Read Happy Books; or, Hell, Learn How to Read

The folks at Phi Beta Cons are waxing anti-intellectual about Mary Collins' complaint in The Christian Science Monitor.  According to Collins, her daughter has stopped reading because her school requires her to read novels with "distressing plots [and] sad, even sinister, story lines."  Most interesting to Carol Iannone, however, is Collins' account of a conversation she had with some of her daughter's classmates:

The string of searing plot patterns has resulted in some very peculiar unintended consequences. Most of the students I spoke with from my daughter's middle school claimed that the readings made them feel inadequate because they never "experienced these horrible things."

"It becomes awkward," one student said, "because you're constantly made to feel spoiled or privileged."

Her co-blogger, David French, picks up the baton and—in a move calculated to prove, definitively, his nub-mindedness—promptly thwacks the first professor he sees:

I enjoyed Carol’s post highlighting how the typical college reading assignment seems designed to make students feel “spoiled or privileged.”  In fact, professorial contempt for “spoiled or privileged” students is nauseatingly common.  Yet this is yet another example of academic blindness.  It is tough to imagine a more “privileged” person than a tenured faculty member at a major university.  Six figure income.  Ten month work year.  Absolute job security in the absence of actual fraud or criminal behavior.  No other profession in America enjoys such benefits.

That Collins and Iannone spoke of middle school reading lists is irrelevant.  The point is to drub academics wherever and whenever you can; in this case, for their contempt for the "spoiled and privileged."  You know that varnish spoiled, privileged children are taught to apply to their elitism in (ahem) finishing schools? 

French forgot to apply it.  He speaks here, openly, for the downtrodden, i.e. the spoiled, privileged children of wealth.  He is nauseated by the contempt in which these spoiled, privileged children are held.  That they behave in spoiled, privileged ways is irrelevant.  That is their culture, see, and these postmodern multiculturalists are hypocrites for shitting on these children's unearned pretensions. 

They come from a better culture—one with money and power—and these arrogant professors have the nerve to inform them that the world shouldn't bow to their every wish and whim?  Who do these professors think they are?  Did they go Andover?  Groton, even?  Who are they to spit upon our spoiled children?

To return to my original point—which, to be honest, I've yet to even hint at—Collins suggests that these children can be cheered up by reading something chipper like Huck Finn.  Because once Huck and Tom fool Jim into thinking he's still enslaved, then torture him for a little while in order to satisfy Tom's love of historical romance—well, those are an absolute hoot.  Guaranteed to cheer up a sallow youth any day. 

For that matter, why not have them read Connecticut Yankee?  It's finale is clean, wholesome fun for children of all ages.   I mean, The Boss insists that the electrocuted knights be delivered a coup de grace, when he could have left them on the field to die horribly and alone, save for the screams and rattles of their compatriots.

My point, then, is that the canon debate factors into these issues in ways we shouldn't, but do, ignore.  If Twain wrote Huck Finn today, I guarantee Collins and her ilk would complain about it being taught to their children.  (They do, of course, but for different reasons.)

Comments

[Miriam]

Isn't the second story on Collins' daughter's list Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"? Or has somebody decided to rewrite it?

[SEK]

That was my guess, too, but since I'm not familiar with young adult literature, I decided not to hold forth.

[JPool]

(Obligatory) Boy, I sure hope I get a job so I look forward to all that job security and leisure time.

It doesn't actually matter whether someone has rewritten Jackson's "The Lottery" or the child is reading the original like countless middleschoolers before her, since Collins brief mention of it suggests that she thinks it's plot is some shocking new betrayal of innocence to inflict on children, rather than a public school institution.

[Dragon Management]

In a somewhat realted matter...

"I have never been called to the principal's office for pushing my (honors) students to read and write above grade level...until today.

I wasn't technically reprimanded, but I was asked to engage in a "self-critique" of my expectations for my students, which I did for all of two seconds.

After school, I received a call from a parent--presumably one of the parents who had earlier contacted the school administration about my draconian methods and pie-in-the-sky expectations--who wanted to pull her kid from my class. "It seems like there's just too much reading in your class."

Yeah, I'm the asshole."

http://breakingbrains.blogspot.com/2007/08/reading-is-fundamentalkinda.html

[Dragon Management]

I know; I see it. "Related," not "realted."

[Ahistoricality]

Seems to me that parents ought to have some input into what their children read. Outside of school, the parents can recommend and supply their children with all the "uplifting" or "classical" or "faith-driven" or mind-numbingly below grade level pulp they want.

