What's the point of required reading?

Daniel Perez6 said:...music, art, chemistry, biology, cycling, skiing, you name it. You'll get the same identical answer every single time.

The biggest issue here is that they have a smartphone in their hand (which is fine enough) while simultaneously believing that WhatsApp is some kind of massive social media platform. 🙂

well, yeah.🤷
you could just strip everything down to the bare essentials and label them all optional, but even then, I doubt everyone would actually be satisfied.

Peter Doyle2, that's an excellent point. I honestly think at least 90% of people ought to have something like that.😍
I probably shouldn't start a whole thread about mathematics, since I don't exactly hold some official position where I get to dictate the school curriculum. I am certainly not me the universal yardstick for what matters. Just because I don't personally find much use for math in my daily life—aside from basic addition and multiplication tables, obviously—doesn't mean it isn't necessary for everyone else, nor does it mean we should scrap it entirely (or perhaps let students choose which specific chapters they want to study 🤣—though, I have to admit, that might actually make for a rather fascinating experiment)

urbantinker8 said:Wait a second now...
I think you’d get the exact same "result" if you asked kids about math.
About 99.9% of students wouldn't say math is just boring; they'd tell you it's a nightmare.
And just as much as people love to drone on about how STEM is this incredibly vital field essential to every single aspect of life on Earth, I guess the post-industrial reality of the US tends to contradict those claims a bit.
I mean, most people don't actually need to master quadratic equations, trigonometry, or imaginary numbers.
Most people don't need them, if I'm being honest—actually, hardly anyone does.😁
But nowadays, it seems quite fashionable to babble about STEM as if it's absolutely essential, and within those subjects, there's plenty of filler, tedious stuff, and nonsense that the average person is never going to touch in their lifetime.

I wonder why there isn't a thread here titled What's the point of vectors?
Maybe it's because, unlike literature where you can at least argue your own opinion, there's no practical application for it in daily life?
Yeah, right.☕

Agreed.

It is entirely replaceable by doing something simple—something a child could handle—while having podcasts or audiobooks playing in the background.

I am being dead serious: the current US Department of Education approach, which claims we must expose kids to "as much breadth as possible so they can choose a career, and hey, maybe some of them will need vectors," is pure idiocy. If someone actually needs that knowledge and finds it interesting, they can pick it up at seventeen, eighteen, or thirty-five when the need arises. There is no reason to sit around in a classroom waiting for that moment to happen.

Besides, how do people end up enrolling in architecture, civil engineering, studying Spanish, or becoming dance educators without ever having had a single high school course specifically steering them toward those paths? It is clearly possible.

Peter Doyle2 said:So we went from "you don't have to" to "you absolutely have to, damn it" for the sake of a grade, I guess.😉
Here’s a challenge for you, then: try getting a seventeen-year-old interested in Fyodor Dostoevsky without resorting to that dry, "you must do this" attitude.😉

Let's just agree to disagree, okay? I'm not really looking to go back and forth on this—we're clearly never going to see eye to eye😬 and since my kids aren't even being educated in the US, I'm not sure why I'm even weighing in on this topic at all.😬

I was actually wondering the same thing myself:😬 is the diaspora really the ones shaping our education system?🤔

Back when I was seventeen, I was actually interested in Dostoevsky. I went way beyond the required reading list—I actually set aside two whole weeks just to power through *The Idiot* and *The Brothers Karamazov* after finishing *Crime and Punishment*.

I had an amazing English teacher. Truly wonderful.
We had mandatory reading assignments that rotated every three or four weeks, and we’d dive into them through class discussions. We were expected to know them inside and out in case they popped up on a quiz or a test.
For the other books, she would assign seminars at the start of the school year. Students would present them one by one, and while we could quote them if we wanted to or had the time, there was no pressure to do so.
We covered over 30 books that way.

If a kid hasn't developed a love for reading by high school, then honestly, there isn't much left to do in high school.
If that "high school grind" makes someone who has been devouring books since they were eight years old hate reading, that’s not the fault of the reading list; it’s the fault of the teacher. You can learn something from any book if it's presented well. If it isn't, you won't learn a thing, even from the best masterpiece.

To get a child to actually love reading, it has to start in preschool, not through a list of assigned books. Trying to force kids into reading via a curriculum is a totally failed way to motivate them. The whole process of learning to read should focus on making the child love it and helping them understand the purpose behind the skill—actually comprehending what they read. That happens daily, through texts that are close to their interests and engaging, gradually increasing the complexity to expand their vocabulary and spark interest in different subjects.

