As a requirement for a high school diploma, I believe U.S. high school

[saltpoint]

students should be required to read a minimum of 50 short stories over the course of their high school senior year.

IMO the canon should include classics by Flannery O'Connor and Faulkner, for example, selections from international short story writers, preferably from as wide a world geography as possible, a few contemporary pieces written in the last 10-15 years, and then maybe 5 more selected by their individual classroom teachers from any and all of the above genres.

At this hour the number of short stories most U.S. citizens read per year is very near '0.'

The percentage of short fiction U.S. citizens read after assigned reading in high school is generally '0' as well, or at least I suspect that's very close.

From late August to June of their senior year, I do not believe it would asking too much for 18- and 19-year olds to read 50 short stories. It might help connect them to their country, its history and its people, and to learn of people of other times and places.

It would be eye-opening and it would be fun.

[BlooInBloo]

1. Um.... educated Americans would seriously impact my low-effort job security....

So I vote no to this.

[saltpoint]

3. : ) Hi, BlooInBloo.

Well, hold on. Each school district could have coordinators for this addition to the curriculum.

What say you took one of those jobs, at say, 10% greater than your current salary?

[BlooInBloo]

10. Meh. To deal with people with education degrees? You'd have to make it +50%.

[saltpoint]

72. You drive a hard bargain. Ok. We'll make it plus-50, but then you

have to coach cross country. Deal?

[BlooInBloo]

74. Whoa. I'm not big into running unless scoring points is involved (basketball, football...)...

I'll give it my best tho!

[saltpoint]

75. Good. Our Instant Tenure Program kicks in after the Hallowe'en Party.

Welcome aboard!

[Obamanaut]

2. That would cut into the time currently being spent on learning to

darken ovals related to NCLB testing.

[saltpoint]

13. You've found me out, Obamanaut. I'd love to see every one of those

standardized tests shredded and dumped as mulch into the deepest pit on earth.

[Obamanaut]

20. Our local high school (one in my small town) has a regular class

period devoted to preparation for taking these tests. I suggested to a school board member, and a guy running for school superintendent last year that we might be better served by teaching actual material and let the tests take care of themselves. I rec'd an eye roll in return.

This, in spite of having a HS completion rate of only 71%.

[saltpoint]

33. Your instincts, it seems to me, were totally right on. Shame on that

board member for being such a stick in the mud.

I'd love to see a national trend sharply away from standardized testing.

[jobycom]

4. Why? Don't seniors have enough homework to lie about having done already?

[donco6]

5. Yeah, because HS teachers are here to solve all your problems.

Sigh.

Sorry, but we just got handed yet *another* curriculum mandate from our state legislature this year - "financial literacy." Now we have to teach all kids how to use a checkbook and how not to get into too much credit card debt.

Do parents teach kids *anything* anymore?

[saltpoint]

29. Some clarity of tasks could be arranged whereby students demonstrate

mastery over these things such that they would not have to re-take the same things in the school curriculum.

That would not only lighten the burden of already-overworked (and underpaid teachers) but would involve parents in their kids' learning and elevate the frequency and scope of what it means to be 18 or 19 years old.

[Suji to Seoul]

78. Worse thing most kids can have is a parent, because parents are morons

I was an educator in the States before I ex-patted.

Parents don't care about their kids. Then they wonder why their kids are whiny, selfish, self-absorbed and narcissistic and nilhilistic. Because they parents are the same way.

[depakid]

6. Could you even find 50 stories that the fundies wouldn't object to?

[saltpoint]

16. I doubt it. Very good point. They'd shriek over the slightest provocation

without realizing that it's the provocation that makes fiction so potent.

I'd have to recommend that the fundies be rounded up and institutionalized so that unfettered text selection could proceed.

[rrneck]

25. +1

The only fiction they want taught is their own.

[Bucky]

76. But if it's 50, you could throw in 5-10 fundy stories (like O Henry's Gift of the Magi)

or a bible tale or two, and everyone gets a slice of the pie. That would be very representative & inclusive & thus very American.

[saltpoint]

77. That's a fair approach, Bucky, and it put me in the mind of Golding's

LORD OF THE FLIES, which is a Judeo-Christian allegory.

It's possible to read it as an adventure tale, and a pretty grizzly one at that. But at its heart it's a Judeo-Christian allegory, a case where it could be added to a list of 50 or so and fit right in.

And the Bible as Literature is crucial. I've found that a lot of secular folks know the Bible far better than the fundies yelping it from the streetcorners.

[JerseygirlCT]

99. I always liked that O'Henry story... nt

[REP]

122. O Henry is a lot of things, but 'fundy' isn't one of them

'Gift of the Magi' has been made over into treacle that would have appalled Henry (and I had to have him forced down my throat by my brother, who hadn't suffered Magi-poisoning yet and therefore could read Henry for what it is).

[H2O Man]

7. Reading skills are essential.

I think it's sad that anyone would read less than 50 good books in a year.

