What's the point of required reading?

rowdypanther12 said:It’s less about the word count and more about how broad the scope is—Pinocchio feels like something meant for a second grader. Besides, weren't we just discussing literacy issues where so many kids in the second grade are still basically struggling to sound out words?
Say what you want, but a 200-page book isn't really an appropriate reading assignment for someone who just learned to read or is still fighting to get through a sentence.

Well, maybe not (which is probably why quite a few teachers skip over it altogether😉), but I still see people here suggesting things like HP or Lord of the Rings for elementary schoolers. So, suddenly hundreds of pages aren't an issue anymore?
I mean, okay, they probably wouldn't assign those to the little kids, but even so, those books are way longer than 200 pages.
I guess everyone here is being a bit contradictory, if you ask me.🕺

I don't think anyone actually suggested teaching Lord of the Rings to first through fourth graders, regardless of how much some people here tend to look down on fantasy literature.

rowdypanther12 said:I don't think anyone actually suggested teaching Lord of the Rings to first through fourth graders, regardless of how much some people here tend to look down on fantasy literature.

Well, maybe so. But even then, I just can't bring myself to believe that seventh graders would be genuinely thrilled about a 500-page required reading assignment, no matter what the subject matter happens to be.
Because at the end of the day, school reading is just school reading.
It’s an obligation, and it’s a chore by its very nature. You have to slog through the whole thing just so you can sit there and discuss it later. 🙂
I guess if someone is going to complain about Pinocchio, they’re probably going to find something to gripe about with just about anything else.
I really wish I were wrong about this, but unfortunately, I have a nagging feeling that I'm not.
Just comes from experience, I suppose.

Kate Cox2 said:

I find myself quite perplexed by this particular entry. It seems rather brief, almost skeletal in its composition! One does wonder what profound thoughts might have been intended behind such a minimalist expression, or perhaps it was simply a momentary lapse in digital communication? I shall remain poised for further elaboration. kaže:
He actually picked it up this past summer, and I have to say, he thoroughly enjoyed it!😉

I find myself quite preoccupied with the subject of chocolate cookies lately—truly, they have become an obsession! There is something about the chemistry of cocoa and sugar that strikes a chord within my soul. I was just reading a fascinating article about how certain artisanal bakeries in Seattle are elevating the standard recipe by using single-origin cacao, and it got me thinking about the sheer complexity of flavor profiles we often take for granted in our everyday snacks. I remember seeing a comment from Kate Cox2 regarding the importance of sea salt in dough, and I must say, I couldn't agree more! It is the subtle tension between the sweetness and the salinity that creates that sublime, lingering finish on the palate. Without it, one is merely eating sugar; with it, one is experiencing art. It brings to mind a rather long anecdote from my own kitchen experiments last Tuesday. I attempted to infuse my batch with a hint of espresso—much like what you might find at a high-end Starbucks—but I may have been a tad too heavy-handed with the grounds. The result was... robust, shall we say? Perhaps a bit too much "personality" for a casual afternoon snack. Nevertheless, the pursuit of the perfect cookie is a noble endeavor, wouldn't you all agree? It requires patience, precision, and perhaps a touch of madness. kaže:
What were the truly harrowing moments in Pinocchio? I remember being absolutely captivated by them when I was a little girl. 😁

I find myself quite preoccupied with the rhinoceros lately. It is such an imposing, singular creature, isn't it? There is something profoundly stoic about them—an almost heavy-hearted dignity that commands respect the moment they enter one's field of vision. I was reading a treatise on their social structures recently, and it struck me how much we can learn from their solitary nature. We live in such a loud, frantic world, constantly buzzing like hornets, yet here is this magnificent beast, moving through the brush with a quiet, unstoppable purpose. It makes one pause and reflect on the value of stillness. kaže:
It isn’t as if everyone actually has a Pinocchio; mine certainly didn't have one!
I believe she may have read it—though I can't say for certain—mostly because she keeps that particular book from the Planetoidia collection right at home. I seem to recall back in the day, we used to sit and read it to her quite often. Once she mastered her reading skills, she would dive into it all on her own!
I find this story to be truly beautiful. It honestly brings back such vivid memories from my own childhood. I simply cannot fathom why anyone would find this difficult to process; what exactly is the problem here?

The whole point of reading, isn't it, is to expand one's vocabulary? It stands to reason! Why on earth should we expect to walk away from a book knowing every single word already? That would defeat the entire purpose of picking up a book in the first place!

There are so many different versions out there, and honestly, it all comes down to whether the teacher knows which specific edition they want us using. In my case, my teacher used the version featuring Winnie the Pooh, but the classroom was split right down the middle—half the kids were reading one translation while the other half had another, and even the characters' names were inconsistent from book to book. It was quite a mess! Eventually, the teacher had to step in and write down exactly which edition everyone needed to follow to stay on the same page. 😬
I am of the firm belief that the situation with Peter Pan was quite similar—you know, with all those various different editions and versions floating around. Honestly, I find that particular story far more convoluted than even Pinocchio ever was for someone that age, so I can certainly see why some might not have experienced any specific childhood traumas from it. 🤷)

My apologies for the delayed response, but here it is...
Regarding what @frupy mentioned—honestly, I don't see the issue here at all! Even my own little one absolutely adored the story of Pinocchio. There is really nothing controversial about enjoying such a classic tale.

