Oliver Twist: Among the classics which have been rejected by schools

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I read marvel comic books in my spare time when I was a child, but at school we read the classics, from Shakespeare to Golding . By the time I was 16 I realised that Macbeth was better in every way than American comic books. So now I read the classics in my spare time. As long as school keep teaching the classics, with Shakespeare at the core, what more can we ask?

- Mal, MK, UK

I was just like David. No demands were placed on me in school and I subsequently dropped out after the 8th grade. However, I was always a voracious reader. I learned more in the 3 years after I left school than I did in the 9 I spent there. As I got to my early 20s, I began reading literature pretty widely. I also began reading classic works of history and philosophy. When I turned 30 I began reading the Greek and Roman classics and even began the slow process of learning Ancient Greek in my spare time. Now, I'm 32 and have finished my first year of college on my way to a major in American History and a minor in classics. These books have enriched my life beyond measure and have given me the tools to become a better person. My unending curiosity and quest for knowledge has never ceased despite not being fed in the least in my elementary and high school years. It is this appreciation for the classics and the quenchless thirst for knowledge that I now hope to pass on to my sons above all else.

- Michael, NYC

I grew up in India in the 60s, the convent school I attended introduced us to different classics every year. It was timetabled as Non detailed English, alongside with a Shakespeare play each year. It turned out to be the most delightful part of our school curriculum, books like: The Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, Kipling's Jungle Book, Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Austin's Jane Eyre. I work now in a school library in Manchester. The Millennium library collections which are gifted to schools are immensely valuable to students and staff in the doors they open to different worlds, cultures, civilisations, contries, both imagined and real. These classics are priceless in the English speaking world and are read and re-read till the pages fall apart. It is a shame that some people are unable to recognise the true value and worth of such books.
I am very grateful to the Millennium Library and David Campbell for having the vision to make these books available to State Schools.

- Renuka Manuel, Manchester

This perhaps isn't so much a commentary on students as it is on teachers. What has happened so that teachers have become cultural illiterates and find little of merit in classical literature? What resources are there to kindle the fires in the hearts of teachers so that they in turn enlighten the minds of the next generation?

This is also a commentary on the nature of "excitement" in our cultures. Too often these days, curriculum seeks to excite students or to make learning fun. At the school where I serve as headmaster, we do not strive to make education fun, but rather, fascinating. Our goal is not to excite students (which can better be accomplished with electronic or chemical stimuli), but to open their eyes to a broad horizon, a magnificent vista of what it means to be human.

One anecdote I've heard is that when a mother heard a child complain that he was bored, she replied, "You're not bored; you're boring."

- Joel, Brookfield, IL

I was a pupil in one of the worst school systems in the states. Hence, reading was not forced upon me, along with other things that should have been but were not. I did not know of any classics, at all. I did poorly in school and eventually dropped out. Not too much later in life, on my own, I became highly interested in literature. I read most of Dickens' novels, and most novels that are "required reading", plus many many many others.
One of first things, if not THE first thing, you will notice when first walking in my apartment are books stacked tightly on a mantle, scores of books pilled dangerously close to the fireplace, and a couple of movingboxes exploding with books. I am a rare case. Almost all of my relatives and friends do not read, and could care less about a classic or even a film adapted from a classic. When people ask me why I like to read so much, I tell them, I do not know - the interest just came to me one day.
Yes, the classics are important and must be read to understand literature. I wish I was forced to read them. But what we must understand first is that literature is ART. That is what seperates itself from the other subjects. One must, at the very least, expose a young student to literature, introduce him to it, teach him to understand how literature is an expression of one's life, and of life itself, how one novel can change the world. After that, allow the student to pick a book that interests him. But... you will need the books for that!

- David, Chicago, IL

Well, in all honesty, Charles Dickens was a terribly verbose writer and Chinua Achebe is deathly boring, eg. Things Fall Apart.

