Yesterday, there was an extraordinary rant on Twitter full of random CAPITALISATIONS by an American poet, translator, author and education professor called David Bowles. Here is a link to the thread. It is not viewable at present because Bowles seems to have protected his tweets, but you can see the river of effusive praise he received for taking such a bold stance. If you are wondering what it is all about, I had the following still cached on my phone (I have covered up the swears in consideration of those of you with a nervous disposition):
Disgusting worms! TWELVE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES!
I think it is important to point out that the thread did not appear to be in response to anything in particular and the object of Bowles’ shoutiness appears to be all those of us who think that there is value in a canon of classic literature and that children should be expose to this canon at school.
I have a number of thoughts on this. Firstly, if we are proposing that there is some choice to be made between good contemporary literature aimed at young adults (YA) and children reading the classics, then this is a false choice. In my view, children should read the former for pleasure and the latter for class. Yes, we have a big problem with encouraging reading in young people. This is not solely the result of ignoring the evidence on systematic phonics, but paying attention to this evidence would be a good start.
I also think it is wrong to assume that children can only be interested in stories about people who look like them, are their age, live in similar neighbourhoods and have similar problems. Such books may be a gateway for some, but this idea ignores the wild popularity of escapist fantasy fiction. Children are capable of empathising with a wide variety of characters because children are human beings and empathy is our thing. If you ask a child whether they want to read Jane Austen, they will probably say, ‘Who’s Jane Austen?’. It is our job to open the world up to them and give them possibilities. Sure, they may dislike some or even most of what we serve them, but education is about expanding minds, not narrowing them.
And finally, there is the argument about core knowledge. Think of a book like 1984 and imagine being unfamiliar with its concepts. You wouldn’t understand what a person was talking about if they referred to a ‘Big Brother’ state. Some key texts function like this in our modern culture. A lack of such knowledge can be exclusionary. The kid who goes to university knowing nothing of Orwell will feel out of place in a first year lecture where such knowledge is assumed. I suppose the next logical step is to burn down the canon at the academy too.
And I do understand that for historical reasons, when you attempt to construct a canon of key literary works in a modern liberal democracy, your list tends to be overrepresented by white European men. So, yes, I think there is an argument for consciously trying to balance this, as I outline at the end of Chapter 1 of my new book, along with the mechanisms I propose for doing so.
However, there is perhaps a more fundamental point. Clearly, there are those who believe with capitalised, sweary fervour that it is far better to feed kids literary candy than proper books. I would not want them imposing this view on my children and I imagine they would not want me imposing my view on their children.
When positions on education are so diametrically opposed, when any possibility of rapprochement is eradicated by uncompromising rhetoric, is there any alternative to school choice?