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The only thing separating most HS literature from the rest is it's age. There's a great scene in Star Trek The Voyage Home, Kirk and Spock are discussing colorful metaphors. As Kirk explains: "...the complete works of Jacqueline Susann, the novels of Harold Robbins." To which Spock replies "Ah ... the giants."
So just wait 200 years and junk paperbacks will be "Cultural Literacy."
And, after all these years, you still don't "get it" and are still pissing and moaning. It's been explained to you over and over that most literature required in high school are works, or in genre, that formed our society and culture. It's called Cultural Literacy. Most of what you like, arguably, did not.
No one, absolutely no one or at least a teacher, ever stopped you from reading whatever you wanted outside school.
You do know Hugos are genre specific, right?
As far as The Scarlet Letter goes, I got to page three and said **** it. Never have read it.
As a note, both Fahrenheit 451 and A Brave New World, as well as Stranger in a Strange Land, were required readings when I was in high school nearly 50 years ago.
Thank you for mentioning cultural literacy.
I don't about the school where our other poster went, but in my school we had a required reading list and our own optional reading list. Our reading program was about a 50/50 balance, with the optional readings really optional, except that we couldn't always read from just one genre. I remember Mr. DeGroat saying to me, "Terry, there's a bigger world out there than just Walter Farley". But I remember kids who were hooked on sic-fi being able to read sci-fi and do book reports on it. But the job of the school is not to just reinforce personal preferences in reading. It should be getting "you" to step out of your comfort zone and read other things that are important to who we are as a culture.
And you're right. Hugos are not only genre specific, but they are "mini-culture" specific. What they really award is what is popular, not necessarily what is best.
The only thing separating most HS literature from the rest is it's age. There's a great scene in Star Trek The Voyage Home, Kirk and Spock are discussing colorful metaphors. As Kirk explains: "...the complete works of Jacqueline Susann, the novels of Harold Robbins." To which Spock replies "Ah ... the giants."
So just wait 200 years and junk paperbacks will be "Cultural Literacy."
LOL.
When I was a kid I LOVED Red Skelton.
One Tuesday night, I was watching one of the skits (probably Clem Kadiddlehopper) and I burst out -- that's Shakespeare! My grandmother looked at me like I was nuts, and had me explain myself. And indeed, the story line that night was based on Shakespeare.
But you know, the other poster ought to think -- when you graduate from high school, that's when you select trade or advanced education. And, that's when you are old enough to make that decision for yourself.
1. I don't think they are separate. They're all a part of being an adult. And, once you have graduated from high school, or at the age of common graduation, teens expect to be taken as adults. Which makes sense since once they go to college they are no longer under the supervision of their parents.
2. Teens functioning as adults. Some. Sometimes. Many not. That's what I learned from 33 years of working with kids in school, both middle and high. It's also what I learned from being a teen.
I am not discussing what the expectations are. I am discussing what they ought to be.
I know what you're saying about teens not functioning as adults, however this sidesteps the deeper question - is the behavior caused by the societal/legal norms, or is it the other way around? This is what we need to be asking - in fact, progress in general is made only by challenging the status quo, not blindly accepting it. This itself is not, of course, an argument for what age you should be allowed to do X, Y, or Z, only that one really should think beyond the status quo.
I have a news flash for you guys that think kids are less mature today than in the past. They aren't, at least using markers since WW II.
It's arguable that if you go back a couple hundred years that they are. Girls were then expected to be married by 14 or so, guys by 16, but most people lived on farms/homesteads where they were working almost as soon as they were walking.
Since the huge expansion of the middle class, with the concomitant invention of "teen years", that hasn't been true.
In my home state of PA, men had to have their parents' permission to marry until they turned 21, girls were 18, until the passage of whichever Amendment gave 18 year olds the vote.
When I went to college in 1973 the school was still acting in loco parentis with curfews for all students living in college housing (guy's curfew was later than for the women).
I am not discussing what the expectations are. I am discussing what they ought to be.
I know what you're saying about teens not functioning as adults, however this sidesteps the deeper question - is the behavior caused by the societal/legal norms, or is it the other way around? This is what we need to be asking - in fact, progress in general is made only by challenging the status quo, not blindly accepting it. This itself is not, of course, an argument for what age you should be allowed to do X, Y, or Z, only that one really should think beyond the status quo.
I understand what you're saying, but I think what society has done over the years is based on experience -- that this is how long it takes -- ON AVERAGE -- for a person to mature from an adolescent to a young adult to an adult. And we base school and other aspects of life on that cultural experience.
Yes, there are some teens that may have the maturity to drink before the age of 21 (in fact, I think it should go back to being 18), or being in sexual relationships, or going into the army. But we can't selectively go and say, "Okay, Phil, you can drink when you're 16, but Bob, you have to wait until you're 21."
I have a news flash for you guys that think kids are less mature today than in the past. They aren't, at least using markers since WW II.
It's arguable that if you go back a couple hundred years that they are. Girls were then expected to be married by 14 or so, guys by 16, but most people lived on farms/homesteads where they were working almost as soon as they were walking.
Since the huge expansion of the middle class, with the concomitant invention of "teen years", that hasn't been true.
In my home state of PA, men had to have their parents' permission to marry until they turned 21, girls were 18, until the passage of whichever Amendment gave 18 year olds the vote.
When I went to college in 1973 the school was still acting in loco parentis with curfews for all students living in college housing (guy's curfew was later than for the women).
This was a state college, not private.
I don't know. I find parents less and less able to see any maturity in their children.
I think of the parent who was in tears one day because of how dangerous it was for HIS 13 year old daughter to walk across the parking lot. To which I responded, "That's why there's a sidewalk around the parking lot. Teach you daughter to use it. Heavens knows, we've tried."
I don't know. I find parents less and less able to see any maturity in their children.
I think of the parent who was in tears one day because of how dangerous it was for HIS 13 year old daughter to walk across the parking lot. To which I responded, "That's why there's a sidewalk around the parking lot. Teach you daughter to use it. Heavens knows, we've tried."
I sort of agree with you. Kids I was teaching towards the end of my career weren't getting their driver's licenses at all hardly while years earlier it was almost 100%.
Most said their parents didn't want them to get it. This in an area with limited to no public transportation so the parental units had to haul their butts everywhere. Like having Mom take you and your date to the Homecoming dance.
So yeah, some of the immaturity impression is parent driven.
Full disclosure:
My oldest daughter didn't get her license until she was almost 18, her choice. My younger daughter was almost 21. I was getting ready to take her for her test when a few days prior one of her best friends and her brother were broadsided and killed on their way to school. That set D2 back by years.
Both my sons got their licenses as soon as they could.
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