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Politician Wants Sci-fi To Be Mandatory In School
Avantare writes "The first sci-fi novel I read was A Wrinkle in Time; the next was Dune. Why don't more people read these extraordinarily imaginative books? Delegate Ray Canterbury, who represents Greenbrier County in southern WV, wants to help with that. Canterbury introduced House Bill 2983, which reads, 'To stimulate interest in math and science among students in the public schools of this state, the State Board of Education shall prescribe minimum standards by which samples of grade-appropriate science fiction literature are integrated into the curriculum of existing reading, literature or other required courses for middle school and high school students.' For decades, walking around with a paperback sci-fi novel in your back pocket at school was the quickest way to find yourself permanently excluded from the cool-kid clique. But what if it wasn't just the geeks who read Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke? What if science fiction was mandatory reading for all students?"
Creationism?
One of my first, as well. Right after LOtR (I guess that's not technically sci-fi, but sci-fi and fantasy are often grouped together, wrongly or rightly).
When I went to school (I'm 46), "Wrinkle in Time" was on the curriculum.
While I think this is actually a good idea, I don't think that mandating curriclum from the statehouse is a good thing.
It's all moot though... anything that promotes imagination is never going to make it out of a committee anyway.
Sorry, this is a ridiculous idea - quality literature should indeed be mandatory for educational curriculum, but specifically highlighting a particular genre is arrogant.
I'm not in favor of legislative mandates for any kinds of curriculum. That said, I do agree with Canterbury's position that science fiction needs to be included in the types of literature covered in school. That the various education boards have overlooked the mainstream SiFi authors like Clarke and Asimov is a symptom of a deeper failure in their processes.
Personally, I'd throw in a little Lovecraft. Just so more people will get my Cthulhu references.
Have gnu, will travel.
Something happened to the world when it stopped reading Heinlein.
Hes a West Virginia state legislator
There was a post here recently from a teacher who was looking for inspiring SF books to give his students as a summer project.
As a result, I discovered "The Martian", (it's on Amazon for a buck), which, with expletives removed, would be perfect for young kids.
This old kid enjoyed it "as is".
So, how hard would it be to encourage publishers to adapt SciFi classics for the younger audience?
I think this really says it all, every time.
"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
-Isaac Asimov
My eldest son is reading it (he's 12) and it's a good start!
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
The first sci-fi novel I read was A Wrinkle in Time; the next was Dune. Why don't more people read these extraordinarily imaginative books?
They are waiting for the movie to come out
Drop teach the test / College prep for all as well That is eating up a lot of time.
schools also need more recess time (kids are getting to fat no days) also poor fatty school food can be part of that.
Sci-fi is nice but an trades track in HS is needed as well.
I think what you read in school only matters if you also read at home. (I mean besides your homework).
Pupils should imho read a book per month or week even. Ofc a brought range of genres would be prefered. But some people simply can't stand Sci-Fi (likewise I can not stand that SF is mixed up with fantasy in the book stores shelfs).
Perhaps pointing out some SF stories that are not to 'wiered' to such students would help (Not everyone is into Phillip K. Dick e.g.)
I for my part e.g. would perhaps let a 12 - 14 year old read Enders Game.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
And though Science Fiction is usually combined with Fantasy, there is a rather BIG difference...
Science Fiction (at least GOOD science fiction) tries to stick with only one violation of physics (frequently the speed of light, other times just that something is easy to do - such as neural implants). Each additional violation weakens the "science" into fantasy. Good Science Fiction focuses on the characters, and the physics violations are only a transport to get to a situation.
Fantasy, on the other hand, allows all kinds of physics violations - at the whim of the author when they can't figure out how to resolve a situation - POOF, a miracle (some god or other magical being/device) fixes/saves the character. Good fantasy doesn't even focus on the magical issues - they focus on the characters. Unfortunately, many fantasy authors cannot keep their "magic" coherent (and I include JK Rowling in this group - fortunately, the focus on characters greatly exceeds the magic.. most of the time).
It'll be "literary" SF (Canticle for Liebowitz, Flowers for Algernon, Bradbury), which has it's place, but is not even the same genre in my book. And also would stimulate much interest in science.
Sci-Fi is already on the list in west virginia... All the religious bullshit they are given.
that's pretty much outright fiction. that for some weird reason they believe is non fiction.