[MrModerate]

26. At one a week, that's actually quite a load for an employed person . . .

I read about 30, but they aren't all *good*. And like most readers, IMO, I read to read, not to tick off boxes on any virtue checklist.

[H2O Man]

79. "virtue checklist"

Ha! I like that. I hear you.

I read entirely for pleasure. And that translates largely into reading what I find interesting, and hopefully educational. For whatever reasons, for example, I have not read short stories or any fiction since it was assigned in school -- that old checklist business.

Being retired allows me the time to read much more than I did when employed. And, over the years, there were periods when I either worked full-time and went to school part-time; worked a full- and a part-time job; or worked two full-time jobs (and been a parent to four children, which is certainly "full-time). But I always found time to read a lot. I don't think I've read less than 50 books per year, since perhaps grade school.

Most good books last me about one afternoon/evening. A longer book, such as Bugliosi's on the JFK case, can certainly take a week.

Your point is well-taken. To each their own.

[Nikia]

8. We read short stories as part of my high school curriculm

It seems that we did this most in 10th grade, as 12th grade seemed to be more about English poetry and the plays of Shakespere. While is some good short fiction out there, I much prefer the novel. Even though I read, on average, about one book per week, I don't think I have read a short fiction this year in part because I have mostly been disappointed when I have in the past.

[depakid]

11. Try this one

The Toys of Peace
by Saki (H. H. Munro)

http://haytom.us/showarticle.php?id=85

[Orangeone]

36. I love Saki! nt

[depakid]

40. That's an especially good one

it's very short, and if you know a little about the author, his life and how he died- it's all the more poignant.

`Lots of fertile ground for discussion there.

[Orangeone]

42. Yes that was a good story

Whatever toy the uncle bought for his nephews they would turn into war toys :)

He died in World War one, very sad

[saltpoint]

14. I prefer the novel too, but we'd be asking them for their

concentration at a point in their lives when they are least willing to give it.

In the bout between hormones and Hemingway, hormones are undefeated.

[janx]

45. I disagree. Hormones and Hemingway can live together.

I am an old yet living relic of that fact.

[saltpoint]

55. You're right. I shouldn't have made it sound as if they can't.

I bet I'm at least as old a relic as you, and I think you're exactly right on the two going together.

[JerseygirlCT]

100. I guess I'm a real oddball

but I read voraciously in HS. And joined a zillion clubs, and did a ton of theater - school and community, and rode my bike up to 25 miles a day just for fun, and had a big group of friends, etc.

Maybe as someone said upthread, there wasn't much on television then, but if I was at home, I was in my room, buried in a book, listening to music.

[paulsby]

43. we read tons of short stories

heck, we read james joyce my freshman year.

of course, this was a private school.

i am all for getting kids to read MORE.

[SharonAnn]

53. I recently finished 2 volumes of Somerset Maughams short stories. What a treat!

I'd only read a couple of them before and that was many years ago.

Every night I would go to bed and read until I was sleepy. I hated to go to sleep but I'd have to stop reading.

When I was half finished with the second one, I realized that it was coming to an end and it was so sad.

I wish I'd read them years ago, but I never saw them in volumes like this. I got the two volumes at a fund-raising book sale for our library. Those books are not part of my permanent library.

[wolfgangmo]

117. recommendations

Guy VanderHauge
David Sedaris

[CTyankee]

9. Hey, Saltpoint! Great post as always!

I am currently reading Elaine Showalter's massive tome entitled, "A Jury of Her Peers," all about women's literature in the U.S. over it's history. This is a great survey of women's short stories and novels and their importance in the place of women writers in our history. It is quite impressive and I recommend it to you. Lots on Southern women writers, black women writers and their incredible struggle, as well as the more famous novelists.

According to Showalter and other critics, the short story was a form that women had cultivated but had received criticism from male critics that it wasn't really "enough." Interesting...

Hope you get a chance to look at this...

Also hope you and yours are fine. I'm off to Martha's Vineyard soon for a little respite or "something" with the granddaughters...

[saltpoint]

18. I will consider that as a late-summer reading selection. There is plenty

of Southern literature and at the same time nowhere near enough. I can't stop thinking about regional authors and the South has been very generous in its contributions.

"South, I have wounds for all your cotton."

[CTyankee]

30. Pat Conroy? Who else? nt

[LWolf]

12. As a reader and an educator,

your point is well taken.

Although I can't say that I read many short stories, except for at work. I prefer novels, and always have.

I don't teach high school. I've taught K-8 over the course of my career, and currently teach 6th - 8th.

We read mostly short stories and poetry, because that's what class time allows. It takes too long to read novels in class.

I've discovered that, in order to be sure that reading actually happens, it MUST take place in class. I can't assign it for homework. If I assign reading for homework, the readers will do it, and the non-readers won't. It doesn't do anything to move the non-readers forward.

So, we read short stories and poetry, which we can accomplish during class.

