I don’t know if this matters much. When I was in school it was rare to actually read a book assignment anyways, and I’m sure with LLMs now it’s less.
I’ve started to have a positive association with reading only in the last few years, I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives.
It’s odd, I read ravenously as a kid/teen, as did my siblings. You need to read what you enjoy, and for it to not be forced. (For example, summer reading at the library gave out prizes kids cared about for reading books.) Plus, we didn’t have access to much digital media like TV/video games (though it was the early 2010s) because my parents were strict, so books were a solid source of entertainment.
That was my problem too. Not in the US but in Europe. The stuff we had to read was all by 'highly acclaimed: authors who have carved out this niche of 'literature art ' between them.
However their books were dusty, tough, whiny and horrible to get through. Yuck. I never read fiction in my own language ever again just in spite.
I'm older than you (graduated high school in 1975). I read tons of sci-fi as a kid. I also don't remember reading any whole novels for English class. Maybe we did, but if so I have successfully blocked them out.
I have been amazed at the number of houses I've been in over the years which didn't appear to contain a single book.
I graduated high school in '92 (S.F. Bay Area) and can recall several assigned books we read for class in either junior high or high school. I think there were more, but these are the ones I can recall easily today.
Pride and Prejudice. Last of the Mohicans. A Separate Peace. Tom Jones. Beowulf. Grendel. Crime and Punishment. Waiting for Godot. Tale of Two Cities.
Also, several Shakespeare plays, though I am no longer sure which were read when.
We also had other reading assignments where we chose our own books. The above were assigned to everyone.
interesting. Assuming you're talking about high school I had a totally different experience, we were assigned maybe 6 books/semester for the year I spent in mainstream classes (and about double that when I did the IB program but I expected that to be uncommon)
It doesn’t happen anymore because of phones and the internet. Most people in the past read because they had nothing to do and they were willing to invest the time into a good book. You sacrifice a lot of energy in order to get enjoyment from a book.
Now with the internet there’s an unlimited stream of zero investment snippets of entertainment. People naturally dive into that because it’s more rational in the short term to do that.
Schools stopped reading but it’s as a result of the way students behave. The causal driver is student behavior.
The kids don't hate classroom reading because of the reading; they hate it because of the associated curriculum. “Why were the curtains blue?” is a skill wasted on children. I only gained an appreciation for such meta-reading during a weeks-long TV Tropes bender during a spat of unemployment after getting fired from my first big-boy job.
Probably a better question, atleast for a wide variety of books. Some authors however are very into writing detailed descriptions of places because that's how their brains work and what their readers enjoy, but 95% of those descriptions have nothing to do with anything that happens later in the book, other than hiding the one tiny detail that actually does become relevant.
If 'why are the curtains blue' were consistently explained together with Chekhov's gun, then maybe we wouldn't be here having this discussion.
> 95% of those descriptions have nothing to do with anything that happens later in the book, other than hiding the one tiny detail that actually does become relevant
The blue curtains has become an almost deranged meme at this point, completely disconnected from either curricula or evaluation. Students are not asked why singular descriptive details are chosen as such.
Being able to perform critical analysis of text is an essential skill today. It might be more essential now than any other moment in history. Understanding how narrative writing uses symbols translates cleanly into understanding how political messaging or any persuasive writing uses symbols.
Yes and literature is a pretty bad way to teach critical analysis. My high school did political speeches from
history and that segment was infinitely more enjoyable than The Scarlet Letter.
Sure, and there are plenty of classes that use different written forms for their pedagogy. An advantage of novels is that their length often allows for different thematic depth and complexity and their narrative can make it easier to hold a reader's attention through that length.
The problems with teaching symbolism using novels are:
1. Novels considered “curriculum-approved literature” often have symbolism that is irrelevant to a student’s life. It was placed there intentionally by the author, and was blatant to all readers when it was published, but it is indistinguishable to a student from the teacher making things up.
2. Teachers who aren't the best end up teaching from a “it's true because it's true” mindset, which may as well be “because I made it up and said so.” These are quite common.
