From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Date: 1 Jan 93 00:43:22 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.

In article <1992Dec31.221640.6275@netcom.com> dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
>markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder):
>>Whatever goals we have, is there any evidence that forced reading of a 
>>handful of books in high school and college accomplishes it?
>
>If you think having students read books serves no useful purpose,
>then you are presumably advocating the removal of book-reading
>from the curriculum.  

No, I'm simply questioning the assumptions the canon discussion is based on.

>As long as we believe that it *does* serve
>one or more useful purposes, we're going to have a canon -- a
>preferred reading list, if you will.
>
>If the handful of books in question is all those students ever read,
>we might as well restrict the list to Dr Seuss.  

Do you really believe that, if it turns out to be the case that a large 
fraction of the population isn't going to read any books besides those they 
read in school-- a proposition I suspect is true-- it doesn't matter which
ones those are?  This seems to be an immediate abandonment of the position 
that making kids read books serves some purpose.  

I don't say that reading lists are pointless; I just think that some of
the usual justifications for them-- passing on values, preserving Western
Civilization, creating better human beings-- don't hold up under scrutiny.
Better to set some more realistic goals (and think hard about whether and
how they're achieved).

>The students who
>will reap most of the benefit from a thoughtful selection are those
>who read, or will be inspired to read, other books as well.  

I think the opposite: those are the students who don't need a reading list.
The books I read in school form a miniscule fraction of all those I've read,
and an even smaller fraction of those that have meant a lot to me.

A century or two ago "English Literature" wasn't taught in schools at all;
English literature managed to exist anyway.  

>One of the goals of the exercise is to offer those students guidance
>in choosing among the tens of thousands of candidate books, and
>a foundation to enable them to read their choices critically and
>with understanding.

I wonder whether this goal amounts to more than stuffing students' heads
with the latest critical fashions-- and whether the process even succeeds
in doing that.  

>There may be many students who do not benefit from a forced reading
>of a handful of books:  If it doesn't matter what they read, we can
>at least make the selections that will best benefit those students
>for whom reading is not a matter of coercion.

Sounds like a program for determining the reading list for the majority
based on the needs of the tiny minority which will go on to write about
literature professionally-- which will marginalize reading even more than
it is now.

As David Letterman said last night, "I know, I'm being really, really 
annoying."  Since I don't buy the usual justifications for literature classes,
I'll offer what I consider the real reason to have them: they offer a
socially-sanctioned means whereby those who want to can read novels instead 
of working.  Naturally this has to be disguised when talking to the parents, 
alumni, and businessmen who fund them.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written