@nosorog, I have to say, my daughter was exactly the same way! Even back when she was only six years old, she’d be diving into books meant for third graders. It was quite a sight, really. Of course, there were countless words that flew right over her head—she didn't grasp half of them! But you know how children are; she would piece things together through context, ask me a question here or there, or sometimes she’d just let the confusing parts slide because, honestly, if it didn't impact the main plot, she simply didn't care to figure it out. She just wanted to get to the heart of the story!
There is a profound distinction between reading a book because it’s assigned for a class and reading one simply for the pure joy of it. When I am diving into a novel just for my own pleasure, I find myself quite willing to skim through a dense paragraph or even skip a page or two if the prose becomes exceptionally tedious. It is my time, after all! However, when you are tackling a required text for school, that luxury simply does not exist, does it? One must engage with the material in its entirety; you have to fully grasp every nuance and absorb the complete narrative if you ever hope to answer the professor's questions or participate meaningfully in a classroom discussion. You can't exactly take shortcuts when your grade depends on total comprehension!

There is another issue that has been weighing heavily on my mind lately—the whole matter of schoolwork. Generally speaking, I try to leave academic responsibilities entirely in my child’s hands. I firmly believe that if it is her duty, then it should be hers to manage, and I make a conscious effort not to interfere in her process. However, we hit a significant snag recently with a required reading assignment. To be perfectly honest, I had to step in because half of the book was simply over her head; she wouldn't have grasped the nuance or the context on her own. Now, don't get me wrong—it isn't that the material itself is difficult for me. We have always been a family of readers, and we spend a great deal of our time reading all sorts of things together. But this wasn't just leisure reading; this was strictly for school, which means it is technically *her* job to tackle. It creates such a strange dilemma for me! If my daughter usually handles everything independently, but this specific task requires an immense amount of my intervention and guidance just to make sense of it, then I struggle to see the point. What is the actual purpose of assigning something that necessitates parental hand-holding just to achieve the basic learning objective?
A handful of obscure terms...
- gunsmith
- planer
- ubiquitous
- accomplished
- sudden onset
- rascal
- woolen
- licking
- good fellow
- to grasp
- hypocritically
- yonder
- mire
- obstinate
- blessed
- dung
- to pull the wool over someone's eyes
- nonsense
- straw
- community
- to corner
-- just a few that I can recall. Most of them are defined at the end of the text, but you could flip through four or five pages searching for a single definition and find yourself stuck in an endless loop of looking things up until you're absolutely exhausted. To make matters worse, there were several words left unexplained entirely, and even Google couldn't identify what they meant. 😁
It doesn't really matter; my little one finished reading the story and wrote her book report, but that was more of a joint venture between the two of us, which honestly irritates me. While she was reading, she had moments of sheer despair unlike anything I've ever seen from her. Even though she eventually finished the book thinking the story was beautiful, she couldn't understand why teachers constantly assign such depressing stories for them to read... (it's like Pinocchio trying to sell a beginner's guide, for instance)
What really gets under my skin is that I simply don't understand why anyone would think this is a story intended for children who have only just started writing their own assignments. They were already reading and analyzing this together during class back in first grade.
Or perhaps other people are using a different translation, I haven't the slightest clue.

If you type "gormelj" into Google, it just shows pictures of lobsters. Btw, that was the first thing that popped into my head when I was trying to think of an American word to swap out for "ljudeskara." 🤔

I remember when we read "The Great Gatsby" and it also came with a list of old-fashioned terms at the end, so you had to keep looking things up. Stuff like Mazie, etc., etc.

Man, even your own language takes work to learn.

If I can pick up what "bff" and "wtf" mean, I'm pretty sure I can handle an American literature assignment, whether I've got help from my parents or just Google it myself.

I actually agreed about the primary school option—it seems like a questionable choice to me, though I guess it really comes down to which teachers end up picking it. Change moves so slowly around here that just getting Adrian Mole added feels like a huge step; at this rate, we'll probably be seeing Harry Potter in the curriculum in twenty years. 😂

By the way, did they ever finally pull that awful war diary from the syllabus?

urbantinker8 said:Honestly, I'm having a hard time seeing where the actual issue lies🤷
what you're describing doesn't seem like some kind of nightmare, and I suppose nobody has ever been harmed by looking things up in a dictionary or checking an interpretation.
as for why your child has this assigned as reading material in second grade, well, I guess you'd probably have to ask her teacher about that.
it seems like she decided, for whatever reason, that the kids could handle it without any trouble, so maybe it's better to seek clarification from her rather than from us.

I post on these forums and vent because I can—that doesn't mean I'm doing it in front of my child. I explained the exact same thing to her: that her teacher believes they are ready for this material and that it's perfectly fine for people their age. My daughter doesn't see the issues I'm highlighting, whereas I am writing this because I am genuinely frustrated with certain aspects of our American school system. And frankly, I am certain that as time passes and my little one moves up through the grades, I will encounter even more things that bother me. Having worked in a classroom for fifteen years, I have found many things about our educational framework to be indescribably foolish, and now that I am viewing it through the lens of a parent, it irritates me all the even more. Our system is flawed in most respects, and it is only held together by the wonderful teachers who go above and beyond to mitigate those shortcomings.
My child's teachers are incredibly sweet women who work themselves to the bone. However, this is their first professional workplace; it's their first time running a classroom, and you can tell in many instances that they lack concrete experience with certain problems or topics beyond what they learned in their textbooks. I don't hold it against them—they are young, they are learning, and at one point, we were all standing in front of classrooms without any experience ourselves.
I suppose she has a different perspective regarding Pinocchio and the reading list and what children are capable of. Children can do just about anything; the real question is whether it is necessary to expend such immense effort and struggle on a specific task, or if it would be better to wait for a later time when the task is easier to master.
I don't intend to complain about the reading list itself; these women are simply doing the best they know how to do. My frustration lies more with those who decided to include this on a second-grade syllabus in the first place.
And yes, I am absolutely certain that over the coming years, I will find myself complaining about school matters quite often... so many things are just poorly handled.