Outside.

p.s. Job security? The semester is the base unit of time in academia. Untenured faculty are evaluated -- on average -- every second semester, based largely on the productivity of the senior faculty who run the journals and the happy-happy results of student satisfaction surveys. Kiss ass or go home.

[Karl Steel]

It is tough to imagine a more “privileged” person than a tenured faculty member at a major university. Six figure income.

Huh? Really? What counts as a major university? And are they comparing, oh, Steven Greenblatt's salary (which I have to assume is considerable, but I imagine--here me McArdling--not in the mid 6's) to a newly minded Associate Prof at, say, Brooklyn College (where, so far as I know, it's more like 65K and then into the high 80s with full prof). Certainly comp sci or law profs can be paid more; but they're talking about the humanities, I presume.

And I've seen several asst prof jobs that pay 40K.

Sheesh.

[OhIsee]

I will always regret trying to teach Sounder by having my students bring in a gun from home and going to the pound to look for a dog. Damn those parents, and damn those metal detectors at the school doors!

[slolernr]

Six figure income

I see Karl beat me to the punch, but I must add: whaaa? Many public universities publish salaries as a matter of public record and, uh, no. Most certainly not among the novel-assigning faculty. Law faculty, medical faculty, econ faculty, yes.

[Miriam]

Our salaries are also a matter of public record. A few years ago, an undergrad suggested that we get rid of the six-figure types and use their salaries for something, you know, useful. At the time, about six people on the faculty were earning in the six figures (low 100s)--I think there are more now--and, amazingly, they fell into one of three categories: business department; administrators; faculty at special ranks (e.g., University Professor) and/or ex-administrators who had been around for three decades or more. And we're one of the higher-paying SUNY campuses.

[Tim Lacy]

French is a joke. His cliches are tired.

Collins and Iannone, however, get to something more interesting. What about the Bible and Christianity's ability to distress a young reader? Does Christ's sacrifice make Collins' cohort of little girls feel inadequate? Does not the Sermon on the Mount make them feel spoiled and privileged? What of the biblical passage about rich people, the eye of a needle, and the difficulty of reaching heaven? I guess those little middle school girls are numb to, or unaware of, those distressing stories that justify the existence of the forum in which Collins complained. What does that say about what Collins and her fellow mothers are teaching their children? - TL

[SEK]

I don't think anyone's rewritten "The Lottery," but since I'm not familiar with YA literature, it's always a possibility. The other reason I held back was, well, because the mother took the story so literally, whereas it's really difficult to do that with the Jackson. In retrospect, I'm not sure Collins deserved the benefit of my doubt.

DM, it's not the parents fault, or, at least not entirely. After all, college students air the same complaints, despite being out of their parents' homes. Quite simply: they don't want to read, and they'll complain to anyone who will listen: parents, principals, course coordinators, &c.

Miriam, it doesn't surprise me that French and his ilk are pinning these salaries on humanities types: we're the useless ones, after all, whereas the business folk, well, they make money.

Tim, quit your logical and rational whining. Don't you see how oppressed the wealthy are? Have a little heart, won't you?

[rpsms]

Isn't some sort of conflict a requirement in good literature?

[slolernr]

one of the higher-paying SUNY campuses

SUNY Ithaca?

[Tim Lacy]

SEK: I guess mine are the problems of a those who still believe in reason! - TL

[Miriam]

Brockport (about two hours away from Ithaca).

I rather like Ithaca--it's got a nice college-town feel and the bookstores are excellent--but apparently Cornell faculty recruits sometimes run screaming in terror when they see where the town actually is.

[slolernr]

where the town actually is

I believe the phrase is, "centrally isolated." But that's not true! It's smack in the middle of upstate New York's rust-belt and desolated farming district!

[JPool]

This is simply a different understanding of "centrally located," where that center is along the diagonal axes between Lake Ontario and the Atlantic on the one hand and Pittsburgh and, um, Montpelier on the other. No, no, I clearly meant the northern shore of Ontario.

[History Geek]

Yes, heaven forbid the dear little things be distressed by what they're reading and you knowing having their minds expanded. Wonder what they would think about the books we read at my middle school, like Dicey's Song and Daphne's Book. And I'm sure even Dealing with Dragons would make upset them.

[idgie]

i'm just interested in how the figure of the child is now being trotted out not just as a conservative prop in the usual way, but in order to police the canon?! edelman et al may be on to something. i guess it's nothing new, but does this debate really have anything to do with children (any more than other people)?

and btw, my students all seem to be a helluva lot more privileged than me at the moment...better dressed, nicer cars, faster internet. so i'ma find some readings to make them feel like shit!