I would also consider as a potential factor here the ongoing attempts to 'Diversify' and 'Decolonise' the Eng Lit curriculum. I know from ten years as a secondary English teacher in the UK that these initiatives are having an impact on what students are taught and how the subject is presented to them right from the moment you would expect them to begin getting stuck into challenging literature texts - year 7 or 8. The upshot of this is that texts that were previously picked for their heavyweight status as classic works of literary brilliance that we once believed all young people had a right to inherit from us, are now being ousted for their whiteness, straightness and maleness. In some cases, these precious curriculum slots are then being filled with thin and unsubstantial 'modern' texts like verse novels where the majority of the study time is dedicated to discussions about racism and misogyny and class divide and the literary skill of the writer pales in comparison to your Orwells, Steinbecks and Millers. If this is the experience of literature for 11-16 year olds, taught by a teacher who apologises for and criticises the subject rather than advocating for and selling it to future students, then it's no wonder huge numbers of young people don't value it or view it as something worth studying post-16. Don't get me wrong, I think you CAN make a legitimate case for 'critiquing the Canon' from a 'diverse voices' perspective, but not until you teach the Canon to young people in the first place and give them all a fair crack at taking it apart from a variety of perspectives once they reach a certain level of expertise (at age 16). At this stage, they will have the disciplinary and substantive knowledge of the subject and can begin to pick up the various critical lenses that are- from what I can work out- virtually inescapable at A-Level and undergrad level. But whilst 12 and 13 year olds are experiencing the subject as just another tedious extension of the Culture Wars, a select few will be extremely interested while many, many others will feel disillusioned, disaffected, excluded, and bored to tears.
We seem to be falling into a binary world where there is no "grey area" and opposites are not complementary, as in yin-yang, but antagonistic. Science is supposed to be an ongoing process, but we are told "this is the science" ie it is fixed, and there's nothing to be discussed. Much of the latter is cynical and designed to manipulate us, but people do seem to have more black and white attitudes, which is regressive IMHO and really not healthy for individuals and society. The humanities, I think, open us to those grey areas, and to the actual "reality" of the world being in a state of becoming, as recognised by the great philosophers. And I'm no expert, but no doubt studying maths and literature will use different parts of the brain, which seems good "exercise" to me. I'm not innumerate, but maths is more or less another country. I only got so far in my attempt to read and understand Fermat's Last Theorem, but at least I tried! In any case "proper" reading is being forced to one side by the smartphones and the like, and the majority of people don't have the time and/or are losing the ability to read short stories let alone novels.
I actually suspect the decline of close reading has been catastrophic to economic growth.
Being able to parse the differences in how the same word is being used in different contexts becomes extremely important in a data-driven world, because data is always in danger of morphing into an unchallengeable story which isn’t true.
And it does this through the mutability of language – a word is taken to mean something slightly different to its communicator’s intent, several times, and we start to say “the data doesn’t care if you think it’s wrong.” Maybe. But I worry what we think the data said is not what it did say, and that we’ve ended up with a society that doesn’t even understand this as an issue.
So I’m into the humanities because I think it’s really, really important to be alert to language leading you down a garden path. I don’t know that today’s humanities are very good at that; the skill feels eroded everywhere? But that’s not the same as saying it is critically important and is not valued. So I read books from sixty years ago in the bath
I may be throwing a spanner in the works but I'm not entirely convinced that reading habits have changed drastically in the last fifty years. The data from The Reading Agency cited in the article doesn't offer any comparison with how people viewed reading and in particular, reading for pleasure 30, 40, 50 years ago. I suspect because the data wasn't being collected. The Reading Agency dates from just after 2000 and the 3 groups that merged to form it from the late 1980s so not much data before then. As an English graduate myself and a former primary teacher and headteacher I think the writing has definitely been on the wall not only for the humanities but for the love of learning. The culture in state funded schools, both primary and secondary phase, is dominated by assessment and exams. If it isn't an exam subject it's not worth doing. Maybe science based A levels are seen as more accessible even easier to get good grades? Humanities do require a commitment to reading and writing at length. Conversely there are endless independent blogs online focused on reading, BBC's Between the Covers TV programme about reading is into its 8th series, there's a significant rise in independent bookshops, so some people are reading.