I could probably go on about how uninteresting textbook passages are in elementary school, too, but I'll stay quiet. Besides, something like "My Father Sleeps with Angels" shouldn't even be on the shelves of children's literature, let alone on a required reading list—especially not as one of the three mandatory books for sixth graders if our goal is actually motivating kids to read.

Look, in a lot of school systems, this isn't some wild experiment—it’s actually the standard. 🤷 Not every kid is being taught the exact same math; some vocational tracks don't even touch certain advanced topics in their final years because the focus is shifting toward hands-on, practical learning.

The goal is teaching kids how to find information rather than just memorizing a mountain of facts.

In American schools, there isn't much flexibility right now—English and Math are mandatory for everyone, and the curriculum, reading lists, and equations are basically identical for every student, right? Except, I guess, a trade school student might have fewer hours than a prep school student who—naturally—goes much deeper into the subject matter. That trade student would probably get way more value out of an extra hour of Chemistry, maybe doing a hands-on experiment to see how leather and rubber react to a specific substance, than they would sitting through a block of Smail aga Čengić's analysis class.

Look, Nosorog, I’m not the one drafting the curriculum here 🤣—I stepped away from that whole situation because I was unhappy with it; I just didn't see my kids being represented in there. I’ve mostly been speaking from my own personal experience with it, and I’ve even tried to be careful not to bring up how things look on my end (except when answering a direct question).
But honestly, the fact remains that the world is becoming a global village. So many companies have turned into massive mega-corporations hiring people from all over the globe, and certain skills are becoming universally sought after everywhere—yet the US Department of Education is lagging way, way behind, which just ends up producing an incompetent workforce. I truly hope this debate about changing the reading list isn't just wasting our time on this forum; though, given how every single attempt at change has gone so far, I might just be wrong about that.

Peter Doyle2 said:Look, Nosorog, I’m not the one drafting the curriculum here 🤣—I stepped away from that whole situation because I was unhappy with it; I just didn't see my kids being represented in there. I’ve mostly been speaking from my own personal experience with it, and I’ve even tried to be careful not to bring up how things look on my end (except when answering a direct question).
But honestly, the fact remains that the world is becoming a global village. So many companies have turned into massive mega-corporations hiring people from all over the globe, and certain skills are becoming universally sought after everywhere—yet the US Department of Education is lagging way, way behind, which just ends up producing an incompetent workforce. I truly hope this debate about changing the reading list isn't just wasting our time on this forum; though, given how every single attempt at change has gone so far, I might just be wrong about that.

but honestly, those stories feel a bit overblown to me.
because, if you listen to the narrative, people leaving our rather lackluster system and mediocre schools are supposedly welcomed with open arms everywhere they go, landing great jobs and living the dream just a few years after escaping the mess we have here in America.
something about those tales doesn't quite sit right with me.
if you're actually coming from a broken system, manage to get out, and then somehow thrive somewhere else without having any special connections...
then maybe you aren't actually as clueless, incompetent, or uncompetitive as everyone claims.

or am I missing something...?
who's really telling the truth here?🤷

Nobody is lying here—it’s just how things work. People either end up working outside their field entirely or they have to go through extra training once they move abroad. It really depends on which US state you land in. In my experience, most US Universities only recognize the bare minimum of a bachelor's degree. IT is probably the one exception, but for everything else, it's a much tougher road to climb.

If you start pushing the "you have to read this" mantra, you're doing it wrong. Forcing people to do anything just backfires.

Fine, if we absolutely have to stick to the classics, can we at least skip the stuff that's basically indecipherable? I'm talking about poetry that feels totally disconnected from reality. Look, I’m no genius—feel free to correct me—but if you didn't spend years studying this in a US University, how the hell are you supposed to get any of this?
TJ, as soon as he finished his life's work
He could hardly sigh under the weight of it,
Grumbling with hunger over cattle feed
Envious of those at the feast,
Wishing to satisfy himself even more
With Peach, as he sweeps through the pigs.

Even the death of Smail aga Čengić—I mean, come on. This is total gibberish unless you're an expert, especially if you're just some 15-year-old kid. I wasn't joking when I said it might as well be written in Armenian to me.

Of course you’re thriving. You’d be doing just fine here if someone suddenly teleported you from junior year back to middle school.

My neighbor moved to Ireland when he was in 7th grade. Over there, based on his age, he was automatically placed into their equivalent of freshman year of high school. If he had decided to come back to the States, he would have been forced to redo 8th grade. He ended up becoming one of their top students—whereas here, he was just mediocre, barely scraping by with Cs—simply because he had already mastered all that material by 7th grade.

