jazzy_dave (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jazzy_dave) wrote2014-05-27 11:52 pm
jazzy_dave) wrote2014-05-27 11:52 pm
Mockingbird Axed
So Michael Gove , our Education Minister , wants to relegate or remove American classics such as To Kill A Mockingbird from the English curriculum in our schools. Another philistine move from this weedy government that i find abhorrent. -
From a Guardian headline on my tablet
"To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men axed as Gove orders more Brit lit. New English literature GCSE ditches American classics for pre-20th century British authors such as Dickens and Austen".
The article continues - "Last year, Gove, who has said children should be reading 50 books a year from the age of 11, told a conference of independent school heads that he would much prefer to see a child reading George Eliot's Middlemarch than one of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight vampire novels.
The actor and writer Emma Kennedy tweeted: "But why would Gove want children to learn about tolerance and doing what is right rather than what is popular?"
The Department for Education said: "In the past, English literature GCSEs were not rigorous enough and their content was often far too narrow. We published the new subject content for English literature in December. It doesn't ban any authors, books or genres. It does ensure pupils will learn about a wide range of literature, including at least one Shakespeare play, a 19th-century novel written anywhere and post-1914 fiction or drama written in the British Isles.
"That is only the minimum pupils will be expected to learn. It is now up to exam boards to design new GCSEs, which must then be accredited by the independent exams regulator Ofqual."
The direction on the syllabus content published by the department last year, and which exam boards must follow, specified: "Students should study a range of high-quality, intellectually challenging, and substantial whole texts in detail. These must include: at least one play by Shakespeare; at least one 19th-century novel; a selection of poetry since 1789, including representative Romantic poetry; and fiction or drama from the British Isles from 1914 onwards. All works should have been originally written in English."
The exam boards – and indeed individual schools – are free to add any extra books they see fit, but the new rules have left them very little room for any 20th-century writing from outside Britain.
Although pre-20th century literature will now dominate, Anita and Me, Meera Syal's 1996 story of a British Punjabi girl in the Midlands, and DNA, Dennis Kelly's 2007 play about bullying, are understood to have made it on to the list."
When will this government leave schools to set their own lists from a recommended reading list and not interfere.
From a Guardian headline on my tablet
"To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men axed as Gove orders more Brit lit. New English literature GCSE ditches American classics for pre-20th century British authors such as Dickens and Austen".
The article continues - "Last year, Gove, who has said children should be reading 50 books a year from the age of 11, told a conference of independent school heads that he would much prefer to see a child reading George Eliot's Middlemarch than one of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight vampire novels.
The actor and writer Emma Kennedy tweeted: "But why would Gove want children to learn about tolerance and doing what is right rather than what is popular?"
The Department for Education said: "In the past, English literature GCSEs were not rigorous enough and their content was often far too narrow. We published the new subject content for English literature in December. It doesn't ban any authors, books or genres. It does ensure pupils will learn about a wide range of literature, including at least one Shakespeare play, a 19th-century novel written anywhere and post-1914 fiction or drama written in the British Isles.
"That is only the minimum pupils will be expected to learn. It is now up to exam boards to design new GCSEs, which must then be accredited by the independent exams regulator Ofqual."
The direction on the syllabus content published by the department last year, and which exam boards must follow, specified: "Students should study a range of high-quality, intellectually challenging, and substantial whole texts in detail. These must include: at least one play by Shakespeare; at least one 19th-century novel; a selection of poetry since 1789, including representative Romantic poetry; and fiction or drama from the British Isles from 1914 onwards. All works should have been originally written in English."
The exam boards – and indeed individual schools – are free to add any extra books they see fit, but the new rules have left them very little room for any 20th-century writing from outside Britain.
Although pre-20th century literature will now dominate, Anita and Me, Meera Syal's 1996 story of a British Punjabi girl in the Midlands, and DNA, Dennis Kelly's 2007 play about bullying, are understood to have made it on to the list."
When will this government leave schools to set their own lists from a recommended reading list and not interfere.
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Weirdly that is the effect Steinbeck had on me, and Harper Lee - whereas I discovered Austen for myself and plunged in only to emerge at meal times.
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I should have said 'Don't remove, rearrange, ban books according to this particular politician's taste - be happy they're reading and encourage reading ALL THE THINGS'. That likely would have been better.
After all, I have a friend that loves the Bronte novels, though that is the era (like with Austen) that I just can't get into.
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Absolutely. Oddly, and I am most certainly not a fan of Michael Gove, it does seem as if part of what he said was that the current system which encourages teachers to only concentrate on small sections of books was wrong, and the pupils should read the whole books...
You're right about it all being a matter of taste, too; I love Austen but don't really like any of the Bronte sisters' works enough to read them again from choice :)