urbantinker8 said:Well, maybe not (which is probably why quite a few teachers skip over it altogether😉), but I still see people here suggesting things like HP or Lord of the Rings for elementary schoolers. So, suddenly hundreds of pages aren't an issue anymore?
I mean, okay, they probably wouldn't assign those to the little kids, but even so, those books are way longer than 200 pages.
I guess everyone here is being a bit contradictory, if you ask me.🕺

Look, there are middle school reading assignments that hit 300-400 pages easy. My kid actually just finished *Into the Wild*, or something like that. The book is around 320 pages, and the plot basically repeats itself four times. She loved the first 100 pages, but after that, she could barely finish it because it was just so boring. And this is a kid who actually loves reading! She'll definitely pick up reading as a hobby when she has the time.

urbantinker8 said:Well, maybe so. But even then, I just can't bring myself to believe that seventh graders would be genuinely thrilled about a 500-page required reading assignment, no matter what the subject matter happens to be.
Because at the end of the day, school reading is just school reading.
It’s an obligation, and it’s a chore by its very nature. You have to slog through the whole thing just so you can sit there and discuss it later. 🙂
I guess if someone is going to complain about Pinocchio, they’re probably going to find something to gripe about with just about anything else.
I really wish I were wrong about this, but unfortunately, I have a nagging feeling that I'm not.
Just comes from experience, I suppose.

You're wrong, though, because my colleague was using Bilbo Baggins with seventh graders. Of course, there will always be kids who refuse to engage—there's nothing a teacher can do for those types. Honestly, it rarely happens, and even then, it isn't just about the teacher; it's one of those rare moments where everything just clicks and actually touches a kid, if they aren't being totally difficult. As for the rest of them, they exist in this sort of limbo—they can still be persuaded and drawn in. But to do that, you really have to love teaching children. You have to step away from the #lowpay, #nightmareparents, and #excessivepaperwork every once in a while, just to actually do the job you chose in the first place.

And honestly, this whole condescending attitude toward fantasy and "lowbrow" genres isn't even worth commenting on. Even in professional academic circles, it's perfectly clear who thinks this kind of nonsense and why they're wrong.

urbantinker8 said:Finally, someone actually weighing in with some real expertise—unlike most people on this forum who just blow smoke about whatever happens to be on a middle school reading list today🙏>
but still.
we'll see what others have to say...🍿>

Majo, I mean, why on earth would you think that Ivo Andrić, Arthur Conan Doyle, a Raven-like writer, or Verne would actually grab a kid's attention these days?
Or maybe even more so than the other authors currently stuck in the curriculum?
I'm pretty certain they’d be just as bored to death by Verne's endless descriptions as they would be by Marcel Proust's long-winded reminiscences.🙂
Non-fiction, essays, literary criticism? For kids today, that sounds like a total nightmare. Maybe if the subject matter was all about bloggers, vloggers, or Instagram influencers, they might actually bite.

And besides, what's really the value in the works of Stephen King and J. R. R. Tolkien, and why should an educated person bother reading them?

I guess I should probably say something about what King said.😁
Stephen King isn't just some guy who draws monsters and clowns eating kids at birthday parties. I guess his books are actually about the real-life terrors we deal with every day. Take "It," for example—it’s such a great look at growing up in a tiny American town. It really digs into all those hidden neuroses bubbling under the surface of perfect white picket fences, tucked right between Sunday church services and weekend baseball games.

In *Rose Madder*, she captures psychological abuse in a marriage so subtly... honestly, I think it hits way harder than some gory clown movie.
Since we’re talking about refreshing the reading list, I guess Elif Shafak might be worth a look; maybe something like kopile Istanbul or tri Evin would actually keep high school seniors interested.

Maybe Herman Koch's "The Dinner" would work too. It’s pretty relevant to the political scene here in the States; basically about this politician trying to cover up a crime his adopted son committed. We could also throw in J.K. Rowling's "The Casual Vacancy." It’s a great look at all those racial and class divides in a small American town right before an election.

Maybe some Elena Ferrante. Or Zadie Smith. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Junot Diaz. Viktor Pelevin. Isabel Allende.🥱

There’s really no point in trying to convince anyone or explain myself anymore; I gave up on that a long time ago, though seeing that kind of exclusion still hurts deeply

rowdypanther12 said:There’s really no point in trying to convince anyone or explain myself anymore; I gave up on that a long time ago, though seeing that kind of exclusion still hurts deeply

That’s just nonsense. People build their own reading culture, and look, even I’m not some huge fan of pure fantasy—especially the modern stuff (and maybe I just don't have the patience to hunt for the right book myself, so feel free to DM me a recommendation)—but who am I to tell someone else what they "must" or "should" read?

Maybe ten kids in a class will head toward the humanities; they might find interest in it through their own hobbies, and some might even specialize in a specific field, era, or genre. The rest of the kids will go down different paths. It shouldn't be our goal to force them to read those classic canon works because, let's face it, they never will. The real goal is to help them develop their own literary taste, to make sure they stay readers, and to nurture that skill which benefits society as a whole. So, if the price is moving away from certain complete works or stopping the obsession with all those legendary authors and styles ranging from Romanticism to Realism, then so be it. Either we reorganize how we teach and ditch this rigid, linear approach to literary history, or we focus on teaching functional literacy and give them a chance to jump around between different eras.

My goal isn't to force anyone to read Judith. My goal is simply to keep them reading.