Frankly, everyone, especially those who are poor readers, need to do a hell of a lot more reading than we can accomplish during class. I encourage it, but can't enforce it.

[Skittles]

51. I've always been an avid reader

I believe it's because when I was a kid, my parents really limited the amount of TV my brothers and I could watch - but allowed us as many books as we wanted :D

[LWolf]

86. That, and

my generation didn't have the same abundance of other distractions. A radio, a record player, and a tv that had 13 channels.

As an only child, I was used to going inward for company.

Contemporary kids are surrounded by 500 tv channels, video games, computers and computer games, cell phones, ipods, etc., etc., etc..

All designed to communicate or give info in seconds. An activity that takes extended time, and thinking, appeals to fewer and fewer every year.

Sadly.

[Occulus]

73. Could you cherrypick chapters?

Sadly, reading for pleasure isn't, and hasn't ever been, "cool". Even as an adult, I occasionally got ridiculed for "constantly having my nose in a book". This stopped when I started listening to audiobooks at work, rather than reading actual books.

Audiobooks are wonderful for me as a factory worker. It makes the time pass far more quickly, and I'm no longer prone to occasionally "scanning" the page rather than speaking it in the silence of my mind word-for-word. Plus, some audiobook readers are performers in their own right, giving each character's speech accents and mannerisms that aren't at all evident on the page.

[LWolf]

87. Textbooks for older readers

do a lot of "cherry-picking" of chapters. It drives me crazy. One chapter of a great novel isn't going to bring the richness of plot, the connections to life that good readers make. Who can read one chapter of any great book and claim to understand, and make the connections to real life, that great literature does?

We've been raising my grandson on audio books. He's a great reader with a very short attention span. Hyperactive, squirmy, and easily distracted, he likes to read but has difficulty sitting for more than 15 or 20 minutes at a time. When it comes to reading, he prefers non-fiction, anyway. So he reads the 20 minutes a day required for "homework," plus he reads non-fiction by choice on his own time.

Yet he wants the big, thick, meaty stories. So he does books on CD. He can play, build with his blocks, draw, and move around while he listens. He also listens in bed, which helps slow him down enough to get to sleep.

Audio books aren't going to build his language and reading skills as powerfully as reading would, but they are certainly beneficial. They provide plenty of fodder for thinking and discussion.

[msongs]

15. does reading 50 short "text messages" per hour count? nt

[saltpoint]

17. Yes, if it's Joan Didion sending them.

Otherwise, no.

[Dappleganger]

19. I consider myself lucky

to have had a high school teacher whose doctoral dissertation was done on Flannery O'Conner and T.S. Eliot. The bulk of our class aced the English w/comp. CLEP exams as well (no AP classes there at the time). Dr. Baxter made sure we read a wide range of short stories and pretty much treated us like college students with his expectations (at times that was tough, but we learned so much!). He's currently teaching at the college level, not surprisingly.

[BlooInBloo]

21. Very lucky indeed. Good for you and the class.

[Obamanaut]

23. I had one like that (graduated HS in 1960). He too ended up teaching

at the college level. When he died a couple of years ago, hundreds of former students attended the services. He made an impact!

[saltpoint]

28. Bravo for that teacher, and bravo for you young folks for

taking on the big landscape.

[JerseygirlCT]

56. I had one who was that way with Shakespeare

my college level course (though I loved every second of it) was only slightly more difficult.

Which is part of why I think our current expectations of HS students are far, far too low. Ask more of them, and many will rise to those expectations.

[and-justice-for-all]

22. A second langauge too..nt

[saltpoint]

27. No argument from on that, and-justice-for-all.

A sound idea all around. Yes.

[NashVegas]

24. I Was Assigned Guy de Maupassant and Frank O'Connor In 4th Grade

Dick and Janes' asses got kicked to the curb, permanently after that.

Good literature and the ability to discern it needs to be introduced far, far before the age of 17 if you want to teach someone what good, important writing is about.

Senior year is when kids should be concentrating on refining their own writing skills as much as examining others'.

[saltpoint]

31. Agree. If the journey past Dick and Jane and into the top-drawer writers

can begin early, then by god begin it early, and the devil take the hindmost.

Wildly in favor.

[NashVegas]

83. I Don't Think It's a New Concept. Or That My Schools Were That Exceptional, At the Time

I appreciate you think it's important for school kids to read, but if anything, a requirement that kids should read 50 short stories in their senior year actually lowers the bar for achievement rather than raises it.

Most people over the age of 35 were reading Steinbeck by 8th grade, Fitzgerald by 10th, or at least writing on that level. At least they were in my state (NY).

[JerseygirlCT]

59. I think you're right

I remember when my mom said: "it's time to read real books, not kid's books". Unfortunately, she suggested Nancy Drew (BLEEEYECH). I found myself in the history section of the library and become absolutely hooked on English history - from there English lit.

My 10 yo is already quite a reader. Books and series like Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and Inkheart have kept him absolutely enthralled. He's read Lewis Carrol, and here and there some other "adult" writers - to him they're all just good books - and I'm glad for that!

