“ The parents didn’t instill a love of reading in their children. Our home was filled with books. All my children loved reading from an early age. One of them found long novels boring, but he would curl up with other books.”
Why do they have to love reading?
They do not. They have to know how to read a book. They have to know how to follow the rules of a class, a job, a role in the family
Further, when people don’t read they are uneducated. They must know about characters, the pattern of a story, they are otherwise unfit for conversation, positions in running organizations, knowing how to behave
They do not have to know how to read books and do all of the normal things that adults do in society but if they don’t they will be losers
And they do not have to like reading. They just have to do it
I do not like going to my job. I don’t like the sick office mate that shirks her job, I don’t like working non stop 8-8 I don’t like answering my boss’s questions every hour.
But I learned how to act like an adult in high school. By the time I got to studying for a science degree, I knew how to write a research paper and read enough to not be one of the 56 that washed out of the 87 that went in
When I taught high school English I was given a stack of six books to teach for the year. I know some of the kids didn’t read it. And I didn’t expect the students to like any of the books. But one of the parents asked me why her two sons were quoting Shakespeare on the way home from school.
They had a clue at least. They graduated college.
"They must know about characters, the pattern of a story, they are otherwise unfit for conversation, positions in running organizations, knowing how to behave. They do not have to know how to read books and do all of the normal things that adults do in society but if they don’t they will be losers."
They need to know how to read and write well. And studying literature in high school is worthwhile.
But, the article is talking about college, and I was referring to college majors when I wrote: "I don’t think ‘literature’ should be a required course for all majors."
All STEM majors should be required to take courses in technical writing, for example. But, why should they be required to read and analyze literature in college?