I was actually talking about Anthony Taylor393's attempt to explain King's value 😁 but it just doesn't work; you can't dismiss someone's potential worth just because of the genre they write in.
Sure, I think King's big blockbusters sometimes sacrifice quality—especially when it comes to the endings—but he is definitely a talented writer. Take Rose Madder, for example; that's the only book that truly helped me understand the mindset of an abused woman. It wasn't that I hadn't read other books, I just didn't get it before.
Then you have Tolkien, who built such a detailed world and passed it down beautifully through generations, or GRRM, whose character depth and heavy themes are incredible... yet all of that gets brushed aside just because there are elves and dragons involved. 😁
Don't even get me started on Gaiman and Kay; their prose is so beautiful it’s lovely to quote even in translation. 😂
But I don't want to sound like I'm just obsessing over fantasy or trying to force it into the conversation. Why aren't books like The Great Gatsby, Marquez (even if I can't stand him 😁), To Kill a Mockingbird, The Canterbury Tales, or Brave New World on the required reading lists? I could go on forever about books that I bet kids would find much more engaging—books that might actually contribute to their personal growth more than some standard stuff from the classics.

Animal Farm is easily one of the best books out there. It’s honestly terrifying how much it mirrors what’s going down in the world TODAY—it hits way too close to home.

The Little Prince—a total classic.

Thought I’d jump into this discussion, though honestly, I have more questions than answers. My kids aren't in the American school system, and over here, the whole concept of required reading for grades 1 through 4 is basically non-existent. Sure, they read, but there isn't a formal curriculum or a set list of books until about 5th grade. So, am I getting this right? Is there just a general list of suggested titles and then the teacher decides what their specific class will actually tackle? Or is that not how it works? Are there certain mandatory classics everyone has to plow through, while everything else is left up to personal preference? Can teachers even add their own picks to the list? And how is that list organized—is it just alphabetical, or does it follow a timeline from the Greeks to modern stuff? Or is there some deeper logic to it? In my experience, books are usually grouped by theme—like you'll have one set of titles for "coming of age" and another for "heroes and adventure."

We get a list from the Department of Education; a few titles are mandatory, and then teachers pick the rest from the provided options.
In high school, we organize it by semester, but honestly, I have no clue how they handle it in elementary school.😂

So I’m looking over the recommended reading list for 6th grade here in the States, and it’s divided into groups: some adapted classics—not the actual originals—fantasy stuff, and then those "young adult" novels. It’s got Harry Potter, Gulliver’s Travels, Jules Verne, Erich Kästner, Mark Twain, and a whole bunch of others I’ve never even heard of.

wanderingbadger44 said:It’s not like our local classics are garbage either.

But anyone who actually views literature as a fine art of language knows that those old staples aren't worth a single drop of ink when you look at them through a truly artistic lens.
They definitely serve a purpose in the history of American letters, but that role certainly isn't about being the pinnacle of literary greatness.

It's much the same way with Tolkien's standing in British circles.

Good grief, Tolkien. 🙂

I found that concept perfectly clear back in seventh grade, mostly because I had already been introduced to the soap opera genre. 😳

As follows:
Honestly, it’s quite pathetic when you see an educated adult putting pen to paper like that.😢

If someone genuinely fails to grasp that literature serves a purpose far beyond mere entertainment, I find myself at a loss. With all due respect—and please excuse my professional tendency toward an almost pathological level of patience when it comes to explaining things—I simply lack the will to sit here and break it down for them. Sorry.🤷

I am not asking what "literature" is for—an educated adult should already have a grasp on that. My question is specifically about what "required reading" serves in our lives. It is perfectly clear to me that both words start with an L and end with an A, yet they are hardly interchangeable. For instance, lactose also starts with an L and ends with an A, but I don’t see anyone using those terms as synonyms.

Is the fundamental purpose of literature to make us fall in love with language itself? Is it meant to let us inhabit someone else’s heartbreak, joy, or quiet resignations, using their experiences as a lens to better grasp our own and those around us? Perhaps the goal is to provide entire generations with a shared lexicon—a common set of cultural touchstones that acts as a social glue, allowing people to connect through a rhythmic, collective understanding where the prose of a stranger eventually feels intimately like one's own. Or is all of that unnecessary? Is a steady diet of top-40 pop, some classic country ballads, or a bit of Eminem enough to get the job done? If that's the case, why bother equipping ourselves with the intellectual tools required to read with depth and curiosity later in life? Or is the curriculum designed simply to expose us to a literary canon just so we can develop an immunity to it once we grow up?

I was under the impression we were talking about vaccinations, not an education.

If we lacked both the mental bandwidth and the actual desire for this kind of engagement, I assume we wouldn't be cluttering up Facebook and Snapchat with endless posts about Selimović, Kapor, or Andrić. We wouldn't be pairing that with the likes of Gibonni, Jolet, or Beyoncé, nor would we be busy reciting dialogue from Pulp Fiction or obsessing over Jelenak. We certainly wouldn't be rushing to binge-watch entire series the second they drop just so we have something to dissect on social media during our breaks.

rowdypanther12 said:It’s less about the word count and more about how broad the scope is—Pinocchio feels like something meant for a second grader. Besides, weren't we just discussing literacy issues where so many kids in the second grade are still basically struggling to sound out words?
Say what you want, but a 200-page book isn't really an appropriate reading assignment for someone who just learned to read or is still fighting to get through a sentence.

Of course it isn't. I suspect part of the issue lies in the fact that many educators, once they receive their credentials, are just relieved they no longer have to be students themselves.

If teachers actually engaged in lifelong learning—if an elementary school teacher occasionally picked up a Walt Disney comic in a language they didn't study in college, if a history teacher took up basic coding, if a math teacher learned to play the ukulele or hosted a premiere reading of Charles Dickens, if an English teacher delved into animation studies or even learned how to fix a leaky faucet, or if a foreign language instructor embarked on a journey to learn Japanese—they would possess far more empathy for their students. They would intimately understand the friction of tackling something entirely foreign. They would know how to smooth out that process for themselves, which would likely make them better at facilitating it for their pupils. They would know exactly what it feels like to abandon a Coursera course because you lack the motivation, you missed a quiz, your partner isn't texting you back, and suddenly, Art History feels like a very low priority.

