I don't think any of my school friends disliked of mice and men however almost everybody hated Carol Anne Duffy, Shakespeare and Dickens. Telling kids what they should like doesn't work, why take of mice and men off when it actually engages kids? I fecking hate Gove, he single-handedly makes me hate the Tory party.
Gove axes Mice and Men/To kill a Mockingbird
- Thread starter Zak Smith
- Start date
Teaching Dickens is a great way to put anyone off reading for life.
I like Pickwick Papers. The rest is depressing, but it was meant to make people aware of poor conditions. It's better than making kids think the world is hunky dory.
The books on the syllabus already do that, in a much easier style for kids to digest.
I imagine he means that many people find it very difficult to properly get into Dickens, despite the high quality of his writing and may perhaps not be the best bet for 14 or 15 year olds to get them involved in reading literature.
Dickins is more approachable than Shakespeare.
Great Expectations is something all children should read.
Great Expectations is something all children should read.
He reminds me of that character in Viz ,Victorian Dad.
The timing's off, seeing as the industry consensus is that American novelists lead the way when it comes to innovation and excellence.
People usually end up liking Shakespeare and Dickens later in life, I've always been a bit of a literature nerd so I quite like old Bill, never read dickens in school, but Carol Anne Duffy who apparently works in my uni, is terrible.
Definitely.
I've grown to dislike Shakespeare and have loved Dickens from a young age. Never liked Duffy, she's boring.
I don't hate Duffy. She's not awful. There are worse. Benjamin Zepheniah for one.
I've grown to dislike Shakespeare and have loved Dickens from a young age. Never liked Duffy, she's boring.[/QUOTE]
I just like Shakespeare, I don't love him. I love Arthur Miller though, that's one hell of a playwright. A lot of the poetry in the syllabus is boring. More John Cooper Clarke please!
I just like Shakespeare, I don't love him. I love Arthur Miller though, that's one hell of a playwright. A lot of the poetry in the syllabus is boring. More John Cooper Clarke please!
She's pretty bad, he's overrated for sure.
The only Shakespeare that I have ever read was Romeo and Juliet at school and I was captivated by it.
Often, the secondary stuff and/or commentary on adaptations of Shakespeare's plays is really interesting. For instance, the film critic David Thomson opinions on on Welles' Macbeth (1948) would likely captivate modern readers & viewers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/educatio...-Kill-a-Mockingbird-Id-never-dream-of-it.html
Gove's rather nice response.
Gove's rather nice response.
It is rather nice, but is the issue not then by forcing inclusion of certain books, he is, effectively, banning others? At least, that's what teachers are moaning about now. But teachers always moan.
Last edited:
The real issue for me is not why the 'secretary of state' is micro managing, but why someone with no fecking experience in education (besides attending school, college and university) has found himself in a position where he is able to dictate and propagate his own ideology to an entire nation? An ex-Murdock rag journalist can decide what our nation's children are allowed to read?! How is this possible in politics? A person with no grounding in a profession can suddenly be the leader of it on a grand scale and all it takes is a cabinet reshuffle and this clueless moron will be in charge of the NHS or Sports and Culture. It defies logic that this system of government is allowed to exist.
It's probably good for the teachers, I bet it gets pretty monotonous teaching/reading the same books every year.
Last edited:
That's not all bad. Get through the austere fifties then we have the swinging sixties, glam/punk 70s and then relive the 80s. Gove is onto something here
The old classic of them having to laugh at the one 'funny' bit in a Shakespeare play for the twentieth year running...
I'm in two minds on this. Sometimes it's good to have someone from outside the industry coming in to give fresh ideas, but equally, you're right, it's ludicrous, say, that you have a chancellor who has done economics no further than a third of his degree.
That's bollocks. 'You can teach whatever you want really, good luck finding the time though'
To Kill a Mocking Bird is a good read and I like some Steinbeck but I'd vote for anyone that removed Cather In The Rye from the syllabus.
Romeo and Juliet is a great read for older school kids but in terms of US literature I'd like to see books like Catch 22 and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's nest included.
Of course I have no idea what is included in the UK syllabus.