3. Or the teacher draws from a pool of stock symbolic and thematic answers for all novels. Astute students will spot that immediately and treat it as a game of guessing the teacher’s answer rather than engaging with the text.
If the purpose is reading then we let kids read books that they like.
I can read a 1000 page history book but after 50 pages of Dutch literature I want to throw it in the garbage bin.
High school KILLS reading. Few survive.
My experience was a self-admitted outlier but it started by being read to frequently as a small child, before school started. I could technically read for as long as I could remember but reading by myself was boring compared to being read to due to having a very short attention span then.
Start literacy young and the discovery of reading for fun will be easy and natural.
You could force kids to read books without forcing which books to read. The issue as always is to find a balance between giving kids agency and making sure they do what's right.
Now that creating written works is trivial, the new skill to have would be figuring out if what you are reading has an ulterior motive, such as advertising.
Or even figuring out if it was created with the intent to have any utility at all for the reader.
Other than avoiding any written works made after 2020, I am not sure what to tell my kids. Even trusting the claim that something was written after 2020 seems difficult, unless you have a physical print showing its age.
> I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives.
It's a tough position to be in, although I'd imagine it could be remedied by having the kids pick whatever book they want. So they can read whatever they want, but they do have to actually read it. Form a learning/teaching point of view, this is probably ideal, but I'd imagine it's not really possible from a logistical point of view, since the teacher would likely have to familiarise themselves with as many books as they have pupils, which isn't viable unless the class is fairly small.
I don't understand this. If kids are reading for enjoyment already, is assigning a book in school going to kill their love of reading? Or are we taking about kids who never read until school forced them to?
From what I understand, if parents read to kids when they are little, they become readers who enjoy it.
> If kids are reading for enjoyment already, is assigning a book in school going to kill their love of reading?
I nearly did to me, or atleast the continual assignments did. It took a long time for me to pick up a fiction book again. School never assigned me technical writing and encyclopedias, so I continued to enjoy those, thankfully.
Yes, because it amounts to several hours long homework. Kids are more slower then adults at reading, so this can easily amount to 10 hours of additional homework which you do on top of usual homework.
So yes, if you spent 10 hours reading a book you don't care about this week, you don't feel like reading something else. You feel like you spent awful lot of time reading already and feel like reading is something like vacuum cleaning - duty but not something you do for fun.
I think school ruined fiction books for me. I had to read long boring books about stories that didn't interest me, with useless sentences describing what the scene looked like or what someone had for dinner. Most of the stories and themes were outdated and didn't have enough context to make them understandable. Some books even used outdated words and phrases.
Maybe if I wasn't forced to read a book in an outdated language about some Christian farmer 300 years ago while I was not in school, and if I could access a succinct version 1/10th of the length of the book, I'd read it.
Maybe if I wasn't asked to describe minor details to prove I read the book, I'd actually focus on the story and not on every irrelevant detail.
Maybe if my teacher didn't force their religious holier-than-thou attitude and allowed us to form our own opinions, I'd be more engaged.
What school taught me was how to get away with not reading the books. I skimmed books by skipping tens of pages at a time or asked friends for the TL;DR or just got an F.
Now I have a feeling of uneasiness and dread when I try to read fiction for fun. So I don't.
Most 300 page fiction books I had to read could've easily been condensed to 30 pages without any loss of information.
Being forced to read and memorize poetry was the absolute shit. A lot of people won't care about poetry no matter how hard you try to force them to like it. And half of it was propaganda - how $nation survived $struggle, how $nation is so great or beautiful or how $hero did $ethical_thing.
As a native US English speaker, I enjoyed Shakespeare and even when we read Beowulf and some Chaucer in mildly transcribed and annotated Middle English. More than any history lesson, it developed in me a feeling for how, in spite of lots of technological and other societal change, the basic human condition is the same.
I imagine it would be interesting to read early texts in other proto languages too. Sadly, I'm not a polyglot and can't really access that experience first-hand.
