Well I was planning a nice positive post today until I read about Gove's "brave new world" of literature! So out with the fluffy and in with the bloody battleaxe! And he has irritated my already painful shingles-I loathe this man-he is the anti-Christ...(allegedly!)
Channel 4 News posted a blog on Gove's prospective unveiling of the new literature curriculum and I could not believe what I read. Tough classics such as Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men", Miller's "The Crucible" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mocking Bird" are to be removed...mainly because "Gove doesn't like them" and because they are American!
Deep breaths while I hyperventilate! I want to scream... I want to shout... I want to rip his head off! What sort of decision making process is that? He doesn't like them? So what? So now education is to be designed to suit the negative, retro-grade and narrow viewpoint of just one man? Surely some civil servant or Junior Minister should be quietly tapping him on the shoulder and saying-"Gove, No! This is out of order!" Does nobody in the education department have a say? Do none of the academics who are involved in curriculum design have the guts to say no? How can a country's curriculum be designed around the whim of one man?
Apart from anything the reason these texts were included in the first place was because they taught life lessons and asked the right questions, giving young people the chance to understand and make decisions about some difficult concepts. I read "To Kill a Mocking Bird" at 14 and it hooked me immediately. This was then followed up by the excellent Gregory Peck film which opened up the idea that human beings can act in many different ways toward each other. The polarisation of the good and bad characters exemplifies what is still wrong in society and the story being told simplistically by the little girl Scout emphasises those themes. Its an amazing book and it opened my eyes to man's inhumanity to man, real danger, bigotry, prejudice, tolerance, fairness and justice. It can still do the same today and if read at a young age cannot fail to promote empathy and the development of a sense of equality and fairness. To remove such texts because they are "American" is blatantly bigoted in itself.
To return the literature curriculum to mostly British and pre war is to limit and censor! It make literature a sterile subject with nothing current and new emerging! I love the classics and believe pupils should be given a taster, but they are not the whole "story" surely writing is constantly changing and developing and we should celebrate and embrace all types of genres and authors?
I notice there has already been a retraction and fudging of the facts as written in the Telegraph article! Well I will wait to see the reality-there is usually no smoke without fire in Gove's case...and I still insist and demand somebody in the Department gets hold of him by his scrawny neck and give him a good talking to!
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