Poorly Lit

There's been a bit of a fuss lately in the press in this Far Place about the decline of Literature as a subject in schools. Such fussing is somewhat cyclical. Every four years or so brows are furrowed and there's a bit of a moan, but life goes on pretty much as usual and fewer kids get exposed to anything vaguely literary in the classroom.

It's always puzzled me that since it was perfectly obvious this would be one of  the results of the introduction of the ranking of schools why hardly anyone admitted this as such at the time. And then there's the fact that despite its marginalisation we hear hardly a single dissenting voice when the utilitarian value of lit is concerned. (This seems to me particularly odd as, as far as I can see, it has no obviously utilitarian value at all. The idea that somehow 'values can be taught through literature' is an extraordinarily dubious proposition, on par with the idea that reading the stuff somehow makes us better people.)

To be honest I don't mind the 'teaching' of lit disappearing altogether, except for the fact it would mean it would be harder for me to make a living. But it will be genuinely sad when the possibility of kids encountering the magic engendered through poetry, drama and well-told stories disappears from schools. The solution, I think, is to ban the stuff. It's obviously dangerous anyway - Plato didn't kick the poets out of the Republic for nothing, you know - so there'd be a certain logic in an unenforceable ban. And once it's forbidden we could look forward to the growth of a healthy and happy readership.