I graduated from public school a long time ago. I hated Shakespeare. The phrasing and Englishness of it was a complete turn off. And I read a lot. I believe I read almost a fourth of the books in my little public library in my rural town in Texas. As far as writing, I admire the writing in the King James Bible more than Shakespeare although I am Catholic. I would say most of the books I read were crap and written poorly.
>I would say most of the books I read were crap and written poorly.
So you've encountered Sturgeon's Law[0] in the wild. It applies to pretty much everything, so perhaps you might broaden your focus when considering that.
> Most of the stories and themes were outdated and didn't have enough context to make them understandable. Some books even used outdated words and phrases.
I should've used "archaic" instead of "outdated". As in, "incomprehensible to someone speaking proper modern $language". Without a dictionary, a normal student couldn't understand what was being said in many sentences throughout the book. Some books actually had a dictionary in the end, but not for all the archaic words and phrases.
I was intrigued by the idea that it might be unreasonable for a book to include a glossary or dictionary to explain usages for made up or unfamiliar terms. I like that this list [1] exists because I was struggling to think of such a book. But then I thought about The Lord of the Rings, and it even includes an index of terms among its appendices, which is something I remember using to revisit parts of the story when I first read it. Another book with a glossary of terms is Dune, which I found fun and reasonable to avoid trying to explain hierarchy where doing so would break the narrative flow. But maybe that just means it's not as cleverly constructed or organized as it could have been--but the trade-off has to be how to engage a wide selection of readers...
Is the complaint about the dictionary at the end because it wasn't comprehensive? I'm unreasonably curious about the book and which phrases were included and which were not.
I think all written works occur in a context that should be taken into account when thinking critically about them. That context is temporal and linguistic and is more apparent when you consider something like Beowulf in Old English or The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. Understanding it requires either a modern reinterpretation or consideration given to the sociolinguistic context in which it was written.
I think you are missing the broader point: why should one read things occurring in an alien context to begin with? It's not as if there is a dearth of more modern works. It seems like the main function of selecting older works is to make it artificially harder for students to read.
> why should one read things occurring in an alien context to begin with?
I think there's a trivial answer which is that all things you encounter are fundamentally from an alien context. The degree of alien and intention of the action are the things to consider before proceeding.
For example, why would one choose to read the account of a survivor of tragedy? To develop some amount of (emotional or cognitive) empathy? To learn a broader way of thinking that could apply to a future situation? Most simply: to learn from the past.
If the goal is entertainment, evaluate your participation such that you maximize your utility. If the goal is learning, one should be wary of premature rejection without sufficient context to avoid missing the lesson. And there is an annoying reality in which most situations can teach something.
I'm using "context" in the sense of GP as to why it is hard to read e.g. Beowulf. Certainly one could find a modern account of a survivor of tragedy that would be more approachable? But in any case, accounts of tragedies of survivors are not the sort of material one finds in an English class, which is what's being criticized here (and indeed reading such accounts would probably be an improvement for the reasons you give).
God forbid we learn new words or learn words form the past... Why even bother with history right? It's just old stuff anyways let's focus on new stuff, what could these old things teach us anyways
Meanwhile my grandma still knew how to speak Latin at 70+, which she learned in school as a teenager
I sometimes take pleasure at reading old language ... and still think that giving it to kids as introduction to reading is absurd.
If they read 10 interesting books a year adding one like that to the mix or offer them the option is great. If they did not encountered interesting bool after agw of 7 when parents stopped reading them, no.
And interesting books for kids are there. Plenty of them of all kind, including pure action/adventure stuff. Including those related to movies or games they play. It is not lack of resources.
> But that is not what is happening. Introduction to reading happens pre-school to class two, historic books come from say class 6 onwards.
That is exactly what is happening. The pre-schooler do not really read books, that is an absurd claim. They puzzle out words and sentences. It takes so much effort, they loose attention one paragraph in and dont really recall what happened on the last page.
Giving historic books to grade 6 is exactly the absurd thing that will convince them books cant be fun. It will become totality of their reading and the idea that reading books could be fun will be lost on them entirely.