Romeo and Juliet is a great read for older school kids but in terms of US literature I'd like to see books like Catch 22 and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's nest included.
Of course I have no idea what is included in the UK syllabus.
Never let politicians of any variety near a syllabus. The left will infect it with touchy feely crap and the right will remove it all and replace it with "Resume writing for bricklayers" if you are at a state school.
We read Of Mice And Men in the first year of Grammar, Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm in the next and Far from the Madding Crowd after that. For some reason I avoided Hardy's book though. I think I blagged it somehow.
Seems like something new isn't a bad idea since this was thirty years ago for me.
Seems like something new isn't a bad idea since this was thirty years ago for me.
Or you are looking at it the wrong way round. How easy must it be teaching the same thing year after year?
On Gove's plans overall, I think it's a welcome change. It's giving the exam boards licence to offer schools a wider range of texts. I don't see this as a bad thing.
In practice, is it not a restriction since it enforces certain texts? You can only teach so much.Or you are looking at it the wrong way round. How easy must it be teaching the same thing year after year?
On Gove's plans overall, I think it's a welcome change. It's giving the exam boards licence to offer schools a wider range of texts. I don't see this as a bad thing.
Which texts? The way I see it, it gives the exam boards the parameters in which it has to work (a Shakespeare play, Romantic poetry etc) but the particular texts can be determined by the exam board.
Our now Education Minister asked a total of 2 Education question in the entire of the last Parliament when he was Shadow Education Minister. He also called the Leader of the Opposition a cnut in Parliament a few days ago. He is also a smug arrogant wanker with the most smackable face in the entire universe.
How many of you took Literature?
I bloody loved that book. It took me a while to start into but once I got my head around the pronunciation it was great.
I took literature, all I remember is my teacher re enacting the pig rape scene with his 1m ruler. Don't think Gove would approve.
Within that framework though, so it effectively means things like the books in the OP can no longer be taught unless exam boards fancy having students study about 6 books.
I did.
Haha, didn't realise you were Australian and was about to mock you for not realising who Michael Gove is
"Teachers are as free to introduce children to the brilliant writing of Lee, Steinbeck and Miller today as they were yesterday and nothing this government is doing will change that in the future," he wrote.
“All we are doing is asking exam boards to broaden - not narrow - the books young people study for GCSE.”
Mr Gove insisted he has "read and loved" the books, but “sometimes a rogue meme can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”
"Just because one chap at one exam board claimed I didn't like Of Mice And Men, the myth took hold that it - and every other pesky American author - had been banned," he added.
He went on: "I have apparently decreed that only literature written by true-born Englishmen (copyright Daniel Defoe) can be read by our children.
"And without waiting to do anything as mundane as checking the facts, a host of culture warriors have taken to Twitter to denounce this literary isolationism.
"As an English literature graduate - and indeed unabashed Americanophile - I am rather pleased on one level that so many rhetorical swords should have leapt from their scabbards to defend both literature and the unity of the Anglosphere.
"But sadly I can't take too much delight in these protestations of literary affection. Because they are - in more than just one sense - rooted in fiction."
“All we are doing is asking exam boards to broaden - not narrow - the books young people study for GCSE.”
Mr Gove insisted he has "read and loved" the books, but “sometimes a rogue meme can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”
"Just because one chap at one exam board claimed I didn't like Of Mice And Men, the myth took hold that it - and every other pesky American author - had been banned," he added.
He went on: "I have apparently decreed that only literature written by true-born Englishmen (copyright Daniel Defoe) can be read by our children.
"And without waiting to do anything as mundane as checking the facts, a host of culture warriors have taken to Twitter to denounce this literary isolationism.
"As an English literature graduate - and indeed unabashed Americanophile - I am rather pleased on one level that so many rhetorical swords should have leapt from their scabbards to defend both literature and the unity of the Anglosphere.
"But sadly I can't take too much delight in these protestations of literary affection. Because they are - in more than just one sense - rooted in fiction."
Nothing wrong with change. I would rather have catalepsy than read Silas Marner again.
Loved those two books though.
Loved those two books though.
Last edited:
Also had to read A Doll's House, which was excruciating.