Understand that I'm a dyed in the wool SF&F fan, having read the stuff since the early sixties. And just because it comes up so often as to be a cliche, and because I like to be contrarian, I'll mention that I've never read Wrinkle in Time. I suspect it just wasn't on the shelves back then... or perhaps I've simply forgotten it, because memories that far back are vague. I read Dune largely on the bus to and from high school - some things are more universal than others. :-)
Anyway, I think the idea here is, well, unfounded. Oh, I'm sure there is a good correlation between those who enjoy reading SF and the maths & sciences (those who enjoy big-screen SciFi and telephone sanitizers is another hot number), but this legislation is based on the notion that by mandating the outward effect (reads SF) you can magically create the inner cause (likes math & science). It's an old brain fart, and makes me wonder if the congresscritter is demonstrating the simple fact that statistics don't predict individual outcomes crisply.
wrinkle and dune, very little sci in that fi. they're mostly philosophy expressed with fantasy
How about politicians focus on the bottom layers of Maslow's Hierarchy (e.g. safety, security, etc.) and let educators worry about the mid- and upper tiers. Why do politicians think they can meddle with any part of our society?
Every student entering 6th grade should read "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card and "A Wrinkle In Time."
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
You might expect that he'd be filing to require kids to read Chaucer in school.
But maybe his relatives pushed those books on him, and this is an unintended consequence.
Most people don't read science fiction because it's beyond crap. I love science but that's not the way to go for the kids. UNLESS the books are the first three in the Hitchhiker's Guide series. Everything is else is rubbish, albeit mostly harmless.
and it must show wrestling and people running around in the dark with flashlights looking for their assholes.
There's nothing sinister here. You can question the literal material he's suggesting but I don't think there's any question that this is from the heart. He's encouraging something that won't cost anything and that might perhaps get kids to see the world in a different perspective.
The guy represents West Virginia. It is a part of the US in need of dreams.
Personally... I say why not. It can't hurt can it? And it isn't as if there aren't other books they read which are of roughly the same caliber... or less for that matter. I remember reading some absolutely terrible books in school. Any classic book... even a science fiction classic is likely to be better then some of the ALTERNATE options which are frequently not read at all outside of captive classrooms.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Unfortunately, most public schools pay the absolute minimum they can get away with. And waste money on "politically appropriate" instruction.
... make it part of the English lit. curriculum. All of the "classics" were popular literature in their time. Shakespeare was extremely popular in the USA in the 19th century. Now, though, few read the classics for pleasure. I think that's partly because in high school most are taught to hate them.
In my experience, requiring certain books to be read is the quickest way to make people hate them. Or was it just that all of (Dutch) "literature" I was forced to read actually is bloody awful?
*Heavy sarcasm mode on*
God no can't have this in the gool ol U S OF A. Our kids need to be dumb fucks whether they be white, black, mexican, and barely be able to work at mcdonalds or on the street. Giving them the ability to have an imagination and actually be intersted in science? Oh hell no they need to be very dumb fucks and only care about american idol and the kardashians...
*Heavy sarcasm mode off*
Unfortunately this is how most of the world see's the USA.
If you want to kill a kid's joy in something, make it a school assignment. If you want to make absolutely sure, make them write a paper on it. For extra credit, give them a reading assignment they absolutely do not have the background to understand (e.g. Slaughterhouse 5 before they've even heard about WWII).
Let's let the schools continue to ruin horrid bits of literature, like Willa Cather and Herman Melville. Leave the SF to people who like reading.
But is their not some requirement that all books that teachers can make you read in English class have to be incredibly boring? That is the only way that any of the assigned reading I got would make any sense.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
My high-school actually had Science Fiction as an English credit. Favorite English credit ever.
That which is not dead may eternal lie,and in strange aeons even death may die
Oh yeah, many already make fantasy mandatory. Sorry.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I spent my youth reading everything sci-fi I could find (and there wasn't nearly as much as there is now). I wanted to be an astronaut so I took flying lessons (all astronauts were pilots back then) but my eyes were not good enough (late nights reading sci-fi?) but I ended up working at NASA and still love reading sci-fi. I tried to get my daughter interested in sci-fi but she is more into adventure. Oh well, each to their own. She did go to a very good school and Farentheit 451, 1984, and Flowers for Algernon were on her reading list.