Furthermore, they would spend less time complaining about dictionaries; nobody has ever died from looking up a definition, yet they rarely experience firsthand how much constant interruption kills the rhythmic flow of prose. Back in elementary school, I tried reading Dorian Gray and gave up the moment I realized I wasn't actually reading a novel, but rather maintaining a logbook of unfamiliar terms. Try reading Elena Ferrante instead of Petrarch if you have a handle on Italian, and you'll see that looking up a word isn't a fatal offense.

Naturally, it would also help if the average teacher actually understood the science of learning and stayed current with modern pedagogical findings, but simple, continuous personal experience would go a long way too.

Kate Cox2 said:I post on these forums and vent because I can—that doesn't mean I'm doing it in front of my child. I explained the exact same thing to her: that her teacher believes they are ready for this material and that it's perfectly fine for people their age. My daughter doesn't see the issues I'm highlighting, whereas I am writing this because I am genuinely frustrated with certain aspects of our American school system. And frankly, I am certain that as time passes and my little one moves up through the grades, I will encounter even more things that bother me. Having worked in a classroom for fifteen years, I have found many things about our educational framework to be indescribably foolish, and now that I am viewing it through the lens of a parent, it irritates me all the even more. Our system is flawed in most respects, and it is only held together by the wonderful teachers who go above and beyond to mitigate those shortcomings.
My child's teachers are incredibly sweet women who work themselves to the bone. However, this is their first professional workplace; it's their first time running a classroom, and you can tell in many instances that they lack concrete experience with certain problems or topics beyond what they learned in their textbooks. I don't hold it against them—they are young, they are learning, and at one point, we were all standing in front of classrooms without any experience ourselves.
I suppose she has a different perspective regarding Pinocchio and the reading list and what children are capable of. Children can do just about anything; the real question is whether it is necessary to expend such immense effort and struggle on a specific task, or if it would be better to wait for a later time when the task is easier to master.
I don't intend to complain about the reading list itself; these women are simply doing the best they know how to do. My frustration lies more with those who decided to include this on a second-grade syllabus in the first place.
And yes, I am absolutely certain that over the coming years, I will find myself complaining about school matters quite often... so many things are just poorly handled.

Good grief, give me a break.
But you should probably just go into this expecting that not everyone is going to come up to you and offer a sympathetic pat on the back or try to shoulder the weight of whatever you're feeling, because, I guess, people don't always have the capacity to carry someone else's grief, no matter how massive it might seem.🙂

I suppose I should probably mention that I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately, though I can't say I have any definitive answers, just some vague, drifting impressions that seem to settle in my mind whenever things get too quiet. It feels like one of those slow, rainy afternoons in Seattle where you just sort of sit with your thoughts and let them wander without much direction, I guess. Maybe it's just me, or maybe there's something more to it, but I find myself circling back to these same ideas over and over again, almost like a song you can't quite shake from your head. It's a strange sensation, really—this feeling of being caught between wanting to understand everything and just accepting that most things remain somewhat blurry, which, if I'm being honest, might be the most natural way to exist, anyway. urbantinker8 says:
I suppose I should probably start by saying that I don't usually weigh in on these kinds of things, but lately, I’ve been thinking about how much our reading habits change depending on where we live, or maybe just how much they change as we get older, which is a bit of a depressing thought if I'm being honest. It feels like there's this constant pressure to keep up with whatever the latest bestseller is, though I find myself drifting more toward the classics or maybe just rereading things I already know by heart, because there's a certain comfort in knowing exactly how a story ends, isn't there? I was talking to urbantinker8 the other day—well, I wasn't really talking to them so much as just observing their take on the current literary scene—and it made me wonder if we all just crave that same sense of predictability, even if we pretend we want something groundbreaking and experimental. Maybe it's just me, though, and I'm just getting old and tired, but I think there's a quiet beauty in the books that don't try too hard to be important, you know?

I suppose I really ought to say something regarding that mention of King.😁
I guess people tend to write Stephen King off as just some guy who illustrates monsters and clowns that snack on kids at birthday parties, but I don't know, maybe that's missing the point entirely. If you actually sit down with his novels, he’s really more interested in dissecting those quiet, creeping anxieties we all deal with in our everyday lives. Take "It," for example; to me, it feels like this incredibly deep study of childhood and that awkward transition into adolescence in a typical small-town American setting. It’s less about the creature itself and more about the hidden neuroses simmering right beneath the surface of those pristine white houses with their perfect lawns, tucked away between Sunday morning church services and weekend trips to the local baseball field.

In her novel *Rose Madder*, Stephen King manages to capture this incredibly subtle, creeping sense of psychological abuse within a marriage, which, if you ask me, feels far more visceral and unsettling than any story about bloody clowns could ever hope to be.
Since we’re already on the subject of refreshing the required reading list, I was just sitting here thinking that maybe Elif Shafak could be a good addition; I suppose something like kopile Istanbul or tri Evin might actually hold the interest of high school seniors.

I suppose Herman Koch’s *The Dinner* might fit the bill here too. It feels like something that would resonate quite deeply within the American political landscape, especially given how it follows a politician desperately trying to sweep his adopted son's crimes under the rug. Then again, maybe we could look at *The Casual Vacancy* by J. K. Rowling instead. It offers such an interesting cross-section of characters navigating those deep-seated racial and class divisions in a quiet little American town just as an election is looming.

Maybe I could pick up something by Elena Ferrante, or perhaps Zadie Smith. Then again, there’s Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, or maybe Junot Diaz. I suppose I could also dive into Viktor Pelevin, or even Isabel Allende, if I were feeling particularly inclined toward that sort of thing.

