You’ve heard the old adage: You are what you eat. But in this knowledge-based, global economy, maybe we need to paraphrase this to: You are what you READ.
So, here comes the $64,000 question – just what SHOULD we read? Or better yet, from where I and my colleagues at the university sit, what should our students be asked or required to read?
Universities usually address this question for ALL students, regardless of major or what they intend to pursue as a profession, via something called the “core.” Over time, and with considerable debate and input from experts, Texas, like most states, has settled on a “common” body of knowledge that every college student should know. If you went to college, this is how you wound up in world history, basic economics, algebra and other such courses. The core, by the way, changes constantly – remember Latin?
But the most “infamous” core courses and the stuff of ongoing legend, inevitably are the literature offerings – from “Canterbury Tales” to “Moby Dick,” students and faculty alike have danced around this issue of “should,” “ought to,” and “required to” reading for generations. My blog on access to learning a couple of weeks ago elicited quite a few, sometimes funny, commentaries on college literature.
In April of this year when Venezuela’s rather unpredictable President Hugo Chavez gave President Obama a copy of Eduardo Galeano’s “Open Veins of Latin America” a big bell went off in my head – DONG. Wow, I was given that same book by my history professor at the beginning of a course on Latin America about three decades ago. Words are powerful, and the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. That book sure changed the way I looked at the world. In fact, I began to realize probably for the first time that I was CONNECTED to the condition of the world and its people. I wasn’t just OBSERVING the things around me. My actions (or lack thereof) helped make the world what it was – at the same time both a frightening and liberating concept.
I now know very clearly that this book led me to a couple of others (Walter Rodney’s “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,” for instance) that truly, as they say, “changed my world view.” I am sure it made me much more sensitive to the plight of people around the world and more determined to be part of the solution rather than the problem whenever I could figure it out. And it made me determined to do what my mother (a librarian) had been trying to get me to do all along: Read a lot, read a lot of different ideas, and never be so wedded to the “truth” that I couldn’t continue to learn. I’d be curious to know whether President Obama actually reads Galeano. I hope so.
So, yes, in many ways, we are what we read (and maybe I should write about the “status” of reading in general at some point).
At UHV, we are about to implement the state-mandated college core for our new freshmen, and along with it, the accepted canon of state-mandated knowledge. Sometimes I wonder, however, are the works of literature that are most often used in courses that fulfill the core the right ones? Do they tell our WHOLE story? In the limited number of hours and days students spend in the classroom, just what SHOULD they read to prepare them for this complex, globally interdependent and culturally polyglot world they will be asked to lead?
Just what IS the proper reading “assignment” for today’s student, today’s future leader?
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Alton...I agree with most of your choices. I have started War and Peace about a half-dozen times and just can't work my way through it. It sits, today, on a shelf mocking me, but I seriously doubt that, at my age, I ever even pick it up again, much less finish reading it. Give me Tom Clancy.
September 2, 2009 at 8:03 a.m.I contend everyone should read at least once in their life time:
1. Gulliver's Travels
2. Oliver Twist
3. Civil Disobedience
4. 1984
5. Brave New World
6. Midsummer Night Dream
7. Paradise Lost
8. The Time Machine
9. War and Peace
10. The Sound and the Fury
11. Democracy in America
12. The Lord of the Rings
13. To Kill a Mockingbird
14. Leaves of Grass
15. Lord of the Flies
16. Clarloletts Web
17. As I Lay Dying
September 2, 2009 at 1:07 a.m.I just recently graduated from a four year university and liturature was not one of my most notable classes to be honest. I had to take Western Lit. and British Lit. and I didn't learn anything from them. I think we should read the works of the great minds of our time and works from the great minds of our past. That would be an interesting comparison of how much they have changed or not have changed in theories of socializing society and managing our government. Either way I think also focusing on our similarities rather than our differences could also be something litature could teach us because in a world with such diversity in culture, our greatests strength could be the acceptance of others different and diverse perspectives.
September 1, 2009 at 5:13 p.m.Anything that can teach our future leaders about the mistakes the human race has made in the past should be required reading. Fiction, non-fiction, biographies, poetry, plays, and everthing else must exhibit some type of "crossover-content" in order to be relevant. Our future leaders have a huge litany to chose from and I think they will use their own judgment in the end at best, even after those qualified to make suggestions have done so for them. A good future leader will be familliar with the histories of many past govenments. Lessons to be learned, say from the Roman Empire, The Egyptians, or even the Mayans, will have differing relavances and meanings to each individual.
August 30, 2009 at 10:56 a.m.I enjoyed your post. To answer your final question: Proper reading should reflect the beliefs and values that made America great but it should also reflect the aspects that make the human race great as well.
Lifetimes of debate could well be undertaken in an attempt to solve this matter.
Bravo Mr H!
Down and dirty list:
August 30, 2009 at 6:02 a.m.1. Democracy in America ~ Tocqueville
2. The Prince ~ Machiavelli
3. The Republic ~ Plato
4. The Wealth of Nations ~ Smith
5. Catch-22 ~ Heller
I was lucky enough to attend Victoria College when most of my core courses were taught by Phds who where in the twilight of their tenure and at their stride. When I speak to the recent graduate taught by TA teachers assistants and from profit motivated schools such as Phoenix it is disheartening they have no grasp of where from their ideas have come. I say world literature classics that are the secular roots of many of the works of the old testament from the story of creation to the great flood so they can see where the foundation of christendom comes from.
August 26, 2009 at 7:27 p.m.RU..."Wayward, Shakespeare is introduced in High School, also, but in college there is more depth to the teaching."
Yeah, I remember it from high school, too, but in high school, we didn't have to read so much of his poetry as his plays. In college, I had an English Lit Nazi who thought an engineer couldn't do math without a grounding in the Bard's sonnets. Remember, in college the student is PAYING for every minute in class. Those classes should have some meaning in his life other than "I did it and by God you're going to do it, too." Nobody can ruin the enjoyment of reading a good book like an English teacher.
August 26, 2009 at 9:52 a.m.I do not envy those whose job it is to determine which works of literature meet those core requirements. Several of my favorite works of fiction, those that have had a profound impact on my choices in life, would probably never have made the list. "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Cry the Beloved Country", and "Ender's Game", for example, are not complex enough to meet the vigors of college level assignments, I think. But even as I work on my PhD studies, I often feel the need to shift my focus away from my technical pursuits and read something, well, else. These are the types of books, although not college level literature, that I go back to for perspective, balance, and inspiration. Literature DOES have a profound impact. Good luck in your efforts in "getting it right".
August 26, 2009 at 9:32 a.m."Just what IS the proper reading “assignment” for today’s student, today’s future leader?"
With all due respect to your position, sir, I suggest that the sonnets of Shakespear and the poetry of Milton should finally be relegated to the realm of electives.
August 26, 2009 at 7:53 a.m.