And unless the parents really went out of their way to introduce them to interesting books, to try again and again with different books, you are loosing them with that entirely. Because this will be the only book they read last 4 months which is "forever" at that age.
> The pre-schooler do not really read books, that is an absurd claim.
And a claim I haven't made.
> They puzzle out words and sentences.
Exactly, which is introduction to reading. They essentially perceive whole words as glyph until some adult points them to the concept of letters (or if they are very smart, they figure it out themselves). When they enter school they start to learn that systematically. After half a year they can typically read short stories. (Here school starts in August/September, and at my family, reading the Christmas story was always the responsibility of the first-grader. Later that year there had been reading competitions and book talks in class.) By the end of class two, you have read tons of books. (Likely still below 100, but still quite some.)
> 4 months which is "forever" at that age.
Exactly and think of what they learn in 6 years. They doubled their age in that time.
> Giving historic books to grade 6 is exactly the absurd thing that will convince them books cant be fun.
I think that really depends on what you mean by historic books. Colloquial books from a century ago are indistinguishable from contemporary books, 200 years ago, they start to have some older words, but are still readable by a young child. 500 years ago is still intelligible, but for a child becomes more something to laugh at, rather then something they read, do to all those words, which are now considered to be improper. Your child likely won't read that on its own motivation, although it can be fun for a few minutes. 1000 years ago, the book will be in Latin, so your child won't even try.
The issue with books in the "native language" classes is much less their raw age, but that they are mostly plays or the new literature genre from that time. To me the play from 50 years ago, was really boring, but the fairy tales from 200 years ago was what I read at night below the blanket, when my parents wanted me to sleep. Yes school lead to me loosing interest in books, but that was not because the book was boring per se, but because we dissected the books until it was like a dead corpse.
> And unless the parents really went out of their way to introduce them to interesting books, to try again and again with different books, you are loosing them with that entirely.
Not really. The issue at that age is more the book supply then the demand. Reading is maybe 35-45% [0] of their wake time at that age. Try reading that much as an adult. At some point I needed to resort to reading the bible (the boring parts), because there was no book in my bookcase I haven't read, after I have already read all the history books in my parents bookcase, that sounded fun.
[0] To do the math:
A child sleeps >10h at night and has 1-1.5h after-lunch nap. So say 14 wake hours, Of this they spend 6 hours in school, which is mostly math or english, so say 40% reading. They take the school bus to and from school, which is mostly talking and reading. After school they also read, so maybe 2h. Then they likely stay on the playground for 3 hours or something, so no reading during that time. Before or after they do homework, most of which involves reading. English anyway and in math you also need to read the exercise descriptions. Then in the late afternoon and before going to bed they still read a bit of their own books, so maybe again 2h.
First grade kids are still learning letters and are not reading books yet. Your family is an exception. Second grade kids are NOT reading tons of books yet. That is just untrue.
> Exactly and think of what they learn in 6 years. They doubled their age in that time.
I do know what they learn in 6 grade. You seem to start with some imaginary learning.
> Colloquial books from a century ago are indistinguishable from contemporary books
They are 100% distinguishable. By words, by sentence construction, by topics, by the way plot develops. Oh, and mostly by how characters act.
> Not really. The issue at that age is more the book supply then the demand.
Literally the only source of interesting books are parents. And no, english and math textbook does not count as fun reading. Neither does Shakespeare assigned in school. There is no infinite supply of fun books coming to kids.
> They take the school bus to and from school, which is mostly talking and reading
No one reads books on their way to school these days. They just dont.
> After school they also read, so maybe 2h
Kids dont read after school except for homework.
> English anyway and in math you also need to read the exercise descriptions.
This is ridiculous.
> Then in the late afternoon and before going to bed they still read a bit of their own books, so maybe again 2h.
They dont. Because, unless their parents tried again and again and radncomly hit something fun, they dont even know fun books exist.
You clearly have had different experiences than me, most of which I disagree with, but it boils down to the stuff I already wrote. So I cite some parts from the current curriculum from my German state. I translate some parts, but if you want to read it all, use a translator.