Very interesting, and fair to both the intrinsic and utilitarian appeal of maths. I’m a graduate in English literature, who loved reading as a child and as an adolescent, and for whom it was not a vocational degree (I later went to law school and into practice as a lawyer). I was an undergraduate during a bitter dispute, the Great Stucturalism Row, over the career progress of a particular lecturer and more widely over culture and ideology in the Cambridge English faculty in 1981. Although long ago, and of no real personal impact on my life, I’ve quite frequently gone back to it in my mind in recent years. I think its bitterness (there were libel claims filed by at least one member of the faculty against another) and its subject-matter both prefigured some contemporary disputes that have preoccupied thinking people in recent years. And I was and still am largely on the side of the traditionalists in resisting the transformation of studying literature, or literature, life and thought in the rubric of the Cambridge English Tripos, into a form of social science heavily laden with its own difficult concepts and impenetrable language. I feel things took a wrong turn then. But perhaps this is an over-simplification or misperception from someone who has now long been an outsider to academic English literature
Great column. There is a theory that the decline of the Humanities is reflective of the decline of Western Civilization. Perhaps. But I do believe these trends are cyclical. If one compares, for example, how many young people have e books in comparison to older people, you may find younger ones prefer real books. Because they are more of a novelty and younger people prefer the tactile beauty of them that screens cannot offer. The numbers may be fewer, but those that do pursue these paths are much more passionate about their literary pursuits. Schools and programs with high literary standards should always exist, just like Ballet in church basements should continue. Because there will always be a segment of kids who NEED these things. Here in Canada we have a fabulous wee school whose 1st year syllabus is modeled on Oxford University. The kids wear robes to special functions, they have heated discussions over Gilgamesh and Hannah Arendt, and they love it. This school saved my daughter, and I will be eternally thankful.
Wonderful post, Daisy! A similar conversation has been going on in the US, mostly focused on undergraduates (even at elite universities) who can no longer handle the reading and writing assignments that were routinely given out maybe 5-10 years ago. There's no hard data on that, but multiple articles have quoted multiple university professors saying that has been their experience.
There's been some pushback from high school teachers who say, basically, they can't teach whole novels because kids don't do the reading outside class, and it takes way too much time to have kids read whole novels during class time. See, e.g., this post: https://hollykorbey.substack.com/p/a-novel-burden
I get that. But even ONE novel, at some point in high school, would be better than none.
I do think, though, that we need to start earlier if we want to have any chance of having students discover that reading a novel can be a pleasurable endeavor. In the US, it's become rare to find an entire novel taught in the elementary or middle grades, but I've been in atypical schools were they're part of the curriculum, and I've heard and seen that kids often can't wait to get to the next chapter, or the next book in a series. I can't guarantee that those kids will turn into avid readers as adolescents or adults, of course, but at least there's a greater chance of that happening--and I think that's more important than whether they choose to concentrate academically on English lit.
I also believe the shift in academia for academics might also be to blame. Both of my children started in the direction of academia. After witnessing the shift in academia to the corporate model (in the US), they decided that corporate conditions without the benefits of corporate pay was not for them and this was also the case for the majority of their friends. One has a PhD in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from Yale and the other has MPhil from Hertford College Oxford in Anthropology. The corporatization of both science and humanities is almost complete with both sides in almost total service to everything but itself. Academia itself has been a full and cooperative partner. It’s very sad. Even those who come from a long line of academics are being told by their family to get out.
I think you are right that intellectual life in universities has become more corporate - and I think there is also another trend, which is that corporate life in many companies has become more intellectual. I think a lot of well-paid corporate jobs may be more intellectually stimulating than their equivalents 30-50 years ago. - which is of course another reason for potential academics to leave academia.
Economics generally yes but that doesn't explain the sex differences in this lit interest decline.
In the US there was a hard left turn in lit courses in the 80s and 90s. Generally any text older than the faculty themselves had to be subverted by subtextual struggle sessions. And eventually replaced with identity essentialism and "relevant" texts.
Young white/straight men got the message loud and clear... this isn't for you. I'm sure the UK story isn't much different.
I agree with you in that the hard turn toward ideological lenses was a problem then and remains today; however, if men simply abandoned it because others were invited to the party rather than remaining to defend the canon and all that was good then and continues to be good now, then shame on them and it sort of proves the point often made by what Harold Bloom called the "schools of resentment."