Not sure what they teach now, but in the UK in the 80s and 90s we covered (I realise these can depend on a loose definition of SF or Fantasy) Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, Day of the Triffids, Wizard of Earthsea, Lord of the Flies and Fahrenheit 451. Compared to the other books we made to read, these were definitely the stand out texts for me, because I learnt more from them then I did, say, Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Chaucer, Harper Lee, Camus or any of the other (apparently forgettable) "classics" we covered. SF gets overlooked because most people think lasers, robots and aliens rather than science, philosophy and the human condition.
Dune would've been amazing to cover, but it's a large book in comparison to the ones we studied. I doubt you would be able to do it justice, given limited teaching time and limited attention span of most students. We were usually asked to read a chapter or two for homework once a week, over something like 8-10 weeks, and a bit in class time. To fully appreciate Dune would've taken a whole year - unless you concentrate on one or two bits, but what would they be?
First, I think we've had enough of legislators getting into curricula. Students already spend at least a third of their time prepping for standardized tests. Common Core curricular guidelines are demanding that 70% of English class readings be devoted to nonfiction, specifying things like menus and instruction manuals. Teachers already teach a lot of science fiction. And I'm going to say this as a fan of SF who knows about the "wide range" people are already trotting out: many teachers teach SF/Fantasy for two reasons: one, their own educations did not prepare them to understand, say, Shakespeare or stuff like poetry, and, two, they can't or don't want to take the effort to make that stuff interesting to students. I have actual data I've collected on poetry instruction; almost all teachers I consulted said these three things: they don't teach poetry, they don't read poetry, they don't understand poetry. I'm not saying that poetry is what we need but that this indicative of a problem of effort and education, as well as a system that is based on credentialing teachers based on education courses and not causes in the subject they will teach. It's "worse" at the college level; students can often get thru college lit reqs without ever touching anything more than SF or Fantasy, and often it's not even "high brow" SF/Fantasy but stuff on the order of Orson Scott Card or Harry Potter. I think we would be better served to place some actual intellectual demands on all our future citizens and do our best to give everyone the intellectual tools necessary to enjoy some more difficult reading. No one will like everything, but that's no reason to race toward an "ow my balls!" curriculum designed by President Camacho.
English teachers will choose the same types of brain destroying fodder they've always chosen. You won't see hard science like Charles Sheffield's and damned if there'd be a book by Asimov or Clarke in the school system. You'll get socialist progressivist drooling by Harry Harrison or the other mundane science fiction crowd. You'll get marxist fantasy by writers you've never heard of. If an English teacher can instill a hatred of reading in a child they'll find a way to do it.
A subversive librarian is the cure for all that. ;)
Many comments above have some good point. I'd say most are going about this the right way, saying, "I like the idea, but is it the state legislature's place to specify reading curriculum?". And the answer is no, unless you want every repressentative's pet idea to be included.
Someone once told me that the best science fiction is, at the core, social science fiction. I agree completely. Yes, the actual science can be cool, but the social and cultural implications are what is really valuable, especially in the classroom. Furthermore, literature in public schools also has to act as students' introduction to philosophy and ethics, since there isn't anywhere else to teach those ideas in the adopted standards. So I'd be very supportive of science fiction in schools, but you can't do it this way.
Also, I wanted to mention, this is in friction with the new common core state standards. If you haven't heard, 45 states have adopted a common set of mathematics and literacy standards (note: NOT federal standards, this was a collaborative effort by member states, and the Feds weren't invited, even though title 1 [aka NCLB] accountability will now be tied to these topics and assessments). The literacy standards reduce the amount of fiction being read substantially, and non-fiction reading becomes emphasized. I think it's a reall good thing--we currently do a poor job of preparing our students for the myriad of technical text they will have to interact with as a person and a professional. Furthermore, fiction reading stratigies don't work for non-fiction (for example, you can't use context for vocabulary you don't know). The flip side of this is, teachers, parents, and students are going to have to give up some fiction literature to make time. This is going to be a bloody fight, I can see already. People have in their mind a canon that they think everyone must have read, else they are undereducated (nevermind everyone's list is different) but that mentality has to go.
I have a lot more to say, but this is too long already. If you are in a CCSS state (everyone but TX, MN, VA, NE, AK, PR) and have some spare time, check out the new standards. I think they are a really huge step forward (generally, less focus on facts and rote skills, more focus on problem solving, using tools, and deeper ideas), and honestly, we aren't doing a great job of getting the word out.
