I was reading this post on Change.org, where Clay Burrell makes the following point about the wide variety of formative literature that today’s great adults reminisce about:
"And what does this say about our insistence on teaching the canonized classics in our English classes? Did they work for you? What did you read voluntarily as a teen? Reading Krugman's account made me remember my strange love affair with a weird fantasy series called The Chronicles of Gor. They weren't classics, but they kept me reading for 27 volumes. That's a hell of a booster for any kid's vocabulary, I have no doubt.
Call me crazy, but at 16, love him though I do now, I just wasn't into Billy Shakespeare."
And it reminded me that I had never got round to publishing this post detailing what I really thought about politician Ed Balls and his megalomaniac desire to control the literature that state educated children are compelled to study (but only, he assures us, in the event of something as serious as the removal of Shakespeare from the syllabus.) Anyhow, here it is:
This guy is really starting to bother me. When legislation like this is pushed through I sometimes wonder whether it’s even worthwhile attempting to explain the vital importance of freedom of choice in education, or anything else. Our opinions are obviously not worthy of attention. Balls genuinely believes that it’s his place to tell other people what is important to them – and if it’s not Shakespeare, well then, their own self-knowledge is clearly at fault and in need of correction.
On the face of it, Balls would not call me a philistine. I love Shakespeare. For me, the subject matter is still relevant today. His use of language can make me laugh out loud and watching his plays on stage has made me cry. Writing about his symbolism and imagery gets me pretty hot, in a literary sense at least. At the age of 15, I would have been more than happy to answer examination question after examination question on King Lear and Twelfth Night. Even in my maths and physics papers.
But I was definitely in a very small minority, and the sea of miserable, blank faces that surrounded me during each English lesson was testament to the fact. Shakespeare wasn’t relevant or interesting to those people, at that age, in that format - no matter how “universal” his appeal or importance was considered to be. It just wasn’t their time for Shakespeare; and if they weren’t enjoying it, what were they learning from the whole compulsory experience, apart from a indiscriminate hatred of all things bard-related?
Children, parents and academic bodies are far better barometers of relevance and suitability than the static legislation of any government. There may well be a time in the future when Shakespeare is no longer a prescribed text and this would not be an “exceptional circumstance” requiring government intervention. In fact, the IGCSE already offers this option, much to the disgust of Balls.
Failure to acknowledge the possibility that such things might change - or have already changed - is slavish adherence to the status quo, born out of nothing but irrational sentimentality or, worse, pigheaded authoritarianism. And whilst that is what we get from Balls and friends, it is most certainly not what we need. I am starting to sense that resisting prescription could lead to proscription...
(Following on from this circus, the plan is to publish a 2-part post tomorrow and Thursday, challenging the rapidly deteriorating concept of absolute authority in knowledge creation and management.)