Men don’t like participating in games where they’re guaranteed to lose vv being men. They aren’t going to sign up to “defend the canon” when half the curriculum not only “invites others to the party” but also mocks/ignores masculine heroism and promotes crystalized oppressor-victim theologies. Twisting Bloom’s words to blame young white men for this situation somehow is bizarre, he clearly hated the drift towards fem crit and its ilk.
Well, I'm on your side in defending the canon as were many other women then and now. I was and remain fond of Harold Bloom whose words I did not twist and with whom I had some correspondence since he was too ill to meet with in person. He called what you are against the "schools of resentment" And much of it was. As what happens sometimes the baby gets tossed with the bath water. Academic debate requires that we engage with subjects that make us uncomfortable and sometimes we just have to agree to disagree and keep on going rather than quit. Wishing for you all the best and take care.
I too am concerned about the decline of reading (I'm a writer so I would say that wouldn't I?) But also about the binary division of arts/humanities and sciences/maths. I'm an English and History graduate, married to a Maths graduate. We're both fascinated by different ways to understand the world. We go to science lectures and take literature courses together. I make him explain quantum physics to me. I help him make sense of poetry. This cross-pollination has enriched my life so much. I also worked for years as a medical journalist and had to learn to use and understand statistics. He writes reports on satellite systems. Neither of us can be either/or about this stuff. But the main thing is, we want to understand the world better. We'll use which ever tools are on offer. I think that is the crux - education is there to help us explore and understand, not make more bucks. A purely utilitarian view of education is more destructive than setting science and humanities in opposition to each other.
Thanks Daisy - a really interesting read. I recognise that there are wider issues at play than just curriculum, but having taught the Scottish Nat 5, Higher and Advanced Higher and the English GCSE and A Levels in English Lit, I think these do play a part in how many young people are inspired by the courses to go into study English at A level and at uni. In contrast to England, there has actually been an increase in students studying English at uni in Scotland! See here: https://archive.ph/nxv1v
As a Scot, I’d love to say this was down to English apathy, but so think the courses are a key reason. The Scottish courses are far from perfect, but there is some flexibility for teachers to choose texts that suit the group they are teaching, through coursework there is an opportunity for students to write creatively and discursively in a style they are interested in and the exams are less punishingly intense in terms of time and content covered.
So much of the current English GCSE is focus on analysing texts and entirely under exam conditions.
These issues were raised in Kate Clanchy’s fantastic book ‘Some Kids I Taught…’ (though sadly overshadowed by the hostile response to its approach to issues of race):
“In English, we assess and value only the last part of the learning process: the metalanguage and the critical essay….Creative reading and creative response which many students, finds so natural and so easy, and in which is not taught, or examined, in any university. In schools, some creative response is allowed up to GCSE, but after the age of sixteen, English means A Level Literature or Language, and only a couple of syllabuses allow for even the smallest amount of creative response – or any kind of creative writing – to be shoehorned in by dedicated teachers. This focus on only one tiny area of English – critical response – has many toxic effects in schools, but one is to cut down the percentage of pupils continuing with English after the age of sixteen to less than 15 per cent. This is a tragedy: very, very few people – probably 15 per cent of that 15 per cent taking A Level – really enjoy the practice of criticism, but almost everyone enjoys writing and reading. Yet we have no ‘Further English’ in England; no structure or reward for kids who don’t want to write a 2,000-word essay on Jane Eyre but would like to write a story, who don’t want to dissect a Shakespeare play but would like to read and see one, who would like to write a better letter, read another novel, who would like to read and write some poems. Who are entitled to read and write some poems.”
Clanchy, Kate. Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me (pp. 206-207). Pan Macmillan.
I’d love to see teachers, policy makers and academics looking for ways to engage young people with important texts new and old in ways that weren’t bound to result in PEE paragraphed textual analysis, memorising quotes and spotting similes.
Great article. Thank you. I think that James Marriott is right to link the decline in the study of literature and the humanities to a weaker liberal democracy. Analysing literature teaches us to examine and question how we treat each other and how we arrange society. STEM subjects look to the abstract and physical worlds but literature explores the human world. I worry that we are educating students to study the first and take the second for granted.