- N., Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

I don't understand what the kids want or find easy matters. This is school. They should read what they are told to read. School is to get an education and prepare them for life, not entertain and coddle them. And maybe things have changed since I was in school and maybe the UK doesn't run this way, but classics were REQUIRED reading in order to be allowed to graduate when I was in High School. Why do they even have a choice in the matter?

- M, Chicago, USA

And the dumbing down of the student body continues...

- Dave C, Winchester, VA, USA

As a student in my last year in high school, I am starting to grasp an appreciation to what is often called "Literature" (or "the classics"). And I'm probably one of the few that find it anywhere close to appealing.

We live in a world where the main medium of learning and entertainment is from whatever requires as little thinking as possibe (i.e. pictures and television) and public libraries are adapting to that change (like the growing graphic novel sections and the quantity of videos/dvds that are now avaliable), but many schools are hard on funds, or believe that that type of resources are not fundamental to a child's education, and I must say, I agree.

The purpose of a school library is to provide students with resources which assists them in completing tasks for class, and "Literature" is often required for more 'competent' english students who want to excel or students who want to broaden their scope, and to be honest, the state of the books at our school library, I think a donation would be much appreciated by us.

It's a sad day when classic novels that have been read for centuries are turned away for picture books which will never see the end of this decade, let alone the century.

Hopefully there will be a resurgance in the interest of literature as Hollywood (and its television counterparts) adapt novels in to feature films and television mini series!

- Stephanie, Sydney, Australia

I am absolutely shocked at this. I'm not so far removed from my school days and I had no problems reading classics. I just don't understand how schools can limit their students like this. If you don't make them read classics, how on earth are they ever going to decide whether they like them or not? Not every child is the same and it's a shame that these schools aren't allowing the children that are or that could be interested in such classics to be exposed to them.

- Jaq, London. UK

What a sad commentary on the state of school libraries in the UK. I agree with Beth and Nancy - we yanks do view Brits as being more literate than we.
The "Everyman's Library" is a standard for many high schools here in the US, not to mention universities and public libraries. The classics might not circulate as much as manga, BUT it is OUR JOB as librarians to introduce them to readers who might otherwise overlook these titles. My colleagues and I work to promote the classics to our patrons - we would never eliminate them from the collection. In fact, we make displays, bibliographies, and order them on audio as well.

I hope the schools there reconsider the wonderful gift being offered to them. Many schools here in the US can't afford to even keep librarians, let alone order large collections of books like this. That said, if you have trouble giving them away there; send them somewhere will they will be cherished and READ!

- Elise, Children'S Librarian, Chicago, IL, USA

This article is especially disheartening, as we have always believed England to be a much more literate society than America. Apparently librarians in the UK are facing the same struggles that we face here every day.

- Beth And Nancy, College Librarians, Detroit, MI, USA

Er... I went to a state school and I have read a lot of the "classics". I don't understand why anyone would refuse to accept these books. Some of us working class kids do actually enjoy reading books, even the more difficult ones. Why would you need a library to store them, why not just put them on a bookcase/shelf and assign a book monitor in the class to keep track of them?

- M, Bedford

Well that sums up the intelligence of the nation, doesn't it? Too difficult to read? I do hope I'm still alive in 30 years to see how dumb the next Blair or Cameron will be (although I can't imagine how they could get any dumber). It should make for some serious entertainment in my old age!

- Jay, London

The Everyman's Library is a fantastic collection that any school in my day would have delighted in accepting. It really is casting pearls before swine these days however by the looks of things.

- Squiz, Islington

The Classics do suffer from being labelled The Classics. Whilst they do contain some wonderful writing (obviously), they have been, and still are to an extent, marketed to the cultured and the intellectual. Viewing figures of TV adaptations show how popular these stories can be. It's a great shame that readers (children or adults) are put-off by the image these works have. Nonetheless, there is much contemporary writing that is as worthy, and that should not be rubbished simply for being modern. In reality, we all need a varied diet of readings -- that is what schools try to encourage.

- Philip, London, England

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