[handmade34]

64. excellent!

...working as an assistant(reading) to 4th graders one year I was frustrated with the silly books that were on the school's reading list for them. The teacher was awesome and gave me much leeway. I offered the kids some classics, including Poe and we ended up doing some fun plays around 'The Purloined Letter' and a few others after the reading. The kids had a great time; me too!

[EndersDame]

32. I believe in order to graduate HS you should participate in some kind of National Service

sorta like Americorps or something to give back to the community. Even more so if you want money for college but that is just me.

[JeffR]

34. John Cheever, John Updike, EA Poe, Shirley Jackson, JG Ballard, Doris Lessing, WS Maugham

Little internash there. But that's part of the point, of course. Hell, I'll even throw in Stephen King, whose short stories are masterful for the most part.

I love this idea. Never happen, but I love this idea.

[saltpoint]

35. That's a formidable line-up of writers. Agree completely on King --

he is underrated as a short fictionist.

I don't actually expect this proposal to be implemented by this coming school year, but when I finally do control the known universe...


:hi:

[CTyankee]

37. I did a Master's degree essay on Cheever's "The Swimmer".

It was a great short story, to me the best in American short stories, after Shirley Jackson's masterful "The Lottery."

But "The Swimmer" had a very skillful story that worked on many levels and left you wondering "does this guy (Neddy Merrill) even exist?).

Cheever had a nice take on his place in society at his time. He is not a great writer but he had a wonderful way of expressing the life of people in his narrow scope of a world at the time. I found him to be an interesting character...

[beevul]

38. Bill of rights first.

Teach them what it is.

Teach them its purpose, and intent.

Beyond that I have no objections to your idea.

In fact, I think its a good one.

[saltpoint]

47. Yes. We can rely on the librarians and History teachers to lend

a hand on the Bill of Rights.

I think that would be a potent combo -- librarians and History teachers.

[Love Bug]

39. Throw in some Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle and I'm with you!

Most of the Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are short stories so any number of them would suffice. The ones that come quickly to mind are "The Speckled Band," "A Scandal in Bohemia," and "The Red Headed League."

[timeforpeace]

41. Run for school board, make it happen.

[saltpoint]

48. I'm more of an envelope-stuffer than a politician, but you can be sure

as the son of two teachers I've stuffed many an envelope on behalf of progressive Board candidates.

And I ain't done neither.

[janx]

44. They should be required to read novels as well, and some

poetry also.

I write literary short fiction and let my tech students know about the form whenever possible. I love teaching them, and they apparently like learning about logic and creative literature. I'm very fortunate in my job. I'm teaching a course next semester that combines the short story and ethics. In addition, our university is having a great science fiction focus this next semester.

:hi:

[JerseygirlCT]

60. And plays

Great way to suck kids in!

[csziggy]

46. Start them young with short story versions of the classics

Such as Charles Lamb's "Tales From Shakespeare" so even if they never read the originals, they at least have an idea of the plots.

Frankly, I think your idea is brilliant, but as others have said, they need to start their reading before their final years of high school. And for some students the number you suggest might be a problem.

Personally, I love science fiction short stories. Currently I am working my way through my forty or so anthologies of science fiction stories, the earliest of which are from the thirties and forties. Many of these I have not re-read in decades and I never made an effort to read them in temporal order to get a feel of the development of the genre.

[saltpoint]

49. Yes. Reading is a sweet, sweet affliction, and the earlier its onset, the

better for everyone.

[csziggy]

57. Yes, my parents started us early on reading, by example

Dad would read to from Kipling's "Jungle Stories" every night. Yes, we probably were read more "childish" things earlier, but that is the earliest one I remember. And our parents were the best examples for reading. They read every night, maybe with the TV on but only as a background noise. (They also do three crossword puzzles every night - at 88 and 86 they say it helps keep them sharp.)

But many start with childish crap and there are plenty of adaptations of the classics or of mythology or of historical events that can engage the child to want to continue to read and learn more. I am not knocking more current stories, but I think a mix is good so that young people get a grounding in the classics.

In junior high, I knew a boy who only read 'Cowboy Bob' serial stories (written in the 40s for an upper elementary school audience) and was upset when he had read them all. I introduced him to the Howard Pyle Robin Hood and King Arthur story collections and he got interested in reading many more books. I found it sad that not one teacher or librarian had ever made an effort to find something that would interest him to read for enjoyment outside his narrow comfort zone.

[saltpoint]

66. You've stopped a lot of people in their tracks by telling us your father

read those Jungle Book stories to you.

O to have a father like that read to kids versus kids whose fathers never read. What a terrific thing, csziggy. Next time you speak with your dad, tell him I'd love to buy him the coldest beer in town. That's starting early with the good stuff, and it's a life-long present.

And it's pretty good fortune for your junior high pal to run into you so you could escort him away from Cowboy Bob and into the King Arthur tales. You gave your pal a life-long gift there, too.

