As engaging with prose’s essay "i know why

As a young entrepreneur and a visionary I try to understand and respect everyone’s visions, engaging with Prose’s essay “ I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read” gave me more to critically think about the education system everywhere.

As Prose says in her essay, “ given the dreariness with which literature is taught in American classrooms, it seems miraculous that any sentient teenager would view reading as a source of pleasure ( line 3 )”, my analysis of the prose and today’s academia have found that teachers discuss course materials that will keep their students interested and enjoy . Hence, for mere participation and fewer research time the art of reading and exploring the literary masterpieces has been razed by preference of teenage fantasy and unprepared teachers. I don’t know why “ The Fault in our Stars” is literature of this generation than the “ Faust”. I read “ The Great Gatsby” in high school because it was popular and easy to understand but when I moved  college and had to read much more advanced literature. I learned that my teacher from  high school had been unfair to me for picking common unchallenging class materials, it never prepared me for college. Course materials that are easy to research on and are currently talked about are given more emphasis. Black lives matter was a burning issue in 2016 so many classrooms included the topic in their course material for that particular year. Similarly in 2017 feminism had a similar impact on the classrooms.

In the past years feminism was a topic in our daily discussion but no literature teacher had actually included the books in their coursework until it become a huge burning topic in 2017. The teachers must have some kind of  reason for picking trending books and taking it for discussion in class, I personally think it’s because the students tend to be more aware about the current issues and thinking this teacher’s figure students will take more interest in them.  As Proses quotes “ The pleasure of surrender to the world of a book is only one of the pleasures that this new way of reading and teaching denies.(Page 6, Para 10)” I strongly agree to her opinion. The pristine art of reading books shout not be poisoned by the flashy news title which corrupts the innocent mindset of children into living newspaper propaganda. The biography of presidential candidates and presidents are pulled out by teachers in class as reading material when they are in highlight.

Crime journal are popular  when  nationwide highlighted criminal cases surface. The taste of literary mind today is all out of newspaper headlines. Not only books but small in class readings, assignments and discussions are also more about topics under highlight.

Last semester I had to read a book about Sports. While doing my assignment there were thousands of topics that I could have chosen from but I wrote about Colin Kaepernick because he was the highlighted topic at the moment. History of academic reading has never been such until the academic motivated by the news. This semester I have to read a book called Tenth of December for my English 102 class. It is a popular book with a wide collection of short stories, I have just read a few chapters.

Without any doubt I think the book has some very interesting stories and I personally love it but at the end of the day the main question comes is it beneficial for me, Is it going to prepare me for my higher education ? Is this going to improve my literature ? For more active participation and due to less research time exploring literature has become more about what interests you rather than being curious and getting lost between the pages of  literary masterpieces. Today’s generation has stopped exploring the vast endless possibilities of literature they have been so caught up in trends and keeping up with society that they have forgot to enjoy the gifts of life like books, art and music. Just exploring what we learn in class is not enough, we need to explore beyond our limit and find more meaningful symbols for our lives. Your taste should not be your taste because its someone else’s taste, the greatest threat to our generation is that we wanna be around the “ hype” because we are getting caught up in keeping up with the society and have forgotten to explore other possibilities. Knowingly or unknowingly the way our school system works while selecting course materials is similar to of  that.