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submitted 1 month ago by Zpk1a@lemmy.world to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

Surely we could have cut out Much Ado About Nothing and The Tempest

The only subject that was required for all four years when I was in high school was English, and senior year English was all British literature, so we got Chaucer, Shakespeare, the Bronte's, shit like that.

Honestly I think later high school English classes do more to beat any love of reading teenagers have out of them by force feeding them dire dour old ugly hateful and just plain obsolete shit written by damaged people who lived in a world before the invention of epidemiology so sometimes your neighborhood would die of cholera because someone's pit toilet leaked into the ground water.

Make English 4 if not English 3 electives rather than required. Replace them with a semester of driver's ed, taxes, fire safety, how to safely refrigerate chicken, I can think of a lot of shit that would benefit the world more than having teenagers read a Skakespeare play they don't get aloud.

[-] GiveMemes@jlai.lu 8 points 1 month ago

When Americans already can't read, you're seriously suggesting doing away with requiring English for all 4 years? I understand wanting to change the material, but that just seems really heavy-handed and counterproductive.

[-] Microplasticbrain@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

If they can't read by junior year of highschool I very much adoubt fucking Shakespeare is going to be the aha moment

[-] GiveMemes@jlai.lu 3 points 1 month ago

Again, material choice is not the issue at hand.

[-] Microplasticbrain@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

Again (don't know why you said again but ill add it too), if they cant read by junior year I doubt two more years of the same shit is going to help. Is illiteracy an issue? Sure. Should junior and senior year english be mandatory for every student because some of them struggle with reading? No, just make a class to help those kids.

Without a tailored class your just sticking kids who cant read well with more advanced kids in the same class and by senior year that gap has probably grown substantially. How do you make a single class that can challenge good English students and also nurture people struggling with the fundamentals? You don't. The high functioning kids are bored and unengaged and the struggling kids are stressed by how far behind they are, it doesn't help anyone.