Classes 1 and 2 are grouped together, so the actual split is at the distinction of the teacher, which is generally the same.
Summary:
written language acquisition 90 lesson hours
listening and speaking 50 lesson hours
writing for yourself and others 40 lesson hours
writing correctly 40 lesson hours
reading/properly using media 60 lesson hours
inspecting language 45 lesson hours
properly using digital media 13 lesson hours
optional compulsory:
at the trace of letters
from the world of fairy tails
playing and designing with words
favorite poems
A single year has about ~200 lesson hours and I think these are mostly done in order.
Goals (I only translated the paragraph about reading):
Students develop joy in reading, in an exiting reading environment and through diverse reading offerings. They learn the conditions for their individual reading culture and develop an interest in independently handling of texts. The Students know texts from different genres and select from various text offerings. They exercise in "reading for the purpose of comprehension". The students read texts silently according to simple instructions, develop an understanding of the content in a reasonable amount of time and are able to reproduce it in their own words. They use different approaches for "reading for the purpose of comprehension" (this is a term of art in German, I do not know the proper term in English). The students know and use various media formats for learning, news acquirement and entertainment.
written language acquisition 90 lesson hours
insights into the meaning of reading and writing:
- writing as a communication tool
- writing as a system of glyphs
- free (meaning on their own and fluently) reading and writing
mastering the structure of written language
- developing a sophisticated sensing ability (audio, video, rhythm, melody, kinesthetic, tactile)
- sounds and complexes of sounds
- letters and sets of letters
- sound-letter-relation
- words
mastering reading techniques
- analysis and synthesis
- reading of words, sentences and texts
- recognizing the shape of words as a whole
- constructing words from left to right
- reading across words and lines simultaneously
- skimming through word groups
- sentence limits and intonation
- reading out to people
knowing techniques for "reading for the purpose of comprehension" of words, sentences and texts
- repeating the text content with own words
- checking the read for internal consistence
- conversing with others about a text
- reading aloud, quite and silent
developing a printed writing as a initial writing
- printed writing as a form of written communication
- writing self-made small texts for others
- writing with computers and mobile devices
application of "cursive" (called Schulausgansschrift = final school writing [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulausgangsschrift])
- differentiation of macro and micro motoric skills
- testing of different types of pens/pencils
- understanding of different letter shapes and connections (in different font sizes)
- writing of words, sentences and texts
- recognizing and overcoming individual writing difficulties on your own
- developing an acceptable writing speed
getting insights into the design of written works (same word as for scientific papers in German, but of course it is not about that here)
This is done in the first 90 lessons, which at 5 lessons per week, 4 weeks per month means 4-5 months, which fits my claim that they are generally able to read somewhat fluently after half a year. This is the minimum required by the state for every child, talented children will of course be faster.
I do not feel like translating the second part about reading right now, tell me if you actually care about it, I don't feel like being a translator for nothing. It is called "reading/properly using media" and boils down to introduction of literary and basic grammar analysis. It is obviously part of class 2.
> They are 100% distinguishable. By words, by sentence construction, by topics, by the way plot develops. Oh, and mostly by how characters act.
As a child my favorite book was "Emil und die Detektive" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_and_the_Detectives) from 1929, I did not perceive anything to be odd, and it was indistinguishable from modern works for me. I did not think of it as being nearly a century old, that is just a normal child book. Maybe a linguist can tell you how this work obviously must be from that specific era, but a child very much can't tell you. What was also very popular in my class/school at that age was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Investigators#German..., of which the German version is from 1968 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Famous_Five, which is from 1942.
> Literally the only source of interesting books are parents.
And the shelf in the class room and the school library and the local library and random book exchanges on the street and books from friends (might count as from parents for you).
> And no, english and math textbook does not count as fun reading.
No, but they count as reading exercise, which is needed before you read fast enough that you enjoy reading yourself over getting read to and to be able to read in secret below the blanket.
> Neither does Shakespeare assigned in school.