[csziggy]

70. Thanks - my parents know how much we all value what they gave us

A love of reading and knowledge. At their 60th wedding anniversary party I told them how much it meant to me. Aside from reading to us they took us to the library once a week as far back as I can remember.

I pass their gift on by trying to give others a love of reading.

Next time I am visiting them, I'll buy them both a cold one in your name! :toast:

[saltpoint]

71. Excellent. Thank you.

:toast:

[Brigid]

50. I think they should be required to read, period.

And write a coherent sentence, and do math. But that's just me.

[saltpoint]

52. Hi, Brigid. Yes. We could ask more of them than what we ask now.

They still would have time to be young folks, and I want them to be happy and adjusted and appreciated among their peers, certainly.

But I think one of the chief components of that socialization involves their arsenal of emotional responses to the world. And I think Steinbeck and Williams and O'Connor would be excellent mentors.

[JerseygirlCT]

54. I'm all for more reading (much, much more)

and I think the curriculum in my son's HS was pretty weak and shamefully unbalanced.

That said, I'm not a fan of short stories. For someone who loves to read, to me they're like a very small snack to a starving person - just a lot of frustration.

Give me something juicy that will keep me enthralled for at least 500 pages, thanks!

[saltpoint]

58. I hear you on that. But you're an evolved being. For a lot of

high schoolers, a 20-page short story IS a novel!

In the best case, a perceptive young person will read "A Rose for Emily" and then want to plunge right in to all available Faulkner novels.

I'd be rooting for the authors in short story form to serve as "gateway" experiences to the novel.

[JerseygirlCT]

61. I think I appreciate the difficulty of the art form more now

than I did. But I'm afraid I've always been the type to get to the end of a good short story and feel "Wait! That's IT? You hooked me in, and now it's just over?"

That said, I think you're right in many ways. That and poetry. If we can catch them before they decide that poetry is difficult and somehow elite, then we've got something good going.

[sandnsea]

62. My kids had to read a bunch of books

They were tested to make sure they were familiar with the material to make it more difficult to cheat. I think it was 15 books a year or something, in addition to their assigned reading material.

This is why I think some of Arne Duncan's ideas are just fine. There are schools doing great things out there, and mine isn't even among the best, yet parents just don't know so they don't bring those great things to their own district.

[saltpoint]

67. Yep. I'm also willing to give Duncan some time to make some headway,

very likely in areas we don't even know he's working on yet.

[JerseygirlCT]

81. That's great

I was really disappointed by the slow pace, and small numbers of books that were in the curriculum for my son's HS. (And of course, that curriculum was only available as he went through the class - never beforehand...)

[sandnsea]

90. syllabus - my pet peeve

Why the hell can high school not implement the syllabus. I do not understand it.

[JerseygirlCT]

94. I was surprised and frustrated when my son had no idea what

they'd be reading in the year. I certainly knew exactly what we'd be studying when I was in HS. I'd think his teachers knew what they intended to cover - so why the secrecy? Perhaps because parents like me would object to the very low expectations?

[sandnsea]

104. I never did

None of my kids ever did. Where did you go to school?

I was never so shocked as when I got to college and discovered the syllabus - and study sessions where the professor practically handed you the test. All you had to do was show up and you could easily get a B, an A with some extra effort. Why the secrecy indeed, I don't get it.

[JerseygirlCT]

110. NJ

but parochial school. So they didn't have to entirely conform to district rules and regs, I suppose.

It wasn't quite as detailed as a college syllabus, but we certainly knew at the beginning of the year what we were expected to accomplish, and what we would be studying. Even, with some teachers, the schedule of when we would be studying what. And the lists were significantly longer than what my son experienced in HS here in CT.

I was excited that he took a drama lit class in senior year. They read a little. Mostly they watched movies of the plays. Sorry, for all the entertainment I'm sure that provided, they needed to actually READ the plays before watching them in action somehow. Better yet, read them, and then read them aloud themselves. Seemed to me a lazy approach to teaching dramatic lit. (And I liked this teacher when he'd had her earlier - she was fairly tough on them in a good way. Guess she wanted a take it easy course?)

[armyowalgreens]

63. I had to read a lot of short stories in highschool...

I graduated in 08.

I don't know if I read 50. But the ones that I did read were quite diverse.

[saltpoint]

68. And the cool thing is, armyowalgreens, is that you did it

and covered that ground. It's big-league stuff, after all, and my take is the more diverse the stories, the better.

Not bad at all.

[namecallerholic]

65. I thought you were going to say, "should be able to pass a basic Civics test."

Then I'd have been onboard.

[saltpoint]

69. I got no problem with a bolstered Civics requirement. None at all.

Strongly in favor, in fact.

[Vinca]

80. I'd be grateful if they could locate the United States on a world map.

[JerseygirlCT]

82. There's that. Personally, I LOVE maps

I can stare at a map for ages. My little guy is the same way. I suspect his grasp of geography at 10 far surpasses that of many adults. And that's more of a shame for them than a mom bragging about her kid.