I would also consider as a potential factor here the ongoing attempts to 'Diversify' and 'Decolonise' the Eng Lit curriculum. I know from ten years as a secondary English teacher in the UK that these initiatives are having an impact on what students are taught and how the subject is presented to them right from the moment you would expect them to begin getting stuck into challenging literature texts - year 7 or 8. The upshot of this is that texts that were previously picked for their heavyweight status as classic works of literary brilliance that we once believed all young people had a right to inherit from us, are now being ousted for their whiteness, straightness and maleness. In some cases, these precious curriculum slots are then being filled with thin and unsubstantial 'modern' texts like verse novels where the majority of the study time is dedicated to discussions about racism and misogyny and class divide and the literary skill of the writer pales in comparison to your Orwells, Steinbecks and Millers. If this is the experience of literature for 11-16 year olds, taught by a teacher who apologises for and criticises the subject rather than advocating for and selling it to future students, then it's no wonder huge numbers of young people don't value it or view it as something worth studying post-16. Don't get me wrong, I think you CAN make a legitimate case for 'critiquing the Canon' from a 'diverse voices' perspective, but not until you teach the Canon to young people in the first place and give them all a fair crack at taking it apart from a variety of perspectives once they reach a certain level of expertise (at age 16). At this stage, they will have the disciplinary and substantive knowledge of the subject and can begin to pick up the various critical lenses that are- from what I can work out- virtually inescapable at A-Level and undergrad level. But whilst 12 and 13 year olds are experiencing the subject as just another tedious extension of the Culture Wars, a select few will be extremely interested while many, many others will feel disillusioned, disaffected, excluded, and bored to tears.
We seem to be falling into a binary world where there is no "grey area" and opposites are not complementary, as in yin-yang, but antagonistic. Science is supposed to be an ongoing process, but we are told "this is the science" ie it is fixed, and there's nothing to be discussed. Much of the latter is cynical and designed to manipulate us, but people do seem to have more black and white attitudes, which is regressive IMHO and really not healthy for individuals and society. The humanities, I think, open us to those grey areas, and to the actual "reality" of the world being in a state of becoming, as recognised by the great philosophers. And I'm no expert, but no doubt studying maths and literature will use different parts of the brain, which seems good "exercise" to me. I'm not innumerate, but maths is more or less another country. I only got so far in my attempt to read and understand Fermat's Last Theorem, but at least I tried! In any case "proper" reading is being forced to one side by the smartphones and the like, and the majority of people don't have the time and/or are losing the ability to read short stories let alone novels.
I actually suspect the decline of close reading has been catastrophic to economic growth.
Being able to parse the differences in how the same word is being used in different contexts becomes extremely important in a data-driven world, because data is always in danger of morphing into an unchallengeable story which isn’t true.
And it does this through the mutability of language – a word is taken to mean something slightly different to its communicator’s intent, several times, and we start to say “the data doesn’t care if you think it’s wrong.” Maybe. But I worry what we think the data said is not what it did say, and that we’ve ended up with a society that doesn’t even understand this as an issue.
So I’m into the humanities because I think it’s really, really important to be alert to language leading you down a garden path. I don’t know that today’s humanities are very good at that; the skill feels eroded everywhere? But that’s not the same as saying it is critically important and is not valued. So I read books from sixty years ago in the bath
I may be throwing a spanner in the works but I'm not entirely convinced that reading habits have changed drastically in the last fifty years. The data from The Reading Agency cited in the article doesn't offer any comparison with how people viewed reading and in particular, reading for pleasure 30, 40, 50 years ago. I suspect because the data wasn't being collected. The Reading Agency dates from just after 2000 and the 3 groups that merged to form it from the late 1980s so not much data before then. As an English graduate myself and a former primary teacher and headteacher I think the writing has definitely been on the wall not only for the humanities but for the love of learning. The culture in state funded schools, both primary and secondary phase, is dominated by assessment and exams. If it isn't an exam subject it's not worth doing. Maybe science based A levels are seen as more accessible even easier to get good grades? Humanities do require a commitment to reading and writing at length. Conversely there are endless independent blogs online focused on reading, BBC's Between the Covers TV programme about reading is into its 8th series, there's a significant rise in independent bookshops, so some people are reading.