So, the logical conclusion is that young Irish people are totally dim-witted while we're geniuses, since they don't even touch the stuff we finish by 6th grade until they hit high school. I'm also certain any American could absolutely smoke an Irishman in a game of Chase.

It’s just a shame that no employer actually cares if you can sing Smail aga Čengić or if you know who Raskolnikov is. Instead, these lowlifes just demand actual, practical job skills.

Peter Doyle2 said:Nobody is lying here—it’s just how things work. People either end up working outside their field entirely or they have to go through extra training once they move abroad. It really depends on which US state you land in. In my experience, most US Universities only recognize the bare minimum of a bachelor's degree. IT is probably the one exception, but for everything else, it's a much tougher road to climb.

But then there’s you—you actually work in your field, and if I recall correctly, you managed to find a job pretty quickly.🙂

I know sooooo many people who moved overseas, aren't in the IT sector, and yet they are working in their actual profession.
Fields like medicine, mechanical engineering, or hospitality... they found jobs in their specialty in a heartbeat, and they seem incredibly happy, and I guess the employers are pretty satisfied too.
They all came straight out of that lackluster American school system.

I don't really have an explanation for that phenomenon, which, I suppose, isn't even all that rare.

Peter Doyle2 said:Look, Nosorog, I’m not the one drafting the curriculum here 🤣—I stepped away from that whole situation because I was unhappy with it; I just didn't see my kids being represented in there. I’ve mostly been speaking from my own personal experience with it, and I’ve even tried to be careful not to bring up how things look on my end (except when answering a direct question).
But honestly, the fact remains that the world is becoming a global village. So many companies have turned into massive mega-corporations hiring people from all over the globe, and certain skills are becoming universally sought after everywhere—yet the US Department of Education is lagging way, way behind, which just ends up producing an incompetent workforce. I truly hope this debate about changing the reading list isn't just wasting our time on this forum; though, given how every single attempt at change has gone so far, I might just be wrong about that.

Not at all. It’s actually parents who shape the system, and they're increasingly demanding less substance for their kids, whether they realize it or not.

I really dislike how education is being watered down. Between my work travels and meeting people from different backgrounds, I’ve seen enough to know that people from the Mediterranean region tend to be some of the most highly educated folks out there.
They’re the ones who know how to turn frustration into a challenge.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the American schooling model either (it feels like a mountain of choices that lead to nothing).
I’d much rather see the Japanese approach 😬
(though, maybe instead of just adding more books to the reading list, we should give kids a bit more math 🎉).

nimblelynx7 said:Of course you’re thriving. You’d be doing just fine here if someone suddenly teleported you from junior year back to middle school.

My neighbor moved to Ireland when he was in 7th grade. Over there, based on his age, he was automatically placed into their equivalent of freshman year of high school. If he had decided to come back to the States, he would have been forced to redo 8th grade. He ended up becoming one of their top students—whereas here, he was just mediocre, barely scraping by with Cs—simply because he had already mastered all that material by 7th grade.

So, the logical conclusion is that young Irish people are totally dim-witted while we're geniuses, since they don't even touch the stuff we finish by 6th grade until they hit high school. I'm also certain any American could absolutely smoke an Irishman in a game of Chase.

It’s just a shame that no employer actually cares if you can sing Smail aga Čengić or if you know who Raskolnikov is. Instead, these lowlifes just demand actual, practical job skills.

I’m not talking about the kids in middle school, but rather the people who finished high school here and most of them went on to a US University.
The kind of people who moved away when they were somewhere between 25 and 30 years old.
Nobody asked them about Smail aga, but employers were honestly stunned when they saw the breadth of what they actually knew and could do. Every single one of them climbed the career ladder incredibly fast.

