By this time every spring when I was teaching high school English, I was already thinking of the novels I would have my students read the next year.
I thought they should be familiar with certain classics that form a part of our culture, books they would hear referred to for the rest of their lives.
Now, I would have a lot more trouble making that list. When I think about books that were once taught in school, I realize that social changes have rendered many of them irrelevant, and “wokeness” may have rendered some illegal.
Most plots work on the assumption that readers will be horrified or at least morally offended by the conflict in a given plot. But it takes more to offend the young these days.
The plot of the American classic The Scarlet Letter would barely get a rise out of modern teens. It concerns Hester Prynne, whose out-of-wedlock pregnancy shocks her Puritan community and ruins her life.
Today’s student, who lives in a society where 40 percent of all births are to unmarried mothers, would read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tale and think, She’s pregnant and the guy skipped out. So? Smart dude!
The fact that the father turns out to be a pastor wouldn’t shock today’s kids either. That scenario happens often enough that they probably have lost interest in that story line too.
One of my favorite Shakesperean plays to teach was Macbeth, about a Scottish lord whose wife encourages him to kill the king and take the throne for himself. Macbeth agrees and polishes off the monarch while he’s sleeping. Macbeth becomes king but spends the rest of his reign lying, conniving and committing more murders to keep the crown.
But today’s political climate takes the shock value right out of Macbeth. A politician who lies? Who turns people against each other? Whose wife influences him to commit a crime? Who does whatever it takes to stay in power?
Yawn! “Surely the teacher didn’t think we’d be shocked by that,” little Johnny or Jennie would say. “Borrring! We see that every night on the news.”
I never taught it, but I once considered introducing my students to Pilgrims’ Progress by John Bunyan. Too bad I didn’t teach it when I had the chance. These days, teaching that classic Christian allegory might get me burned at the stake.
Its own author was thrown into jail twice for conducting religious services that were not authorized by the government back in the 1600s. It’s ironic that the same thing could happen today for teaching a book about the Christian journey in a so-called “Christian nation.” Teaching anything Christian today in a public school is pretty much “unauthorized.”
I couldn’t assign the kids to put Little Women by Louisa May Alcott under their reading lamps either. The gender equality folks would ban the book for not including some Little Men, Little Gays, Little Bi’s and Little Trans characters. And the feminists would want the title changed to Big Women, Little Men.
John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath wouldn’t make a bit of sense to 2024’s students.
When presented with the plight of the Joad family, who lose their farm in the Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, take jobs as migrant workers in California and almost starve to death, Little Johnny would raise his hand and ask why those dumb people didn’t contact the welfare folks for a monthly check, an EBT card, subsidized housing and a free cellphone.
Again, what’s the big deal?
I couldn’t teach The Call of the Wild because PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) doesn’t like the fact that the dog isn’t well treated by the wolves or the humans in Jack London’s story.
Ditto with George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which makes both PETA and the equal opportunity folks mad because not all the animals get to be equal in the new socialist animal society they on the farm.
And I’d also get into hot water for teaching Orwell’s 1984. I don’t think our current administration wants students to think too much about government controlling people’s lives as Orwell describes. They might start putting two and two together and coming up with “uh oh.”
The book’s slogan, “Big Brother is watching you,” hits a little too close to home these days.
Yep, the only politically safe reading list now would be a phonebook, if you can find one. And the only books “relevant” to today’s students might make me blush.
