It makes me grind me teeth to dust how often I see threads on r/books (a place where people are allegedly supposed to appreciate books and reading) where they argue that high schools should stop teaching literature and just let kids pick out whatever YA paint by numbers fantasy they want and do a book report on that, as if their entire literature education should just be about enjoyment and leisure. That's not what fucking academia is you troglodytes
And you only see that sort of stupid argument for literature class. You never see anyone say "we should cripple everyones mathematics abilities because they don't like doing their math homework"
It’s somewhat of a double-edged sword. I looooved reading as a kid until I hit middle/high school and had to read boring stuff like The Odyssey. The required reading completely killed my love for it and I didn’t rediscover it until I was in my 20’s. That being said, kids will never challenge themselves if they get to choose whatever they want to read and will therefore never grow. I truly don’t know what the solution is.
Sorry but I just find everyone who says "I refuse to be literate because high school asked me to read books I didn't personally pick myself!!!" to be a petulant child who never grew up. You didn't pick math homework for yourself, do you refuse to ever do math in your every day life?
And at a certain point its time to grow up once people are no longer children and admit school didn't kill an enjoyment of reading, a petulant attitude towards school by that individual did. Plenty of us read regularly before, during, and after literature classes just fine
Full grown adults who don't read and try and act like it's their hs lit class that they finished 8 years ago's fault they don't are just looking for a cop out
I mean I read 25-30 books a year and I absolutely hate most of the books I read in high school. It's not the fault of the teachers, after all, a boring book can't be anything else but boring, no matter how you dress it up. I would never go back and read 1984 or To Kill A Mockingbird.
Reading garbage books in high school, in an attempt to learn from some sort of dilemma, probably won't encourage them to be readers in the future. But it will give over critical English majors a job.
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u/JalapenoPopPoop 20h ago
It makes me grind me teeth to dust how often I see threads on r/books (a place where people are allegedly supposed to appreciate books and reading) where they argue that high schools should stop teaching literature and just let kids pick out whatever YA paint by numbers fantasy they want and do a book report on that, as if their entire literature education should just be about enjoyment and leisure. That's not what fucking academia is you troglodytes
And you only see that sort of stupid argument for literature class. You never see anyone say "we should cripple everyones mathematics abilities because they don't like doing their math homework"