The first Sci-Fi novel I read was A Wrinkle In Time in the 6th grade. The very next book I read was Heinlien's "A Stranger In a Strange Land". I spent the next 30 years trying to build my very own cult/commune. My lack of any magical abilities whatsoever has made this endeavor less than successful. Perhaps we shouldn't make it mandatory that our children go down the same road. Just sayin'.
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I have moved several times and the schools seems all seem to have "The Veldt", "1984", and "Brave New World" as part of the curriculum. It is not that there is SF in the curriculum, but rather is there relevant SF in the curriculum. The titles above good but dated, the best SF makes you think about the world that you are in and what the futures could be, the titles above starting point is too far in the past. I have trouble recommending title because the best I can immediately think of have too much sex and drugs in them for the schools systems (e.g. William Gibson).
Isn't there a way to promote them without mandating them?
My school had a lot of mandatory Shakespeare in 8-12th grades, 2+ plays a year and guess what? I always loved reading and yet absolutely detest and despise anything by him or any of the authors that was mandated as I associate it with a tedious chore and avoided anything by them ever since.
Idk if it's the case for everyone, but I always sought out what was interesting to me, it didn't have to be mandated. The trick isn't to ram it down the throat so the student has no choice but swallow but to provide a taste of it. You're never going to make students uninterested in science interested through brute force.
Science class should show some Carl Sagan's videos (and Brian Cox I find interesting too) to light up the imagination but another idea I think could be interesting is that science books, in between chapters, could print some short stories by these luminaries. Don't make it mandatory reading, but just have it there. A lot of people read to read, and having it right there in the text book could reach a lot of kids. If they like it, they will seek the author out on their own and branch out on their own.
1984 was required reading for us. I think it was up to the individual teacher or schools.
I also read Ender's Game in school. It was picked by me, but approved by the teacher.
Since this course is to develop the imagination and explore possibilities for the students, why not implement it as the first national curriculum MOOC? It would seem appropriate that a Sci-Fi curriculum would embrace new technologies and explore a newer forms of education.
While I like science fiction, I don't like this law:
1. Onerous, cluttersome. The United States has too many laws. Do politicians feel insignificant if they don't make them? Maybe they need to adopt the mindset of good programmers and take pleasure in refactoring the legal code down to a smaller, more elegant set.
2. Counterproductive. As said by others, making people read something has no guarantee of making them like it. In fact, they'll like it less. If he were really clever, he would outlaw science fiction. Then teens would want to read it.
3. Defiling. Art does not exist to advance the industrial usefulness of its citizens. It cheapens a culture if art is appreciated for things like like better factories, cars, and drugs. Hey, this does sound like 1984!
And by "The Bible", I mean the Bible. And not selected parts. It's a foundation for much of Western culture, arts, and philosophy. And frankly, if more people knew what was written in there rather than what they are told is written there, we'd have far fewer religious nutcases unable to see its contents in proper perspective.
In my opinion, it would be a fabulous deal if all of it were put on the curriculum in exchange for throwing out the nonsense that is creationism. Biblical studies are a (literary) science. Biology is a (natural) science. Creationism, in contrast, is a cheap excuse for not learning anything.
This is the delegate that also proposed that poor children should have to work for food.
Mandatory? Why does every scum-bag think he/she has the right to apply jack-booted policies over his/her hobby-horses?
Science fiction? I hope even here, people understand how broad the definition of the term actually is, and how far more works of fiction than most people realise fall somewhat into the genre. Is 'Sherlock Holmes' SF, for instance. If you answer "no" you should be really ashamed of yourself.
When the term SF is casually used, it usually refers to authors that bend over backward to shoe-horn their output under this label for commercial reasons. Thus, dumbos think SF means stories with aliens, ray-guns, time-travel and the like. Now this isn't the same as accepting that when people want to read stories with aliens, ray-guns, time-travel and the like, they go hit the SF section of their bookshop or library (whoops, showing my age there).
There is a distinction between the convenient labelling of works of fiction for commercial reasons, and the actually meaning of 'science fiction'.