Very interesting, and fair to both the intrinsic and utilitarian appeal of maths. I’m a graduate in English literature, who loved reading as a child and as an adolescent, and for whom it was not a vocational degree (I later went to law school and into practice as a lawyer). I was an undergraduate during a bitter dispute, the Great Stucturalism Row, over the career progress of a particular lecturer and more widely over culture and ideology in the Cambridge English faculty in 1981. Although long ago, and of no real personal impact on my life, I’ve quite frequently gone back to it in my mind in recent years. I think its bitterness (there were libel claims filed by at least one member of the faculty against another) and its subject-matter both prefigured some contemporary disputes that have preoccupied thinking people in recent years. And I was and still am largely on the side of the traditionalists in resisting the transformation of studying literature, or literature, life and thought in the rubric of the Cambridge English Tripos, into a form of social science heavily laden with its own difficult concepts and impenetrable language. I feel things took a wrong turn then. But perhaps this is an over-simplification or misperception from someone who has now long been an outsider to academic English literature
Great column. There is a theory that the decline of the Humanities is reflective of the decline of Western Civilization. Perhaps. But I do believe these trends are cyclical. If one compares, for example, how many young people have e books in comparison to older people, you may find younger ones prefer real books. Because they are more of a novelty and younger people prefer the tactile beauty of them that screens cannot offer. The numbers may be fewer, but those that do pursue these paths are much more passionate about their literary pursuits. Schools and programs with high literary standards should always exist, just like Ballet in church basements should continue. Because there will always be a segment of kids who NEED these things. Here in Canada we have a fabulous wee school whose 1st year syllabus is modeled on Oxford University. The kids wear robes to special functions, they have heated discussions over Gilgamesh and Hannah Arendt, and they love it. This school saved my daughter, and I will be eternally thankful.
Wonderful post, Daisy! A similar conversation has been going on in the US, mostly focused on undergraduates (even at elite universities) who can no longer handle the reading and writing assignments that were routinely given out maybe 5-10 years ago. There's no hard data on that, but multiple articles have quoted multiple university professors saying that has been their experience.
The problem, of course, doesn't begin at university, and lately there has been a focus on students not reading any entire books--especially novels--throughout their high school careers. See, e.g., this article in The Atlantic magazine: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/
There's been some pushback from high school teachers who say, basically, they can't teach whole novels because kids don't do the reading outside class, and it takes way too much time to have kids read whole novels during class time. See, e.g., this post: https://hollykorbey.substack.com/p/a-novel-burden
I get that. But even ONE novel, at some point in high school, would be better than none.
I do think, though, that we need to start earlier if we want to have any chance of having students discover that reading a novel can be a pleasurable endeavor. In the US, it's become rare to find an entire novel taught in the elementary or middle grades, but I've been in atypical schools were they're part of the curriculum, and I've heard and seen that kids often can't wait to get to the next chapter, or the next book in a series. I can't guarantee that those kids will turn into avid readers as adolescents or adults, of course, but at least there's a greater chance of that happening--and I think that's more important than whether they choose to concentrate academically on English lit.
I argue that to save literary studies, we must produce scientific evidence of its educational value. Much such evidence already exists. Literary studies people should be citing it constantly and demanding even better research. But they're so hostile towards and ignorant of science that they refuse: https://open.substack.com/pub/eclecticinquiries/p/literary-scholars-are-ignoring-science?r=4952v2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Huge admirer of yours. Loved your ‘Seven Myths of Education’ book. Excellent post.
Literature and cricket. Both essential.
I also believe the shift in academia for academics might also be to blame. Both of my children started in the direction of academia. After witnessing the shift in academia to the corporate model (in the US), they decided that corporate conditions without the benefits of corporate pay was not for them and this was also the case for the majority of their friends. One has a PhD in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from Yale and the other has MPhil from Hertford College Oxford in Anthropology. The corporatization of both science and humanities is almost complete with both sides in almost total service to everything but itself. Academia itself has been a full and cooperative partner. It’s very sad. Even those who come from a long line of academics are being told by their family to get out.
I think you are right that intellectual life in universities has become more corporate - and I think there is also another trend, which is that corporate life in many companies has become more intellectual. I think a lot of well-paid corporate jobs may be more intellectually stimulating than their equivalents 30-50 years ago. - which is of course another reason for potential academics to leave academia.
Economics generally yes but that doesn't explain the sex differences in this lit interest decline.
In the US there was a hard left turn in lit courses in the 80s and 90s. Generally any text older than the faculty themselves had to be subverted by subtextual struggle sessions. And eventually replaced with identity essentialism and "relevant" texts.
Young white/straight men got the message loud and clear... this isn't for you. I'm sure the UK story isn't much different.