In class 1 or 2?? These kinds of things only came maybe in class 9+.
> There is no infinite supply of fun books coming to kids.
Well, when they gain access to a computer (which is not a good idea, but they are children, so they will), they literally have.
> No one reads books on their way to school these days. They just dont.
Well, five years ago when I used the tram to go to school they definitely did. And my younger brother still carries books in his backpack he is not supposed to have.
> Kids dont read after school except for homework.
Common speak for yourself. In the primary school I still see people sitting reading on the floor.
> This is ridiculous.
Ok, how so?
> Because, unless their parents tried again and again and radncomly hit something fun, they dont even know fun books exist.
How would it be possible to keep it secret from them that child books exist? I don't understand your reasoning.
> Avengers end game is also art. I engage with this type of art. I don’t consider opera the art of our modern culture. It is unfortunately a niche.
That's the thing, though - in English literature class, there is nothing stopping the teacher from using popular media to introduce things like tone, ambiance, character motivations, arcs, etc, and then ask for parallels to the set works.
They don't do it though, the system is not set up to produce a bunch of critical thinkers from English Lit.
Yes! Art that's taught in school and that is "required" to know if you want to appear intelligent or fancy is just what GP posted.
But art is also:
* electronic music (if you're not aware, it's not just repetitive dum-dum-dum for 8 minutes, although I enjoy that style, as well);
* rap (it's not just guns, drugs and mysoginy);
* all the other music genres, of course, but I gave electronic music and rap as examples because they're usually treated badly by people who're not familiar with them;
* games (I've been emotionally moved by many flash games, let alone new immersive games);
* movies, series - live action or western animation or anime.
Yet, in school we either learned about classical composers, or about regional composers. Only once, around 10th grade, we had a cool music teacher who played other genres for us - Fat Boy Slim, random metal groups, even a few pretty out-there experimental things. Much better than learning about some composer who lived 50 years ago just because he is from the same country as you.
Same for paintings and similar art. What good does it do a 7th grader to look at Picasso? The context matters, but for people who don't care about such art, it's useless. I won't feel better if I can "intelligently" discuss the art scene in $nation in $year. I have, later in life, read interesting articles that actually mix politics and life in general with the art that was "allowed" to flourish. Like art in Soviet Russia. But that context, if it was given at all, didn't mean anything to a 7th grader, especially if they didn't learn about Soviet Russia in history before the art class. In my experience my education was all over the place.
Agreed. Not to mention the techniques and technical knowhow to create this “lesser” art is far more advanced and requires far more effort then the snobbish art they teach in school.
> Being forced to read and memorize poetry was the absolute shit.
Yes and no. I used to start reading at 4 years old, but I forcedly used to memorize some rhymes at 3 years old. Most folk don't believe it is possible to read so early (though Eliezer Yudkowsky has reported about similar age). But my point is - how would I learn reading so early without that poetry?
I don't really like poetry exactly as rest of the fiction genre. And I am still sure it is not shit even for those who are struggling of doing that. I consider poetry exercises as sport exercises: today you claim that some specific muscle is not important for you, but tomorrow you get some injury which happened because of some weak muscle.
But you have also said one important word - propaganda. This is what really shitting any education and propaganda seems like the monster from the Nitzsche's quote "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster".
I also learned to read at 3. I actually remember the switch from illiterate to literate, as I remember realizing that just by looking at road signs I would automatically read them. I told my sister, who couldn't read yet, that there was a downside, as you could never look at language without reading it ever again!
I read non-fiction all the time. HN and reddit comments, news articles, Wikipedia articles, books, research papers. My ADHD doesn't help, but doesn't prevent me from finishing 300-page books that are actually interesting. I have yet to find a fiction book that's not full of fluff.
I've read a couple of scripts for movies and TV, and they're, by far, much better than fiction books for me. Just more condensed, more to-the-point.
That's not to say that I admit I can't finish (or even start) a fiction book now. They're ruined for me. But I don't care.
I’ve started to have a positive association with reading only in the last few years, I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives.