Richard Perez3 said:Look, the point is that you read it.
It doesn't have to be fun.
If you want electricity, you gotta pay the bill. If you want to pay the bill, you need money. If you need money, you have to go earn it somehow. Whether you enjoyed doing it or not—that's beside the point. If your job sucks, bad luck, but you're still gonna do it because you need the paycheck, and you need the lights on. If you can make the job tolerable, or maybe, if you get lucky, actually interesting—hooray! If not, it'll suck, but you're still gonna grind through it because you need that freaking electricity. And nobody's gonna give a damn about how much you hate your job.
Or—you won't have electricity. Metaphorically speaking, you'll get an F on the reading assignment—a bad grade in English class—a failing grade—and you'll fail the grade. But you'll read the book if you want to pass the grade/earn your paycheck.
Honestly, I don't get why this is so hard to wrap your head around.
Sure, it doesn't have to be fun, but it actually needs to make sense to them.
A fifteen-year-old kid isn't mentally wired to tackle ancient epics or heavy historical dramas from centuries ago—just epic poems spanning thousands of verses. It’s simple: the kid is a hormone-driven mess, and honestly, they aren't getting anything out of it. They aren't even picking up those supposed life lessons about hard work or perseverance.
It’s just a waste of everyone's time because we’re too stubborn to change the system.
If we waited for a more reasonable age and let them start with realism or contemporary stuff—you know, starting high school with lighter genres like crime thrillers, suspense, or sci-fi short stories—we’d probably see much better engagement. Honestly, they’d probably get way more out of doing that kind of reading in their junior or senior year.
Otherwise, you don't even touch realism until eleventh grade, assuming you're lucky enough that your teacher actually gets through all that junk from antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Pre-Renaissance, Humanism, the Renaissance, the Baroque, Classicism, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and then the era of national rebirth. Man, what a grind. It’s only interesting to us because we spent our lives obsessing over it, which taught us to appreciate it, or maybe we’re just weirdos who like it.
It’s funny, though—take Mark Twain, for example. He didn't really master the nuances of formal English until he was older, but once he did, he was incredible because he had a natural gift for language. He actually sat down and worked through old texts to build his own vocabulary because he couldn't understand a word of it at first. He grew to love it, but think about it: he was an educated man in the 19th century who actually had the time to study William Shakespeare and those old masters. He had the drive and the intention. Even for him, pushing through that stuff had to be incredibly difficult.
Susan James said: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.
urbantinker8 said:yeah, I imagine those few transitional classes will end up repeating the curriculum, maybe at a more "advanced" level—you know, deeper character studies, actual debates, forming their own opinions... instead of just listing off characters and where or when the story takes place and all that stuff...
eventually it'll be dropped from middle school entirely and just stick around in high school.😁
though, I guess there isn't much room for a deep dive into characterization when you're dealing with those one-dimensional, black-and-white fairy tale archetypes.🙄
it's all pretty much a wash anyway.
There isn't some inherent "error" there. Fairy tales as a concept and a genre are way more complex than just binary characters and happy endings. You can actually use them for comparative analysis—looking at how the genre evolves. If we take modern fairy tales versus contemporary children's stories, we can sit down with kids and talk about writing styles, world-building, character development, and how traits aren't just "good vs. evil" anymore.
But you can't do that with an eleven-year-old.
They are light-years away from that whole "just read this damn William Shakespeare until your eyes bleed, you lazy bastards and your lazy parents too!" mentality.
Everything clicked for me after a colleague made a snarky comment about why students are forced to slog through such dense works right in the middle of puberty: "Whatever, screw it, let them pay the price now for everything I had to suffer through with those old books, those lazy pieces of work!"
Do you remember how American literature majors reacted to that kind of stuff back in the early 2000s? All those dramas modeled after the classics or folk traditions? When they had to dig through massive University Press dictionaries to find a single term, they’d throw total tantrums and whine like children, even though they literally chose this as their future career!
Don't lie to anyone here; it wasn't any different twenty years before my generation, and honestly, it’s even worse now because college students are working at a high school level. That rigorous academic grit you expect at the university level just isn't there anymore.
Then you get these people walking around with degrees in hand who don't know a thing because they spent half their lives in a state of academic trauma, and then they cling to that trauma like it's some prized possession. The ones who actually loved literature and put in the work up through the Romantic era (let's say Romanticism is the first stage where an average American lit major shows even a shred of passion) don't hold that idiotic view that this material should be shoved down a fifteen-year-old's throat. But that tiny minority seems non-existent. Or maybe they just don't want to fight the battle anymore, because they're fed up with the standards set by mediocre teachers, which inevitably produces mediocre students.
And please, don't even start with the questions about how they'll understand later periods without knowing the Classics or the Renaissance. They'll understand it—exactly how they're supposed to—through actual research and discovery, not just by having someone draw a timeline on a chalkboard or a PowerPoint slide.
