As a new school year ushers in, SRVUSD and every other school in the district of California are all too eager when introducing its students to a plethora of new reading material. When students reach their long-awaited English class, they are almost immediately assigned books such as Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men. Though many may groan at the prospect of reading supposedly outdated literature, these books are the basis or guide behind our everyday moral values and actions.
Certain sensitive subjects are quite hard for the school to teach. Subjects such as racism or violence against minorities may seem quite distant and unrelated to the accepting community that is DVHS. However, this is a very real reality in many other parts of the US. Therefore, it is up to institutions with great developmental influence such as the school system to educate us about such topics. The burden of doing so is greatly lessened via expertly crafted texts such as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. In Lee’s novel, she highlights the inherent and harmful bias or fear individuals seem to have of those who are different; these fears are very much prevalent in the modern world, despite the almost century long disconnect between our’s and Lee’s view of the world.
In addition, classical literature actively stimulates the brain in this modern day age of disconnection and brain rot. The advanced analytical skill and need for critical thinking is clearly not prevalent in modern day novels. “Modern day classics” such as Harry Potter and Percy Jackson lack the actual content to be intellectually stimulating and are often read for the sake of pointless enjoyment. The morals and lessons taught by To Kill a Mockingbird, where a little girl witnesses and stands up to the unfair moral prejudice in her town simply does not compare to a wizard aimlessly waving his wand.
Furthermore, modern literature simply cannot compare to the scope of classical literature. Literature of the past has been around for hundreds of years by now and has had ample time to be analyzed. Modern novels simply never had the same time for their development. Not yet is there a proper replacement to Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, where Austin so effortlessly describes the bickering Romance between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, a feat modern novels could only imagine.
As a DVHS student, it is only natural that I am assigned a vast array of reading material throughout the year. In a way, I naturally understand the criticism of the other side; it’s not always easy completing a five page TIQATIQA essay about some obscure Shakespearean phrase. In turn, the other side argues that instead of focusing on some random event that happened in 1947, we should actually promote modern day examples; but as students, we must understand that sometimes, the classics are just simply too iconic to be replaced.