[SoCalDem]

84. In Kansas, during the 60's we got a "reading list" every May

and we were EXPECTED to have read all the books by the next fall. Those books were studied in English class the following year.

Of course reading was more in vogue back then, and Tv sucked, and there were no video games or gadgets that ate our time.. Everyone I knew read books..all the time. We walked to the library a few times a week

[sandnsea]

91. We danced to the Beatles & Stones

Rode bikes, played baseball, watched I Dream of Jeannie and Bonanza and World of Disney. I never went near a library as a kid or a teen-ager - and I loved to read. Where did you grow up?

[SoCalDem]

92. Salina Kansas.. smack dab in the middle of pretty much nowhere

we did those things you mentioned, but we also read.
Went to the show at least once a week, and hung out at each other's houses, but at night I always read before I went to sleep.

[sandnsea]

93. I'm sure kids do now too

I think the point of the assigned reading list is a terrific idea. I don't think modern technology is the reason kids don't read. I think we've lowered our expectations when we embraced the idea that "college isn't for everyone". It may not be, but high school isn't college and learning to think, which can be taught through great literature, isn't optional.

[JerseygirlCT]

95. Similar for me in NJ

although I attended Catholic school, so probably slightly different than the way the public schools were run.

We had a list of at least a dozen assigned before our freshman year even. Some of those have stuck with me for years. So many of us were turned on to Salinger, for example, or Vonnegut. The list included Shakespeare, of course. They had high expectations for us, and most of us rose to those.

I remain absolutely convinced that kids will rise to higher expectations, or fall to low ones.

[montanto]

85. Good luck with that.

The "canon" already includes classics by Faulkner and O'Connor, BTW. High school teachers don't ignore these texts, students refuse to read them. Since, as you point out, readership is near zero in the post high school world you can't expect it to be much better than that IN the high school world. Your requirement would result in catastrophic failure in the senior year. What are you gonna do with the 90-95% of seniors who have to repeat their senior year? What are you gonna do when the juniors of that first failing year fail in THEIR senior year too? Three years later, the sophomore class? Where is the money going to come from to build all the new school space to house all the failures from each of those years?
Educating high school students is not as simple as requesting that they read a book. It's just not. I know that the general population believes that teachers simply don't ask students to read, but that does not make the assumption truth. The problem is far more complex and the solution not nearly so easy as you suggest.

[cagesoulman]

88. Read 50 short stories, take AP courses, do social service, clean my car....

Anything else we could overload them with?

[LibDemAlways]

89. My daughter just finished her sophomore year. I

wouldn't let her take AP classes. She took all regular college prep - and that nearly did her in. Typical day: go to school, come home, do 2 hours of homework, eat, do 3 -4 more hours of homework, collapse into bed. She participated in no sports programs, no extra-curriculars, and had no social life because she had no time. All her friends had equally demanding academic schedules. Their contact was limited to nutrition and lunch break during school - on days they didn't have biology review at lunch.

As far as the reading goes, it would be such a relief to only have the kids read a story and be prepared to discuss it in class. Instead they had to do a microscopic written dissection - copying paragraphs, explaining why they chose those particular passages, and relating the passages to a central theme or literary concept. This for each and every chapter in each and every assigned novel. Nothing like killing a kid's desire to read. Then, they had to write an essay for each novel in the same stifling format. Topic Sentence - Concrete Detail - analysis. Rinse - Repeat. No room for an original thought that didn't fit neatly into a prefab box.

Biology and history required only rote memorization of enormous amounts of facts. Memorize and regurgitate a bunch of data that will then be quickly forgotten.

I just hope to God that by the time my kid gets to college she won't be completely burnt out and cynical from all the uninspired teaching. Her "blue ribbon" public high school isn't remotely interested in having these kids use their brains to actually think. It's mostly time-consuming busywork bullshit.

[JerseygirlCT]

98. Teaching kids to love learning

ought to be the first priority.

My science education sounds like what you describe. Surprised to learn I hated every minute of it?

I think there's a bit too much emphasis on structure for writing now. In middle school, my son was taught that paragraphs HAD to have X number of sentences, and you start a new paragraph after that (how stupid is that?). Too much on form, not enough on substance and the critcal thinking required to really analyze a piece of writing.

[LibDemAlways]

102. "too much on form, not enough on substance"

Sums it up perfectly. Over winter break last year my daughter had to write an essay on "A Christmas Carol." She did a terrific job - worked very hard. She asked me to proofread and I couldn't find anything wrong. The teacher praised her work - and then took 5% off because neither she nor I caught a one-letter typo. One stinking letter and she lost 5%. Nothing like sending the message that a thoughtful analysis is less important than a slip of the finger on the keypad.

[JerseygirlCT]

103. Well IMHO

typos like that ought to be corrected, but not used for taking points off unless they are so many that it's obvious the paper wasn't taken very seriously.