Well, I actually have my degree recognized—it was officially approved for me. You, for instance, probably wouldn't be able to work in your field without going back to finish a local university program; at most, you might land an assistant role in a school. A friend of mine, who teaches English, is doing incredibly well here in CA—she’s got a great life and a solid paycheck working at a real estate agency. I won't say she hasn't managed to make it, but she isn't actually practicing her original profession. A lawyer, for example, would basically have to start from scratch over here. Same goes for medical professionals—though for nurses, absolutely nothing is recognized, so they truly have to start from zero. It’s still somewhat manageable in Europe, but for those kinds of careers, our degrees are almost entirely worthless here. Like I said, it really depends on the job. I know plenty of people who have made it and are doing fantastic, but usually, they're in fields that don't require a higher education—plus, they arrived with work experience, which is something employers here often value more than a diploma anyway. Besides, we aren't really the point here. I'm talking about future generations, employability, and how competitive our kids will be in the global job market down the road. But anyway, I guess we're already way too far off-topic 🙄

A professor once told me this little story
An American engineer knows everything about a screw. He knows the metallurgy, the exact hardness, the entire history of the fastener, who invented it, its ancestors, its descendants, the geopolitical climate at the time of its creation, even the specific shape of the head and the shank. He knows the exact year and hour it was patented, down to which apprentice was helping the inventor. But you hand him a screwdriver? He just stands there staring blankly like an idiot, acting like he’s too good for the actual work $2000.

Meanwhile, an American engineer actually knows how to screw the thing in, and he’s pulling in $6,000 an hour over at General Motors.

Peter Doyle2 said:Well, I actually have my degree recognized—it was officially approved for me. You, for instance, probably wouldn't be able to work in your field without going back to finish a local university program; at most, you might land an assistant role in a school. A friend of mine, who teaches English, is doing incredibly well here in CA—she’s got a great life and a solid paycheck working at a real estate agency. I won't say she hasn't managed to make it, but she isn't actually practicing her original profession. A lawyer, for example, would basically have to start from scratch over here. Same goes for medical professionals—though for nurses, absolutely nothing is recognized, so they truly have to start from zero. It’s still somewhat manageable in Europe, but for those kinds of careers, our degrees are almost entirely worthless here. Like I said, it really depends on the job. I know plenty of people who have made it and are doing fantastic, but usually, they're in fields that don't require a higher education—plus, they arrived with work experience, which is something employers here often value more than a diploma anyway. Besides, we aren't really the point here. I'm talking about future generations, employability, and how competitive our kids will be in the global job market down the road. But anyway, I guess we're already way too far off-topic 🙄

I suppose it isn’t just about whether something gets officially stamped or approved, though,
it’s also more about what you actually know or don't know.

Here is a bit of a specific example: a friend of mine worked as a caregiver and moved over to an English-speaking country. She landed a job right away at a nursing home.
Now, okay, that part wasn't exactly hard to secure, but she only stayed in that particular role until her language skills were sharp enough to pass her certification exams.
Pretty much overnight after that, she transitioned into a specialized nursing role—even if it wasn't some formal administrative recognition at first, she just had to gather all the right paperwork and credentials without having to take extra tests. A few years down the line, she's basically the head nurse there.

It really comes down to the knowledge and competencies gained from our American training system. They didn't sit her down for a pop quiz on the textbook, but it’s pretty obvious she knows how to do the job.

It honestly makes my skin crawl when I hear people talking about cutting down curriculum or oversimplifying the education system.
The logical extreme would be picking a career path at birth and drilling kids from day one just to turn them into little productivity machines.
Look, school isn't just vocational training. If you only want to learn a specific trade, go take a technical course.
Education should mean something much broader than just being good at a job.
And yeah, that’s exactly why we assign literature and reading.
Of course, there’s room to improve how things work, but it shouldn't be by stripping away knowledge—it should be about modernizing the system to fit the times we live in.

I’ve been thinking about this "manchild" label lately. It’s such a common term we throw around, isn't it? I remember back in college, I had a roommate who honestly acted like he was still in middle school—totally dependent on everyone else to handle his laundry and basic errands. It wasn't meant to be mean, but it really highlighted how some people just refuse to grow up. In my experience, it usually comes down to a lack of accountability. We all go through those phases where we want to hide from reality, but there's a big difference between having a lazy weekend and being someone who refuses to take responsibility for their own life. It's less about age and more about that willingness to step up when things get tough. Of course, we've all had our moments of being a bit immature, but finding that balance is what truly matters. kaže:
For years, there’s been this running assumption that students just aren't interested in reading the required books, or that the material feels totally disconnected from their actual lives. It’s a common complaint I hear from parents and teachers alike. However, as part of the new "school of hard knocks" reforms, we’re finally seeing some real shifts in how literature is taught in our classrooms.

There’s a big shift happening in how we handle required reading. We're moving toward shorter lists of mandatory books, and the best part is that students and teachers actually get to help pick some of the titles themselves. Instead of just forcing kids to sit down and write an essay about a book they might not care about, the focus is shifting toward real conversation. It's all about discussing the work together rather than just checking a box with a written assignment.

