Last fall, one of my students, a junior, pretty much felt that he did not need school, especially English. Reading was a waste of his time since he was already an accomplished musician. His milieu was notes, not words. Even if he did need words for lyrics, he no doubt had enough of those already in his head.
To be fair, this student never told me this directly, but I came to this conclusion from all the signals he sent me: not reading a story or a book, head down when we discussed the story or book, comments about how this stuff was not important, etc.
So when I saw this list of songs inspired by literature, I obviously thought of him.
Books are more than pages of words. They are vessels for ideas, ideas that make us think, ideas that shake us up, ideas that inspire us.
As an English teacher, I am distressed to realize that I am part of the problem. I am the institution that says “you must read,” which forces strong willed, artistic individuals to rebel, simply because it’s their nature to do so. I wonder if I had known about this list of songs and had showed it to my student, if it would have made any difference? Maybe?
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