I can still remember a couple of those corrections I got in college (when they were more likely as we had to type the damn papers - and only a few kids had good typewriters that allowed you to see what you were typing before it printed...) Big red marks and some comments, but when the thrust of the paper and my arguments were sound, it wasn't a cause to lower my grade. They were looking at the reasoning and the creativity involved (English major), not just for typos.

OTOH, I have to say that there were certainly people of my generation who never really learned to write in HS. My husband credits one of our college professors with finally really teaching him how to write.

[LibDemAlways]

105. Normally spell check would catch the error. Unfortunately,

it was an extra "o" in the name of a character. I couldn't believe the teacher took off 5% for that. I was livid, but there's no use arguing with an extreme nit-picker.

[JerseygirlCT]

109. Nuts.

That's nuts. Great encouragement, too... :sarcasm:

[sandnsea]

106. Our AP courses are college prep

If you take the normal courses at our high school, oy, you aren't even ready for community college. They're horrific. Do you have normal English (for instance), college prep, and AP?

[LibDemAlways]

107. In our district normal college prep is like honors or AP most

anywhere else. It's a very academic-oriented district where 99% of kids go on to college. College prep courses are extremely demanding.

AP is college level.

Interestingly, there is a thriving Continuation School in the district for kids who just can't cut it. The administrators want to perpetuate the myth that every kid around here is a high achiever with top test scores, so any kid who is struggling gets shipped off to Continuation and warehoused until age 18.

[sandnsea]

108. We have alternative school too

They don't call it continuation here. You're also lucky if you get in there because they prefer kid to just drop out here.

Anyways, making sure I understand, do you have 3 levels of regular high school classes. We only have regular and AP. There is no in-between college prep. If the kids take a college exam at the end of their AP class they get the college credits.

[LibDemAlways]

111. We have college prep, honors, and AP.

AP is college. Honors is described as "more rigorous" than college prep, and is - to a ridiculous extreme. As a freshman my daughters took Honors Global Science and I thought we'd both go out of our minds. Huge projects due every two weeks, weekly tests covering entire units, half of the year devoted to chemistry. Kids take the honors classes thinking it will given them an edge in college admissions. Problem is they get overwhelmed and get B's and C's in the honors courses, which then screws them up in getting into the UC system - especially highly competitive campuses like Berkeley and UCLA where you realistically need a 4.0 or better to even be considered.

College prep is difficult enough - like I said probably like an honors course in most districts. It's insane.

[sandnsea]

112. So no "tech" path?

70% of your high school hasn't been deemed too stupid to go to college and put on a "tech" track? That's what they do here and this district is considered one of the better in the state, and Oregon is average in the country. Oregon used to score in the top ten, all the time. And then they implemented this stupidity, and they still don't understand why the kids aren't performing at the highest levels. Well, gee, nobody expects them to. Not the total answer, but it's part of it.

Is yours a public shool or private school? Our AP courses weren't as hard as what you're describing, iirc. It seems to me they were more like college, lots of reading, classroom discussion and writing. The regular classes were more group project oriented, outside reading, portfolios, etc. Not as many as you're describing though.

[LibDemAlways]

113. No "tech" path at all. The parents would freak out if they thought their

kids were being tracked into a tech program. Here's a link to the high school. It's all academics.

http://www.oakparkusd.org/ophs/site/default.asp

My daughter has a friend who took AP European History last year. She had a 40 page paper due every month. It's tougher than anything I had in college!

Public school, to answer your question.

[sandnsea]

116. Our school is somewhat like that

Due to size and budget. The classes just aren't anywhere near as hard. A 40 page paper is crazy. I can't even imagine what you would write every month that would fill 40 pages.

But it does go to show public schools can be good schools and we should be identifying them and duplicating them.

[noamnety]

114. I wish you wouldn't equate tech track with stupidity.

My partner did the tech track in high school and was in remedial reading - and is an electrical engineer with a master's degree in optics, and is likely as smart as anyone here.

He likes working with his hands. He likes math and engineering.

Not everyone fits into one mold, and when people start getting classist ideas about the "sort" of people who do tech work, it reflects badly on them.

[sandnsea]

115. Electrical engineering isn't the "tech track"

And if he was in remedial reading here, he wouldn't get anywhere near enough of an education to even finish his first year of college, let alone get a Masters Degree. He'd be working with his hands for $12 hr, no benefits, if he was lucky. Sound like a good idea to you?

My point is, they aren't stupid at all. They can do exactly what your partner did - IF they are given the quality education they're entitled to and not put in dumbed down classes because college-prep isn't relevant and everybody shouldn't be expected to learn all that heady intellectual "crappola".

[noamnety]

118. He was in the tech track.

Sounds like you don't know all that much about it, to be honest.

He spent half his day in the vocational place, the other half of the day in the regular school. I told him about this thread, that people were saying the tech track was for people "too stupid" to do regular school. He laughed and said, yep, I had to go there because I'm stupid.