I agree with you in that the hard turn toward ideological lenses was a problem then and remains today; however, if men simply abandoned it because others were invited to the party rather than remaining to defend the canon and all that was good then and continues to be good now, then shame on them and it sort of proves the point often made by what Harold Bloom called the "schools of resentment."
Men don’t like participating in games where they’re guaranteed to lose vv being men. They aren’t going to sign up to “defend the canon” when half the curriculum not only “invites others to the party” but also mocks/ignores masculine heroism and promotes crystalized oppressor-victim theologies. Twisting Bloom’s words to blame young white men for this situation somehow is bizarre, he clearly hated the drift towards fem crit and its ilk.
Well, I'm on your side in defending the canon as were many other women then and now. I was and remain fond of Harold Bloom whose words I did not twist and with whom I had some correspondence since he was too ill to meet with in person. He called what you are against the "schools of resentment" And much of it was. As what happens sometimes the baby gets tossed with the bath water. Academic debate requires that we engage with subjects that make us uncomfortable and sometimes we just have to agree to disagree and keep on going rather than quit. Wishing for you all the best and take care.
I too am concerned about the decline of reading (I'm a writer so I would say that wouldn't I?) But also about the binary division of arts/humanities and sciences/maths. I'm an English and History graduate, married to a Maths graduate. We're both fascinated by different ways to understand the world. We go to science lectures and take literature courses together. I make him explain quantum physics to me. I help him make sense of poetry. This cross-pollination has enriched my life so much. I also worked for years as a medical journalist and had to learn to use and understand statistics. He writes reports on satellite systems. Neither of us can be either/or about this stuff. But the main thing is, we want to understand the world better. We'll use which ever tools are on offer. I think that is the crux - education is there to help us explore and understand, not make more bucks. A purely utilitarian view of education is more destructive than setting science and humanities in opposition to each other.
Thanks Daisy - a really interesting read. I recognise that there are wider issues at play than just curriculum, but having taught the Scottish Nat 5, Higher and Advanced Higher and the English GCSE and A Levels in English Lit, I think these do play a part in how many young people are inspired by the courses to go into study English at A level and at uni. In contrast to England, there has actually been an increase in students studying English at uni in Scotland! See here: https://archive.ph/nxv1v
As a Scot, I’d love to say this was down to English apathy, but so think the courses are a key reason. The Scottish courses are far from perfect, but there is some flexibility for teachers to choose texts that suit the group they are teaching, through coursework there is an opportunity for students to write creatively and discursively in a style they are interested in and the exams are less punishingly intense in terms of time and content covered.
So much of the current English GCSE is focus on analysing texts and entirely under exam conditions.
These issues were raised in Kate Clanchy’s fantastic book ‘Some Kids I Taught…’ (though sadly overshadowed by the hostile response to its approach to issues of race):
“In English, we assess and value only the last part of the learning process: the metalanguage and the critical essay….Creative reading and creative response which many students, finds so natural and so easy, and in which is not taught, or examined, in any university. In schools, some creative response is allowed up to GCSE, but after the age of sixteen, English means A Level Literature or Language, and only a couple of syllabuses allow for even the smallest amount of creative response – or any kind of creative writing – to be shoehorned in by dedicated teachers. This focus on only one tiny area of English – critical response – has many toxic effects in schools, but one is to cut down the percentage of pupils continuing with English after the age of sixteen to less than 15 per cent. This is a tragedy: very, very few people – probably 15 per cent of that 15 per cent taking A Level – really enjoy the practice of criticism, but almost everyone enjoys writing and reading. Yet we have no ‘Further English’ in England; no structure or reward for kids who don’t want to write a 2,000-word essay on Jane Eyre but would like to write a story, who don’t want to dissect a Shakespeare play but would like to read and see one, who would like to write a better letter, read another novel, who would like to read and write some poems. Who are entitled to read and write some poems.”
Clanchy, Kate. Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me (pp. 206-207). Pan Macmillan.
I’d love to see teachers, policy makers and academics looking for ways to engage young people with important texts new and old in ways that weren’t bound to result in PEE paragraphed textual analysis, memorising quotes and spotting similes.
Great article. Thank you. I think that James Marriott is right to link the decline in the study of literature and the humanities to a weaker liberal democracy. Analysing literature teaches us to examine and question how we treat each other and how we arrange society. STEM subjects look to the abstract and physical worlds but literature explores the human world. I worry that we are educating students to study the first and take the second for granted.
Maybe it has to do with the rise of woke 🤔