I think you really nailed everything you wrote there.
I mean, honestly, if you actually tried to feed those kinds of headlines to kids, you’d probably have a mob of furious parents banging on the faculty lounge door within forty-eight hours.
100%.
I mean, I guess there’s just no reason to go around exposing their kids to those kinds of heavy stories—you know, all that intense stuff about someone's trauma, or abuse, or actual crimes. It feels like maybe we should just leave them out of it.
I mean, I guess you have to wonder what kind of school actually subjects children to those kinds of horrors... it really makes you think about the environment they're being raised in.😲

rowdypanther12 said:There’s really no point in trying to convince anyone or explain myself anymore; I gave up on that a long time ago, though seeing that kind of exclusion still hurts deeply

I suppose I should probably mention that SummerNight was here, though I can't quite decide if they were being particularly profound or just lost in thought, which, to be fair, is a distinction that often feels a bit blurry to me anyway. It’s funny how those moments pass, I guess. Maybe it's just the way the light hits the street in places like Chicago or maybe it's just my own wandering mind, but there's always this sense of something lingering, something unsaid, that stays with you longer than the actual conversation does. I find myself drifting back to those thoughts quite often, really. kaže:
I guess I was just sort of pointing toward that one attempt by some random jerk to try and explain why King is actually worth reading. 😁 It just doesn’t work, I suppose, when someone decides to dismiss potential value from the get-go simply because they have some preconceived notions about a specific genre. It feels a bit futile, maybe, trying to argue for quality when the judgment is already closed off based on something as arbitrary as what category the writing falls into.

My dear. I suppose there’s something about the way summer just sortically settles over everything, isn't there? It’s that heavy, humid stillness you get in places like Atlanta or maybe somewhere deep in the South, where the air feels less like gas and more like a warm, damp blanket you didn't ask for but have to live with anyway. I was sitting on my porch the other day, just watching the heat shimmer off the asphalt, and I found myself thinking about how much we all rush to get through it—the sweating, the sunburns, the constant hunt for air conditioning—only to spend the entire winter moping about the lack of sunlight. It’s a strange, cyclical sort of madness, I guess. Maybe it’s just the light, though. There's a specific quality to an American July afternoon, where the shadows stretch out long and lazy, and for a moment, everything feels like it might actually stay still if you just breathe deeply enough. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.I wouldn't say I'm being exclusive at all when it comes to what I read, really. If anything, I’m quite the opposite, I guess.
I guess what—I’ve realized I actually quite like Stephen King.😲
Just because I personally found Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings to be total disasters doesn't mean I wouldn't let my kids pick them up and give them a go, I guess; it might actually be a decent way for them to develop their own perspectives and figure out what they think about those kinds of stories.
I suppose I should probably point out that most people don't really have a clue how today’s teenagers actually feel about reading, or rather, how they don't feel about it, and honestly, I don't think blaming school reading lists is the whole story. It feels like there's more to it than just assigned books, maybe... I guess you also have to look at how little reading happens at home, combined with this constant stream of instant information they're fed every second, and then there's the general social atmosphere surrounding education and literacy in general, which I suspect plays a pretty significant role too.
I suppose one could just recite things from memory, without really bothering to look at how things actually stand in reality. It feels like it’s all quite irrelevant, honestly—the actual facts or the current state of affairs don't seem to matter much in the grand scheme of things, I guess. I suppose I should probably mention that vasa... Kids, you honestly just don't have a clue how things actually work in a classroom.
I suppose I could go on rambling about the specific ways I’d overhaul the diagnostic protocols and treatment plans for certain illnesses I’ve personally dealt with, but then again, I’m hardly a doctor, am I? It’s not like I’m planning to start practicing medicine on myself, nor would I dream of posting some kind of one-size-fits-all medical manifesto here intended for the general public to follow blindly.

I was just sitting here thinking about how much we rely on those little comforts, you know? I guess it’s funny how certain things just stick with you, like that one specific feeling when you finally finish a heavy book and you're just staring at the wall for twenty minutes trying to process everything. It reminds me of how people talk about literature—how we look for ourselves in the pages of a novel, searching for some kind of connection to a character's struggle or their quietest moments. Maybe that's why authors like Zadie Smith or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie resonate so much; they have this way of capturing the messy, unvarnished reality of being human, which I suppose is what we're all really looking for when we pick up a book in the first place. It's a bit of a rabbit hole, isn't it? Anyway, I was just mulling over that while having my coffee, wondering if we ever truly find what we're looking for in stories, or if we're just looking for a temporary escape from the noise of everyday life. I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking it. urbantinker8 says:
Of course it isn't. I suppose part of the issue stems from the fact that many educators, once they finally wrapped up their degrees, were just relieved to be done with the studying part of life, maybe feeling like they could finally breathe now that the textbooks were closed.

I suppose if educators actually took the time to learn something new every once in a while—you know, if an elementary school teacher occasionally picked up some obscure comic book written in a script they never studied in college, or if a history teacher decided to dive into basic coding, or if that math teacher spent their weekends learning the ukulele or finally tackling a Dickens novel—things might be different. Maybe even if an English teacher dabbled in animation studies or learned how to fix a leaky toilet, or if a foreign language instructor suddenly embarked on a journey to learn Japanese... I feel like they would have so much more empathy for their students. It seems to me that experiencing the struggle of being a total beginner at something completely foreign would bring them closer to what their pupils are going through. They’d understand the mechanics of making learning easier for oneself, which would probably mean they'd be better at guiding students through it, too. They would actually get what it feels like to abandon a MOOC halfway through because you just can't face it anymore, or because you missed a quiz, or maybe because your partner isn't texting you back and, honestly, art history just isn't your priority in that moment. It’s just a thought, I guess.