He says about half the people in his vocational class went on to college.

[sandnsea]

119. Sounds like you don't listen, to be honest

Our school has AP classes too. Did you not follow the part of the thread that identified stark differences between AP classes here and AP classes in other schools?

Same goes for the tech track, in this school. Just because it's called a tech track, it doesn't mean it's the same as what your partner went through. It doesn't prepare kids for an engineering degree, they don't even help them look for a career in a trade. They call it a tech or trade track, but it's a second-rate education that doesn't require the kids to learn much more than fractions and very basic geometry. They are smarter than that. They are not stupid. That's my point. They need a better education so they have more opportunities, like to become an engineer if they decide they want to.

[noamnety]

120. I was basing it on this:

"70% of your high school hasn't been deemed too stupid to go to college and put on a "tech" track?"

which sure looked to be equating tech tracks with stupidity. And I wish people wouldn't do that, as I said. And - for the record - in many places, electrical engineering is offered as vocational training courses. In one of the websites I maintain for a local vocational branch of a school system, it's in their course offerings.

It's possible that tech tracks are the best education for some learning styles. It certainly was for my partner. I guess someone could have forced him to read 50 short stories in order to get some degree, as an exercise in useless checkmarks. We've been together about 15 years now, and he hasn't read a single book or short story in that time, he seems to be doing just fine. He did fix our dishwasher tonight, and showed me how to fix the brakes on my car when they went bad, which I think would be a better skill set for people to graduate with. He can also identify any mainstream classical piece of music, and isn't a bad cello player - not the best sight reader, he's dyslexic, but once he works out how he wants it to sound, he's pretty good.

Maybe kids could read 45 short stories and learn how to change a flat tire in place of the last five. I just don't know why there is the insistence on using high school to teach skills that we know most of the kids will never use. Second languages, trig, short stories ... in some ways it's like the homeowner associations who outlaw clothes lines. The idea is that "successful" people (living in successful neighborhoods) will manage to get other people to do all their actual work. It makes us look like third worlders I guess to dry our own clothing, grow vegetables in our front lawns, learn how to repair cars.

I'm not arguing for less rigorous education, but sometimes I think education could include a few more practical things. Most people really don't need beyond basic geometry, do they? I scored in the top 2% in my state trig tests, and honestly the only time I've ever used trig was to re-study it to score well on the next standardized test I had to take. It would be a lot more useful for most people to use that time learning how to solder, imho. It would be more useful to more people to learn how to grow their own crops and how to can than to learn a second language they wouldn't use. (In bilingual neighborhoods, it would be useful. In my neighborhood of dairy farmers, two years of French was a waste.) I like the tech tracks as an option - not the only option, but as one option. They allow students to tailor their education to what fits their real world needs and their learning style.

If the vocational training at your school is substandard, the solution is to improve the vocational training, not to do away with the concept and try to force everyone into a cookie cutter mold of what an "academic" should be like.

[LibDemAlways]

124. My daughter's high school doesn't even offer vocational

training of any sort - unless you count "basic wood shop," offered only because of a 5 unit practical skills graduation requirement.

And yet, in my neighborhood, many people work with their hands. The guy next door runs a landscaping business. The guy across the street is a painter. A man up the block is an appliance repairman. Those "real world" skills are vital, and yet the schools, and too many of the students' parents, thumb their noses at them.

I went to high school with a kid named Daulton Lee. His dad was a surgeon. Daulton wanted to be a carpenter, and he was quite talented. He fashioned beautiful furniture and cabinetry out of wood. The school counselors in our upscale high school, however, told him carpentry was not an appropriate goal for a surgeon's son from a wealthy neighborhood. They discouraged him. That was only one factor that lead him down a different path that resulted in a lot of notoriety and prison time, but it was a factor nonetheless.

Not everyone is going to Harvard, and it's a damn shame that high schools (including my daughter's) operate under the unrealistic premise that their purpose is to prepare each and every kid for an Ivy League future. It's a recipe for frustration and failure.

[JerseygirlCT]

97. I hardly think reading 50 short stories ought to

cause overload. Good grief, you could easily do that in a week - especially if you get off the phone/computer/television...

[rd_kent]

96. How about they just be required to be able to ACTUALLY READ

at the 12th grade level?

[JerseygirlCT]

101. This has all made me think of one more thing

I had, in my home, a pretty big collection of books to choose from. My father is a voracious reader - on his daily hour commutes to work, he'd often knock off a paperback in a day. The house was full of books, and lots of it classics. So I didn't have to travel far to grab something that looked interesting.

I think a parent's reading habits and the amount of available interesting material is also a big key to developing good readers.

[saltpoint]

121. Agree. If kids' friends come over in the years they're all growing up and see

books on the shelves, it's an incredibly good thing.

[aikoaiko]

123. I started reading short story compiliations in grad school when I didn't have time to read longer

It was really worth while.