> Just because it doesn't have flowery prose that only an English lit undergrad would weep over doesn't mean it's not 'sophisticated.'
No, but it does mean it's less sophisticated than a work which does have such prose. And I agree with what the GP said: we need to be holding our kids to higher standards and expecting they rise to that level, not going "well that language is too hard for them so let's take it off".
> No, but it does mean it's less sophisticated than a work which does have such prose.
I disagree with that take on sophistication. As a counterexample, Hemingway's work is a masterclass on sophisticated prose done with minimal language, but I wouldn't want to read Pride and Prejudice in Hemingway's style. There isn't one yardstick for "sophistication".
The Odyssey is an interesting example of this (and one the author uses). I was taught the Fagles translation. That translation is not easy to read, and in many ways its choice of language is a distraction from studying the literature. I wouldn't pick that translation for my own children, even if I feel that they should at some point study The Odyssey, which I do.
We should be treating these works as what they are: literary classics, but in a historic dialect, where part of the literary exercise is the archeological/anthropological dig through the prose. As far as I can tell, that's how the author is approaching it, and I don't think calling it out that way is lowering any bar.
To me, 'sophisticated' connotes complexity in a way that means I'd never use it to describe something extremely simple or minimal, including Hemingway's prose— even if it meets the definition of another sense of the word. I might use other adjectives to praise it, but not 'sophisticated'.
And I think any reasonable curriculum should include some 'sophisticated' texts in the narrower sense described above. I actually don't think that sophistication in the sense of worldliness is as important a thing to try to ensure in this kind of curriculum. That's more a matter of fashion or ingroup signaling than any textual feature, and you'll get it for free in any school curriculum anyway— preexisting canons will impose themselves one way or another and demonstrating fluency in the canon is the main thing that evinces sophistication (divorced from complexity) in a text (or a student, for that matter).
I agree with the rest of what you're saying, though.
What good is flowery prose or outdated, verbose subject matter like Parisian sewer systems, if it actively discourages kids from reading it? Horses to water.
There are plenty of abridged versions of Les Misérables that includes all the parts relevant to the student reader and retains the appropriate level of challenge in leveling up the student's ability to engage with higher level writing.
I think the point the author is making is why choose Les Miserables, even in an abridged format, if the kids would respond better to something more contemporary. There's no shortage of phenomenal writing from the past 50 years. So many of the books in the "canon" they teach kids are so boring that I have a hard time believing anyone isn't lying when they say they sat through something like "In Search of Lost Time".
The point of reading education isn't just to get text in front of students' eyeballs. We're trying to develop the ability to read well, to effectively comprehend any text which you might encounter. There's quite a lot of things people might like to do in their lives that involve reading overly flowery or obnoxiously verbose text.
Just yesterday I had to read a super dense and frankly poorly written document for work. If nobody had ever made me slog through something I didn't want to read in school, I suspect I would have been unable to comprehend it and might very well have not made it to the end at all.
A problem might be the (missing) gradual approach, like hitting the kids with Les Miserables without getting them hooked on reading already with easier stuff. I'm also pretty sure there's enough good material speaking a more contemporary language and addressing more contemporary issues - it's not like the literary trove of the world is made of 5 good books only (or so I hope).
The goal isn’t just to get kids to look at a book. It’s to get them to stretch themselves and get better at something that is hard. The idea that you should have the kids read what is interesting to foster a love of reading and then they will be able to grow into mature reading habits as they grow has been around for a while now. As someone with a child in the 4/5th grader range, the effects are not pretty. When I was that age, the most popular books were shorter novels like Goosebumps and Animorphs, or longer novels like Redwall and Harry Potter. At my daughter’s school book fair a few weeks ago, it is almost exclusively graphic novels, be it childish slop like Dav Pilkey puts out, or simplified graphic novel versions of books like Goosebumps. Let’s be clear, stuff like Captain Underpants existed 30 years ago, but today it’s almost exclusively that. We haven’t created a generation of children who love to read, we’ve created a generation of children who largely, by middle school, haven’t graduated past picture books.
Prescribing challenging reads is also to get kids used to the idea of doing something that might not be their choice of what they want to do, which is an important life skill to have as an adult. Education isn’t simply about learning math and phonics. It’s about learning how to be a human being who can function in society. Ask your educator friends about how the recent generation is doing, especially since the pandemic. It’s a dumpster fire, with kids never having been less equipped to do things like following instructions, interacting appropriately with classmates, or holding their focus for even small amounts of time.
Simultaneously we are seeing employers increasingly wary of Gen Z employees due to their inability to meet basic expectations and function in the workplace.
We are creating a curriculum based on the idea that kids should minimize having to do things they don’t want to do or might be difficult, and are now seeing a generation of children who are incapable of doing anything they don’t want to do or anything difficult, and it’s impacting their ability to function in society.
> Simultaneously we are seeing employers increasingly wary of Gen Z employees due to their inability to meet basic expectations and function in the workplace.
What I've seen of Gen Z suggests less an inability and more an unwillingness to meet basic expectations and function in the workplace. And good for them. The workplace remains an unquestioned reservoir of authoritarianism in our culture, and I'd love to see the young people dismantle it.
> We are creating a curriculum based on the idea that kids should minimize having to do things they don’t want to do or might be difficult, and are now seeing a generation of children who are incapable of doing anything they don’t want to do or anything difficult, and it’s impacting their ability to function in society.
This is a solid point. Mostly I don't really agree that the right arena here is the domain of the canon. Real problem here is material - more parents work more hours and bring home less than they used to, and they devote less attention to their kids' education. It's not surprising that kids would rather stare at their phone than do any meaningful learning given that trend. Adjusting the canon to be more forgiving and hopefully give kids something to grasp onto and challenge themselves with is probably a fine intermediate solution for the moment, but there's a larger problem at play.
No, but it does mean it's less sophisticated than a work which does have such prose. And I agree with what the GP said: we need to be holding our kids to higher standards and expecting they rise to that level, not going "well that language is too hard for them so let's take it off".