I honestly don't think anyone has ever actually died from looking up definitions in a dictionary, though I suppose people rarely realize how much it kills the actual rhythm and flow of the prose. Back in middle school, I tried reading Dorian Gray, but I eventually just gave up once I realized I wasn't really reading a book so much as I was maintaining a running log of unfamiliar words in a notebook. Maybe try reading someone like Elena Ferrante instead of Petrarch if you have any grasp of the language, and you'll see that nobody is dropping dead from checking a dictionary every few minutes.

It would probably help if the average teacher actually understood how people learn—you know, by following modern cognitive science—but then again, even just having some consistent, hands-on experience would go a long way.

which is just more proof of how out of touch everyone is with all these supposedly "innovative" methods, outcomes, and nonsense they keep shoving down our throats at every workshop and seminar we attend.

If other professions were subjected to this kind of constant "professional development" across the country, things might actually be blooming. 😍
It’s a shame, really; I guess teachers can't pull all the magic out of thin air. 🙂

And manchild, what a little prince, seriously.
Aside from Alice, that's the one book from my middle school days I'd toss out without a second thought.
boooooring 🥱
damn. I liked that kid from Sutla way better than those two little essays. 🤣

urbantinker8 said:Good grief, give me a break.
But you should probably just go into this expecting that not everyone is going to come up to you and offer a sympathetic pat on the back or try to shoulder the weight of whatever you're feeling, because, I guess, people don't always have the capacity to carry someone else's grief, no matter how massive it might seem.🙂

I suppose I should probably mention that I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately, though I can't say I have any definitive answers, just some vague, drifting impressions that seem to settle in my mind whenever things get too quiet. It feels like one of those slow, rainy afternoons in Seattle where you just sort of sit with your thoughts and let them wander without much direction, I guess. Maybe it's just me, or maybe there's something more to it, but I find myself circling back to these same ideas over and over again, almost like a song you can't quite shake from your head. It's a strange sensation, really—this feeling of being caught between wanting to understand everything and just accepting that most things remain somewhat blurry, which, if I'm being honest, might be the most natural way to exist, anyway. urbantinker8 says:
I suppose I should probably start by saying that I don't usually weigh in on these kinds of things, but lately, I’ve been thinking about how much our reading habits change depending on where we live, or maybe just how much they change as we get older, which is a bit of a depressing thought if I'm being honest. It feels like there's this constant pressure to keep up with whatever the latest bestseller is, though I find myself drifting more toward the classics or maybe just rereading things I already know by heart, because there's a certain comfort in knowing exactly how a story ends, isn't there? I was talking to urbantinker8 the other day—well, I wasn't really talking to them so much as just observing their take on the current literary scene—and it made me wonder if we all just crave that same sense of predictability, even if we pretend we want something groundbreaking and experimental. Maybe it's just me, though, and I'm just getting old and tired, but I think there's a quiet beauty in the books that don't try too hard to be important, you know?

I suppose I really ought to say something regarding that mention of King.😁
I guess people tend to write Stephen King off as just some guy who illustrates monsters and clowns that snack on kids at birthday parties, but I don't know, maybe that's missing the point entirely. If you actually sit down with his novels, he’s really more interested in dissecting those quiet, creeping anxieties we all deal with in our everyday lives. Take "It," for example; to me, it feels like this incredibly deep study of childhood and that awkward transition into adolescence in a typical small-town American setting. It’s less about the creature itself and more about the hidden neuroses simmering right beneath the surface of those pristine white houses with their perfect lawns, tucked away between Sunday morning church services and weekend trips to the local baseball field.

In her novel *Rose Madder*, Stephen King manages to capture this incredibly subtle, creeping sense of psychological abuse within a marriage, which, if you ask me, feels far more visceral and unsettling than any story about bloody clowns could ever hope to be.
Since we’re already on the subject of refreshing the required reading list, I was just sitting here thinking that maybe Elif Shafak could be a good addition; I suppose something like kopile Istanbul or tri Evin might actually hold the interest of high school seniors.

I suppose Herman Koch’s *The Dinner* might fit the bill here too. It feels like something that would resonate quite deeply within the American political landscape, especially given how it follows a politician desperately trying to sweep his adopted son's crimes under the rug. Then again, maybe we could look at *The Casual Vacancy* by J. K. Rowling instead. It offers such an interesting cross-section of characters navigating those deep-seated racial and class divisions in a quiet little American town just as an election is looming.

Maybe I could pick up something by Elena Ferrante, or perhaps Zadie Smith. Then again, there’s Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, or maybe Junot Diaz. I suppose I could also dive into Viktor Pelevin, or even Isabel Allende, if I were feeling particularly inclined toward that sort of thing.

I think you really nailed everything you wrote there.
I mean, honestly, if you actually tried to feed those kinds of headlines to kids, you’d probably have a mob of furious parents banging on the faculty lounge door within forty-eight hours.
100%.
I mean, I guess there’s just no reason to go around exposing their kids to those kinds of heavy stories—you know, all that intense stuff about someone's trauma, or abuse, or actual crimes. It feels like maybe we should just leave them out of it.
I mean, I guess you have to wonder what kind of school actually subjects children to those kinds of horrors... it really makes you think about the environment they're being raised in.😲

I suppose I should probably mention that SummerNight was here, though I can't quite decide if they were being particularly profound or just lost in thought, which, to be fair, is a distinction that often feels a bit blurry to me anyway. It’s funny how those moments pass, I guess. Maybe it's just the way the light hits the street in places like Chicago or maybe it's just my own wandering mind, but there's always this sense of something lingering, something unsaid, that stays with you longer than the actual conversation does. I find myself drifting back to those thoughts quite often, really. kaže:
I guess I was just sort of pointing toward that one attempt by some random jerk to try and explain why King is actually worth reading. 😁 It just doesn’t work, I suppose, when someone decides to dismiss potential value from the get-go simply because they have some preconceived notions about a specific genre. It feels a bit futile, maybe, trying to argue for quality when the judgment is already closed off based on something as arbitrary as what category the writing falls into.