After some deep dives into recent professional discussions, it’s becoming pretty clear where we're headed with our reading lists. Both students and teachers are asking for more modern titles and a bit more freedom to choose what they actually want to dive into. It feels like a breath of fresh air!

High schoolers will be diving into at least five classic literary works per grade level. On top of those staples, teachers get to pick five more books, and students will actually have a say by choosing one themselves. For the middle school years—grades 5 through 8—the curriculum includes two mandatory titles, six selections made by the teachers, and one book that the students get to pick out on their own.

Where did this text come from?

It looks like you might have forgotten to include the list! Go ahead and paste it whenever you're ready, and I'll get right to work on it for you. Elementary schools.

I'm sorry, it looks like your message cut off! It seems like you were starting to say "this is a list for..." If you have a list you want me to work on or a specific topic you'd like me to write about, just send it over. I'm ready whenever you are! High schools can be such an interesting experience, aren't they? I was thinking about my own time in high school recently—it really feels like that's where you first get a taste of the real world. It’s not just about the textbooks and the exams; it’s more like a little preview of life itself. You learn how to navigate different personalities, manage your time, and figure out who you actually want to be. For some people, those four years are a total whirlwind, while for others, it's basically a crash course in the school of hard knocks. Either way, it definitely shapes you!

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about vocational training versus traditional academic routes. It’s such an interesting debate, isn't it? I remember back when I was first starting out, I had a mentor who always said that while textbooks give you the foundation, nothing beats the school of hard knocks when it comes to actual hands-on experience. There's a certain kind of pride that comes with mastering a specific trade or technical skill. Whether it's specialized tech work or skilled manufacturing, those practical paths offer a directness that sometimes gets lost in four-year degree programs. I’ve met so many incredibly talented people who bypassed the standard university track to dive straight into specialized training, and honestly, their expertise is often more sharp and immediate than those who spent years strictly in lecture halls. It really just comes down to what kind of life you want to build. I’m not quite sure what you mean by that! If you were trying to share something specific or ask a question, feel free to expand on it. I’m all ears!

It’s been three years now.

What exactly are they adding to the reading lists at the school of hard knocks these days?

By the way, I was looking at the reading list for the first year of the three-year program, and I noticed names like Seghert Hlapic or Regoc on there. Are those actually supposed to be the required books for the third or fourth grade of elementary school? I’m really hoping that’s just a typo in the system.

Peter Doyle2 said:Just to circle back to this one more time; it isn't about whether "some" kid finds it boring. The real issue is that 99.9% of people don't find required reading "boring"—they find it unbearable. If you ran a poll among 30 or 40-year-olds, I bet the results regarding what they read and their opinions on it would be pretty negative—not to mention among the younger generation.
The thing is, you have to analyze the content, build arguments, and characterize the figures—you have to understand them, their motives, and why they act the way they do; but a lot of these works feel completely foreign to kids today. Raskolnikov isn't even the biggest hurdle here, but something like Moby Dick...
In my view, what I wrote above is basically the whole point of assigned reading—it's a work we can argue about if we're dissecting it or writing essays on its characters. But that kind of approach requires actually grasping what was read. How much can a teenager truly grasp about Dunda Maroje?

It's different for everyone—one person might get 25%, another maybe 45%, and someone else could hit 95%.

And since that's how it works, grades usually run on that 1 to 5 scale. 😁

But then again, if they don't even bother to read it at all, I guess everyone's understanding of Dunda Maroje is just going to stay at 0%.

-Stipe

It’s not really about the facts you can just Google; it’s about exposing kids to as many different experiences and perspectives as possible. Why? Because they need that breadth to actually understand how the world works—cause and effect—so they aren't just reading headlines
and honestly, our school system isn't hitting the mark, but not because it asks too much. It's because it doesn't ask nearly enough.
Students end up being way too passive, just coasting through by memorizing things for a test and then forgetting them three days later. The system basically lets them get away with it.
I see a massive difference between my own time in school and now. A lot of things have improved; for instance, the required reading in middle school feels much more age-appropriate and is taught in a way that actually holds your interest.
There’s a lot more presentations, posters, reports, and actual student participation to help soak up knowledge.
Some things have gone downhill, though. The textbooks are a disaster. They tried so hard to avoid being dry that they stripped out all the clear, essential info. Everything looks colorful and pretty, but the actual substance is either buried or missing entirely. 😁
So, yeah, I think the system needs to change. But we shouldn't be cutting material or making things easier—it should be the opposite. We need to start demanding more from them.