college which have little to do with enjoyment and everything to do with learning.

Honestly kids that had teachers who helped them develop a love of reading by reading whatever they wanted as kids are more receptive to then studying the classics and also more able to understand them.

Considering you've been talking specifically about instances in high school and not mentioning elementary school, how are we to deduce which level of education you're talking about.

Where have you been that you were taught classics in elementary school? Unless you're thinking of Fun with Dick and Jane as classics.

In middle school we didn't learn many classics either. In fact, most of the books we read were, in my opinion, fun books that dealt with subject material we could all relate to (the most memorable being The Devil's Arithmetic).

You didn't learn geometry in Elementary school and it's not like being able to opt out of it but rather saying, "I would like to learn to add and subtract before I learn quadratic equations" If you can understand Beowulf when your in the 3rd grade awesome not everyone can. I didn't learn to read by reading War and Peace I learned to read with a book called the Christmas Tree.

I didn't say you had to learn Beowulf at 3rd grade, I simply said I understood it, therefore meaning that, by high-school, a person should be able to have the mental capacity to understand and interpret the book.

Furthermore, as I stated in the other education thread, my sister was learning algebra in elementary school. Stuff that I didn't even touch until I was in middle school.

The ability to read and interpret "difficult" literature isn't just about learning a boring story. It develops critical thinking and analytical processes that are necessary in any number of fields. Honestly, I've never understood how people can talk of Beowulf, the Iliad or other works and call them boring. They're about gods and battles and demons/creatures...the stuff modern fantasy bases itself on.

Let's think of a "modern" book of entertainment, The Lord of the Rings. Such a work wouldn't have been possible without JRR Tolkien's knowledge of classical literature.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I think they should be taught, though, in order to give people the chance to find out if they WANT to pursue a literature career. If we all selected what we'd learn at the start of schooling, we'd never have a chance to LEARN if something appeals to us. In fact, I didn't make the decision on what I want to do until after I graduated highschool. Some don't make the situation until halfway through college. I think it makes sense to teach the classics, and any other book, to give people the chance to enjoy them that they would never have if they didn't start out wanting to.

What he said, pretty much.

Also, I don't know where people are getting the idea that school is meant to be fun. You go there to LEARN. If it bothers you so much, feel free to drop out and do what you like then.

I am talking about the fact that in Elementary school and early Junior high when the goal is to give children the love of reading and has jack all to do with giving them a broad background.

Weird; I never had any problems in primary school with what I wanted to read. Must be an American thing or something, cuz tho there were set texts in reading class, I was allowed to opt out and bring my Watership Down book to class to read instead. In fact, I was encouraged to do so by the Headmaster himself. I did read the set texts so that I could do the tests, however I read them way before anyone else in the class did, so I read my book while everyone else caught up.

And it's not up to the school to give kids a love of reading, it's down to the parents. The school can be trying its utmost to encourage kids to read but at the end of the day, if the parents are trashing books and shoving kids in front of the TV for hours on end, what the school does is worthless. I don't know where people are getting the idea that it's up to the schools to do everything for their kids.

[muses_nightmare]

Also, for Romeo and Juliet it helps to let the students have sword fights with trumpet cleaners, okay not real fights, but parts of the play. (Grade 10 English was so much fun )