We live in troubled times, but some shocks are more unexpected than others. Amanda Foreman, a writer and academic most notable for her best-selling biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, sustained a great shock recently.
Foreman was born in London, but holds dual American/British citizenship, while her five children have all been educated in England, for the most part in exclusive and extremely expensive schools: fees are often 30,000 pounds a year, an amount that converts into more than AUD$50,000. Most parents expect a sound education in return, in the form of their children's good examination results, but many parents, like Foreman, take a closer interest in the syllabus.
She has professed herself horrified by the surprising discovery that her 16 year old daughter has not so far read a single 18th or 19th century novel during her time at school. On talking to friends, she was even more horrified to discover that top schools such as Eton and Marlborough are not teaching classic English literature, but are concentrating on 'easier' and more modern texts such as John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in an apparent effort to boost exam performance.
A person of wealth, intellect, power and reputation, Foreman is now campaigning to return authors such as Austen, Dickens and George Eliot to curricula in famous schools. But teachers have told her that a generation reared on smartphones and iPads finds such authors too 'difficult.' (So what? is my inward cry.)
Such teachers also declare that today's students are digital natives rather than natives of the English language: more shocks. Roland White, prominent English journalist, is another deeply concerned parent who recently informed readers that his 19-year-old daughter, in conversation at the dinner table, said she 'hadn't really read any novels'.
The minute the meal was over, White went to his desk and compiled a list for both his daughters: 21 Books They Should Read Before They're 21. He added the note 'No pressure, girls,' and claims the list was 'pretty much off the top of' his head, but I think it's a sound one. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, Trollope, Dickens and Hardy feature, but so do Orwell, Harper Lee, Scott Fitzgerald, P.G. Wodehouse, and Dostoyevsky.
But hooray for state education in Britain, in which system Shakespeare and 19th century novels are still on the syllabus. And three more cheers for the erstwhile colonies. I consulted Professor Google about novels set on syllabuses in final school years