Does SF mean thinking about science? Does SF mean considering the role of science in society? Does SF mean thinking about the future? Does SF mean considering what might have been? Was Thomas Hardy writing SF in his stories about Wessex (his metaphors were frequently of a maths or scientific flavour reflecting the achievements of the Victorian Age)?
The bigger picture is "who are the greats whose work should be on the reading lists for kids at school". When I was 13ish, our English teacher asked us that question. Some suggested writers like Ian Fleming, others Asimov and similar. Even Conan Doyle is missing from reading lists in Britain (go look at his enlightened politics for an explanation).
'1984', 'Fahrenheit 451', that book about the shipwrecked kids, 'Day of the Triffids', and fundamentalist extremist Christian crap disguised as SF from that depravity C.S.Lewis were on our school reading list if I recall correctly. Not exactly a shortage of 'SF'. I imagine US schools have similar lists.
If anything, I imagine there is a pro-SF 'bias' at schools, because such 'speculative fiction' provides many options for classroom discussion, and is likely to get even the kids that don't care for reading to think there is some worthwhile point to these kinds of stories.
On the other hand, what on Earth would be the point of making hard SF mandatory class reading? What would the point of making hard-core pulp SF (like the works of Asimov) class reading? Even 'Dune' makes for a terrible class book. People who read books like these (most of us, I guess) were proud to read these books as kids for fun. It is a sick idea to try to force your preferences on others.
Of course, in the UK, we don't have male teachers sexually assaulting 18-year women in the name of 'corporal punishment' (legal and practised in most States of the USA) either. Forcing your ideas, tastes and preferences on others is a very bad idea. Being insecure if others do not share your ideas, tastes and preferences marks one as potentially a VERY dangerous individual. Ray Canterbury sounds like a psychotic SF nerd of very low intelligence.
My younger sister was assigned to read Fahrenheit 451 for one of her classes. I read through it because I had never been assigned it and was curious about the storyline. Personally, I thought it sucked compared to many of the more advanced Sci-Fi stories exploring the human condition that I was reading at the time.
She had to write a report on the meaning of the book. I pointed out to her that the writer's forward actually said that he wrote the book because he was tired of his editors screwing with his book manuscripts and deliberately or accidentally changing the meaning of his books. So she wrote her report and got a poor grade because it wasn't what the teacher either expected or believed, despite the fact that it was there in black and white for all to see.
Most teachers interpret Fahrenheit 451 as being about deliberate censorship. Bradbury, a few years before he died, interpreted his own work to reflect a society where there is more interest in entertainment and less and less interest in reading, so books get condensed to the point where the meaning is lost and society grows to despise books.
http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/
The point is that English departments have been interpreting books for years and have taught their "official" interpretation to students with no flexibility for students to come up with their own unique meaning. In my opinion, it's this institutional method to reading that makes it a chore. What makes reading fun is the ability to approach the material on your own and develop your own interpretations. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen because it makes it harder to grade...
it is kind of like the old saying "the only thing PE teaches you is to hate PE". don't do that with sci fi. if you want to make it an option, fine, but don't force it on people.
Like Gibbon's Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire, Smith's Wealth of Nations and the US Consitution for starters.
One big potential problem is that in the US at least, sci-fi now means horror, ghost hunting, dungeons and dragons and stupid reality shows.
The surest way to turn kids off of science fiction is to make reading it mandatory in school.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
For all of those that think this is a good idea, there will be a number of schools requiring Ayn Rand... /shudder/
But wouldn't that cut into time allocated for white guilt indoctrination? Jose and Darnell don't care about sci-fi, anyways. Most can barely read.
Books like Dune make a much bigger impact if you discover them on your own. If a school crammed them down kids' throats, they wouldn't like them. Something like Dune is what kids find on their own, a secret place that excites their imaginations, as far away from the mundane drudgery of school as possible. Books like these show you that there is a much larger world beyond the narrow confines of your everyday experience. Like Daryl Hall said, don't mess with imperfection. Let kids have something to discover on their own.
I think you stopped reading as soon as you hit the "because"
;)
"Stalemate" is the right word, he's making a pun on the similarity of the misspelling to the name of a certain rather well-known bearded man.
I didn't discover Heinlein until I was in my mid 20's (I'm 42 now). I wish I was exposed to his juvenile works when I was young...