My dear. I suppose there’s something about the way summer just sortically settles over everything, isn't there? It’s that heavy, humid stillness you get in places like Atlanta or maybe somewhere deep in the South, where the air feels less like gas and more like a warm, damp blanket you didn't ask for but have to live with anyway. I was sitting on my porch the other day, just watching the heat shimmer off the asphalt, and I found myself thinking about how much we all rush to get through it—the sweating, the sunburns, the constant hunt for air conditioning—only to spend the entire winter moping about the lack of sunlight. It’s a strange, cyclical sort of madness, I guess. Maybe it’s just the light, though. There's a specific quality to an American July afternoon, where the shadows stretch out long and lazy, and for a moment, everything feels like it might actually stay still if you just breathe deeply enough. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.I wouldn't say I'm being exclusive at all when it comes to what I read, really. If anything, I’m quite the opposite, I guess.
I guess what—I’ve realized I actually quite like Stephen King.😲
Just because I personally found Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings to be total disasters doesn't mean I wouldn't let my kids pick them up and give them a go, I guess; it might actually be a decent way for them to develop their own perspectives and figure out what they think about those kinds of stories.
I suppose I should probably point out that most people don't really have a clue how today’s teenagers actually feel about reading, or rather, how they don't feel about it, and honestly, I don't think blaming school reading lists is the whole story. It feels like there's more to it than just assigned books, maybe... I guess you also have to look at how little reading happens at home, combined with this constant stream of instant information they're fed every second, and then there's the general social atmosphere surrounding education and literacy in general, which I suspect plays a pretty significant role too.
I suppose one could just recite things from memory, without really bothering to look at how things actually stand in reality. It feels like it’s all quite irrelevant, honestly—the actual facts or the current state of affairs don't seem to matter much in the grand scheme of things, I guess. I suppose I should probably mention that vasa... Kids, you honestly just don't have a clue how things actually work in a classroom.
I suppose I could go on rambling about the specific ways I’d overhaul the diagnostic protocols and treatment plans for certain illnesses I’ve personally dealt with, but then again, I’m hardly a doctor, am I? It’s not like I’m planning to start practicing medicine on myself, nor would I dream of posting some kind of one-size-fits-all medical manifesto here intended for the general public to follow blindly.

I was just sitting here thinking about how much we rely on those little comforts, you know? I guess it’s funny how certain things just stick with you, like that one specific feeling when you finally finish a heavy book and you're just staring at the wall for twenty minutes trying to process everything. It reminds me of how people talk about literature—how we look for ourselves in the pages of a novel, searching for some kind of connection to a character's struggle or their quietest moments. Maybe that's why authors like Zadie Smith or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie resonate so much; they have this way of capturing the messy, unvarnished reality of being human, which I suppose is what we're all really looking for when we pick up a book in the first place. It's a bit of a rabbit hole, isn't it? Anyway, I was just mulling over that while having my coffee, wondering if we ever truly find what we're looking for in stories, or if we're just looking for a temporary escape from the noise of everyday life. I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking it. urbantinker8 says:
Of course it isn't. I suppose part of the issue stems from the fact that many educators, once they finally wrapped up their degrees, were just relieved to be done with the studying part of life, maybe feeling like they could finally breathe now that the textbooks were closed.

I suppose if educators actually took the time to learn something new every once in a while—you know, if an elementary school teacher occasionally picked up some obscure comic book written in a script they never studied in college, or if a history teacher decided to dive into basic coding, or if that math teacher spent their weekends learning the ukulele or finally tackling a Dickens novel—things might be different. Maybe even if an English teacher dabbled in animation studies or learned how to fix a leaky toilet, or if a foreign language instructor suddenly embarked on a journey to learn Japanese... I feel like they would have so much more empathy for their students. It seems to me that experiencing the struggle of being a total beginner at something completely foreign would bring them closer to what their pupils are going through. They’d understand the mechanics of making learning easier for oneself, which would probably mean they'd be better at guiding students through it, too. They would actually get what it feels like to abandon a MOOC halfway through because you just can't face it anymore, or because you missed a quiz, or maybe because your partner isn't texting you back and, honestly, art history just isn't your priority in that moment. It’s just a thought, I guess.

I honestly don't think anyone has ever actually died from looking up definitions in a dictionary, though I suppose people rarely realize how much it kills the actual rhythm and flow of the prose. Back in middle school, I tried reading Dorian Gray, but I eventually just gave up once I realized I wasn't really reading a book so much as I was maintaining a running log of unfamiliar words in a notebook. Maybe try reading someone like Elena Ferrante instead of Petrarch if you have any grasp of the language, and you'll see that nobody is dropping dead from checking a dictionary every few minutes.

It would probably help if the average teacher actually understood how people learn—you know, by following modern cognitive science—but then again, even just having some consistent, hands-on experience would go a long way.

which is just more proof of how out of touch everyone is with all these supposedly "innovative" methods, outcomes, and nonsense they keep shoving down our throats at every workshop and seminar we attend.

If other professions were subjected to this kind of constant "professional development" across the country, things might actually be blooming. 😍
It’s a shame, really; I guess teachers can't pull all the magic out of thin air. 🙂

And manchild, what a little prince, seriously.
Aside from Alice, that's the one book from my middle school days I'd toss out without a second thought.
boooooring 🥱
damn. I liked that kid from Sutla way better than those two little essays. 🤣

Why on earth would you think I care, or that anyone has any business sharing in my grief?🤔
And why on earth would you assume I’m sad? I am not sad—I am absolutely incensed by our American school system! I came here specifically to voice my frustrations, and since the topic has already been opened, I intend to use this space to say exactly what is on my mind.
You really don't have to read them; please, feel free to just skip right over my posts if you'd like!