4 Ways High School Makes You Hate Reading

[Phlox]

Originally Posted by SchrodingersCat

For real??! That's awesome! What did the teacher have to say about the group marriage concept?

He didn't address that specifically. We didn't do assigned interpretation in this class. It was a peer discussion of the books with him acting as facilitator. He touched on the concept of how society molds behavior by promoting certain mores and penalizing those who don't follow them. We talked about the pros and cons of mores.We talked a bit amongst ourselves about the group marriage concept though.It was the first time some of us had heard of it. Not me-my mother was a psych major and I liked to read her books.

I had other lit classes that used the assigned interpretation approach. They tended to be as dry as three day old bread. They didn't turn me off to reading or the classics, but I did tune out in those classes.

[Blopez5293]

First I will start off by saying that I am an avid reader and rarely find anything I dislike enough to not finish reading. That being said I have run across several books I could not force myself to finish and of those, 1 was assigned reading. I was forced to read Ishi, Last of His Tribe. I hated it so much I actually broke my biggest rule and bought the cliff notes. Horrid book.... if you thought Catcher was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. My favorite assigned book was by far The Giver. I have actually read this book multiple times and have finished the rest of the series. And while I, personally, love Shakespeare, I do feel that most high schools have not updated their reading lists in far too long. It seems to me that while many English teachers have no choice over what books they assign, many more simply do not bother to find newer books that don't come with a full lesson plan already made up by the teachers who have come before them. And I fully agree that most classrooms dissect the books to death and back again. I also feel that kids should have some say in the titles they read for school (like choosing the years reading together as a group at the start of the year) and that students should not be forced to read the same book multiple times for different years. Ex- I read The Giver as required reading in the 5th grade, then again 8th grade (same school district) and then again for freshman English. All I have to say is that if I didn't have an amazing memory I might not be so keen with The Giver now.

[Helo]

Something I've noticed on OKC; you can very easily pick out the non-readers.

If their favorite book list is essentially a high school English class reading list, good chance they're not "book people." I almost never hear anyone speak well of The Great Gatsby or Catcher in the Rye but man, fire up a dating site and suddenly EVERYONE turns into an English Lit major.

[Blopez5293]

Helo, I'm not so sure about that. I am a huge reader and love works from Catcher in the Rye to Harry Potter and Dean Koontz. In fact I have read so many books when pressed I have a hard time picking out a favorite. However, I was under the impression that this discussion was based on the premise that reading the required reading lists in school can turn a person away from reading for fun as an adult. I personally feel that a child who has been read to by their parents from birth is much more likely to form a lifetime love of reading than a child who does not grow up surrounded by books. And that what we read at school actually has very little, if anything, to do with personal choices about reading after high school. I for one have never met someone who loved reading before high school and then hated reading after being exposed to Chaucer or Steinbeck. I feel that in the end the biggest factor is the quantity of different reading material one is exposed to early in life.

[Helo]

Originally Posted by Blopez5293

Helo, I'm not so sure about that. I am a huge reader and love works from Catcher in the Rye to Harry Potter and Dean Koontz. In fact I have read so many books when pressed I have a hard time picking out a favorite. However, I was under the impression that this discussion was based on the premise that reading the required reading lists in school can turn a person away from reading for fun as an adult. I personally feel that a child who has been read to by their parents from birth is much more likely to form a lifetime love of reading than a child who does not grow up surrounded by books. And that what we read at school actually has very little, if anything, to do with personal choices about reading after high school. I for one have never met someone who loved reading before high school and then hated reading after being exposed to Chaucer or Steinbeck. I feel that in the end the biggest factor is the quantity of different reading material one is exposed to early in life.

Like I said, I totally grok the idea of a few people reading and enjoying things like Catcher in the Rye. But once everybody and their dog puts it on their favorite reading list, especially when they have NO OTHER SIGNS of enjoying reading, I get suspicious.

[Blopez5293]

Ok so now I understand what you meant. It's the punctuation and spelling that are dead giveaways for me. And the thing I don't understand is why anybody would pretend to like reading when they really don't.... I mean are bookworms really that sexy? Lol :-)

[SchrodingersCat]

Originally Posted by Helo

Like I said, I totally grok the idea of a few people reading and enjoying things like Catcher in the Rye. But once everybody and their dog puts it on their favorite reading list, especially when they have NO OTHER SIGNS of enjoying reading, I get suspicious.

I actually don't think I've seen it in reading lists much at all. It's not on the Canadian curriculum, at least not MB or SK.

It's a terrible book. If I saw it in someone's reading list, I would probably write them off on that basis alone... I can be pretty superficial sometimes.

[ChipPaulson]

I hated school. They teach you to like and hate all the wrong things.

[bookworm]

I have always enjoyed reading (hence my name) but the reading lists in High School were awful. I never really liked what we were made to read. But when I got to college and discovered Tolkein things changed. I definitely think that schools could do a much better job encouraging reading if they would pick better titles.