This politician's point isn't about making children read his favorite books because they're his favorites. He wants children and teenagers to read Science Fiction because it makes science and math interesting, which in turn, turns more of our youth to those fields of study. I seldom agree with politicians, but this guy is absolutely right-- if we want to improve ourselves as a species, we need to get our youth interested in these subjects. Getting them to read Science Fiction is one good approach.
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
>Look where 1984 as required reading got us. If they make the kids read Lovecraft, I fear what the next generation of politicians will be like.
Good joke...or should I say that would be bad?
Canada, 35. I read H.G. Wells 'The War of the Worlds', 'A Wrinkle in Time', and 'The Chrysalids' in high school.
By the time the education establishment gets through, 99% of graduates will hate SciFi.
The educational establishment has produced more illiterates who hate education than any institution in history. Illiterates didn't used to hate education and educated people, it took public schools, huge bureaucracies at state and federal levels on to make that happen.
I learned a million times more from "Starship Troopers" and "Ringworld" about human nature than I ever leaned from "The Scarlet Letter" and "The Great Gatsby".
There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
Or Beer, as in Heinlein's example in "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress". Understanding that would be a great thing for every kid to learn. I'm surprised by how many otherwise intelligent adults appear tongue-tied after rallying for some new subsidy when you just ask the simple question 'Fine, what will you cut to cover the cost?'
My brain nearly imploded once when a college educated friend said 'We should subsidize solar panels on houses' and I replied 'Groovy - So what would you cut?', and they said 'Nothing - Just print more money'
Let the kids choose, then. You're not going to get any of them interested mandating stuff. You're more likely to make them despise it.
First, straight up, Dune is in my opinion the greatest book ever written. Every man, woman, and child on earth should read it. We should conquer other planets if only for the expressed purpose of forcing their inhabitants to read it (after that, we should just leave them alone in peace, you know?). We should spend decades working on technology that will teach trout and other sea creatures to read JUST SO they can bask in the glory that is Dune.
That said (and kidding aside), even though every student should read it, these kinds of mandates never really work. People won't see how great Sci Fi is unless they read it voluntarily. They might read it, but I don't know if they'd enjoy it.
But why make up silly rules?
If you make up lots of mandatory rules you reduce the ability of teacher to do what it right for their particular class.
There was never a mandatory requirement in the syllabus I studied. There were set texts and discretionary texts which included The Hobbit, Dark is Rising, Brave New World, A Canticle For Leiberwitz, Fahrenheit 451, The Crysalids, Day of The Triffids in the junior years.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court was on an optional reading list in high school. Clemens remains good reading today.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
As long as its not Heinlein's books for young people. It took me years to get his crazy politics out of my head...
Yes let the kids choose for themselves, and don't bitch when they all end up majoring in vampire studies.
It's no different from making let's say 'The Bible' mandatory. The only difference is the personal world view of the proposer.
It would be drawing a long bow to insist that all students read sci-fi, but there is an alternative. At Murdoch University, in Perth (WA, Australia) all first-year students are required to take a foundation unit in first-year to get their study skills up to scratch. One of these (by far the most popular) is called "Life and the Universe" and explores a range of science-related themes with a pretty good selection of sci-fi texts.
By comparison with the rest of my undergrad degree (BSc Biotechnology) it was pretty fluffy, but it served its purpose well, and the reading list was broad and fun.
It was a very long time ago when I did this, but the course is still running. Now, obviously I'm not saying everybody should migrate to Western Australia (I, myself have migrated away) but a course of this nature provides both a taste of sci-fi from a range of authors and also a useful underpinning for later studies.
He does know that most sci-fi does not fit math or science of the time by definition, right?
If you want kids to hate scifil, make them read Dune.
About 2 yrs ago, I wanted to read Dune before seeing the movie. I'd tried to read it about 5 times prior to that point, but the first 50-100 pages suck. It provides boring background that goes on and on and on and on and on.
Age appropriate SciFi is needed and a different taste for different people. We aren't interested in the same topics and English teachers often do not understand scifi at all - no passion will lead to no passion transfer to the kids.
BTW, eventually I was able to read Dune and 4 other books in the series. After getting through the first 80 pages, it was a great book, as I vaguely recall. I'll never read it again.
A few years ago, I re-read most of Heinlein's books after getting a new tablet. They were just as enjoyable as I remembered in my teens. His stories were slightly dated, but still relevent. Someday a remake of Starship Troopers will actually do the book justice. More "skinnies, dropsuits, fewer bugs" IMHO.
