This week, in a classroom near you, a baffled teacher will attempt to convince a disillusioned group of GCSE English students that learning why Jane Eyre doesn’t think Mr Rochester loves her, is going to make the world of difference to their futures.
Why? No one knows. Or, at least, no one is willing to say.
For as far back as anyone can remember, a stream of out-of-touch, often privately educated, Education Secretaries, have signed off on the idea that teaching student’s 19th century literature, at Level 2, is just what students need to secure them a decent job in the workplace.
Students who don’t pass their GCSEs are forced to repeat what they’ve already failed at. Forced to engage with books written in a language they will never use.
Trying to explain to young students who already feel like they have failed, why Jane Eyre is so important to them, is borderline abuse.
At a time when young people are turning away from books and literature at an alarming rate, no one in government seems bothered or interested in providing students with something a little more relatable.
Last week I had to face one such group. The futility and unfairness of it struck me mid lesson. I had no argument as to why they should engage with Dracula.
Why reading Stoker would be of use, interest, or benefit to them unless they had an express desire to go into further education. Which the vast majority don’t.
Starting off a lesson with the words, ‘Today we are going to be looking at Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ will mean within two minutes 90% of a GCSE class will have shut down.
Do the powers that be think there is no other literature available to young people?
Using contemporary texts by authors like Kit de Waal or Lisa McInerny, would at least give students and teachers a fighting chance.
If educators were permitted to teach English using contemporary literature that told of the lives and challenges of individuals who looked and sounded like the students they were teaching, on subjects like county lines, gangs and drugs, or any other aspect of 21st century teenage life, more students would engage.
It’s what they are familiar with. What takes up much of their time. And using a language they use themselves exploring issues and situations they can identify with.
A large section of the materials we currently use to teach our young students are entirely ineffective.
In fact, they are worse than ineffective. Relying on these texts throws unnecessary, unhelpful barriers in the paths of students.
It damages their already damaged faith in themselves and a system that is supposed to support, nurture, and encourage them.
If you don’t believe me, ask them yourselves.
@StephenTuffin is a lecturer in Swindon
