I just
wanted to share a sobering experience I had working with a young student as a
private tutor a few years ago as she was studying for her GCSEs.
I had mainly
been called in to help her with her maths but from time to time when we’d
finished a topic before our hour was up, I helped her with her English. Not as
much as I’d hoped as it turned out. Her set book was Silas Marner and I
would ask her what she had been discussing about the book in her lessons at
school. Inevitably her replies would be along the lines of, ‘We’ve been
discussing themes/characters/plot/setting/use of language etc. etc. etc.’ So, I
would question her about these issues for a while before our lesson ended.
By the time
we had our last weekly lesson she had finished all her maths exams and the
following day had her English paper. Since we had an hour to devote to Silas
Marner rather than a few minutes, instead of reiterating our previous
discussions, I thought it would be useful to get her into gear by reading as
much of the book as we could. We alternated, reading separate pages and got
through a small but significant portion of the novel. As we finished my student
innocently declared, “It’s quite a good really, isn’t it?”
She had
never actually read the book.
It was a
stark demonstration of the way that so often the children are made to analyse a
novel to death… in this and probably many other cases without ever reading the
book. Little wonder that some many children lose an interest in reading, in
many cases at a very early age. It still depresses me how few children I ask
know what a Heffalump is. In my opinion the correct means of discovering this
should be part of the National Curriculum!
Ever after
that lesson if I was called upon to help a student with their set novel, I made
sure we started by reading the book, or as much of it as we could, before doing
anything else. They could have the soul taken out of the piece at school but
not on my watch anymore. I remember reading Of Mice and Men with an able
15-year-old. It was clearly the first decent book he had read in the whole of
his life. Also unenthusiastically helping 10-year-olds answer endless questions
about segments from Alice in Wonderland (despite them never having read
the book) and wondering if I had sold my soul to the devil for the sake of
paying the gas bill. My only comfort being the knowledge that if I’d had my way*
I would have read the novel to them instead.
*And didn’t
have a gas bill.