These days, I like the Red Mars serious. Current and relevent. Obviously, not for everyone.
BULL!... I'm an engineer, never read a fiction book. No interest. But I live science.
Why would I bitch : fewer little sprogs threatening to try to do my job for lower day-rates. Let them take vampire studies.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Science Fiction gives carte blanche to the writer to invent any utopian vision he likes. To invent a dream land with little relation to reality, to act out his political fantasy. with little regard to human or alien nature, history, or physics. So, all constraints are off. Gulliver's Travelers would be called Sci Fi by today's standards even though it was political allogory by the standards of the 18th Century. I'm not surprised that a politician would want to make dream land mandatory reading, since most of them are in dream land anyway, not that it is an awful idea, actually, but next we will make Ayn Rand mandatory and teach her as fact, which she isn't. I'm sure there has been plenty of criticism of her where she has gone off the rails, and much of that has to do with fantasy vs. reality.
We already have Sci-Fi works on the supplementary lectures list for Junior High School students in Poland - Stanislaw Lem's "The Cyberiad" and "Mortal Engines" (polish: Bajki Robotów). Some years ago other books by Lem were on the supplementary lectures list for the last classes of primary schools - "Tales of Pirx the pilot" and "Solaris".
He wants children and teenagers to read Science Fiction because it makes science and math interesting, which in turn, turns more of our youth to those fields of study.
But if we do that, children might start using their imagination.
They may even start having ideas of their own.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Not really. That's a smokescreen.
Really this is about one person's private belief that their favourite books, whatever they may be, are so eye-opening and lifechanging that everyone needs to read them. Because.
Everyone privately believes this. That's why it's so easy to get people to post book reviews - on private blogs, on Amazon, on Slashdot, basically everywhere. But most of us stop there, we don't go trying to get the law changed.
He's just trying to get LR Hubbard's books in the classroom.
J/K I dunno, but that was my first thought on the subject.
Expecting people to read? In US state schools?
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That is the dumbest thing I've heard since breakfast, which puts it in with some stiff competition.
Silas Marner!
I think there are a number of science fiction novels that would be beneficial for high school students to read, but that's true of other times of literature as well. The problem is the minute some politician makes a law that says students must read/study such and thus in school for whatever reason, education is defined by politicians instead of educators. Education isn't a mystery and the only thing that really needs to be retooled is to make the emphasis of the educational system on giving students skill sets that they need to function in the modern job market, not to indoctrinate them in the latest social beliefs and priorities.
He wants children and teenagers to read Science Fiction because it makes science and math interesting, which in turn, turns more of our youth to those fields of study.
But if we do that, children might start using their imagination. They may even start having ideas of their own.
The HORROR!
I vote that the State should require all of its high school students to read Gene Wolfe's Severian novels, and in conjunction, write long essays discussing Wolfe's hybrid vocabulary.
so that's where politics always gets it wrong, it's never about creating options is it, it's always about i say what's best for you and now it's mandatory ... ... 'old-worlders' as i call them
... listen to the ted talk on education by mister robinson overthere, you create options and you let your children claim themselves (to quote a black poet), since it is my conviction people will always advance twice as fast in area's they're interested in since it wont be a chore, and the learning wont stop after school hours
...
i got a disgust for classic 'intellectual' literature because it was shoved down my throat on a weekly basis in school. I'm still not much for the poo-ha most nobel prize literature revolves around. I read my first lord of the rings when i was about nine and i had a moment when i couldnt find any sci-fi book in the library next city that i hadnt already read.
i dont read a lot anymore and the books i still have are mostly there for touch and smell, some of them i hardly dare touch for fear they might disintegrate lol but
this 'mandatory' part is the biggest flaw in the genetic blueprint of politicians and
you're talking about teenagers, right, how come everyone forgets that? did they just go from the cradle to wearing an expensive suit and skip that part?
you don't want to tell a hormone bomb in conflict that this is mandatory 'or else...' , do you now ?
so you create options
but you need the mass to fill up the gaps you created in the labour force?
that's not my problem
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
There are a lot of better sci-fi books than A Wrinkle In Time.
I have read it and honestly it kinda sucked..
I'd recommend Enders Game instead..