"United Kingdom schools limiting American literature; New guidelines prompt changes" by Steven Erlanger | New York Times June 01, 2014
LONDON — When government shapes a nation’s literary education, politics inevitably plays a role. That has become clear in the case of the British minister of education, Michael Gove, who was accused of jingoism last week for new syllabus requirements that have led to the removal of American classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Crucible.”
At issue are the minimum requirements for students taking the General Certificate of Secondary Education English exam, usually given when they are 15 or 16.
Gove had complained that many taking the test had read only one novel, and, for 90 percent of those students, that was John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” Paul Dodd of Oxford, Cambridge, and RSA Examinations, one of the boards that set and grade the test, said Gove had called that “a really disappointing statistic.”
Given those numbers, Gove argued that he wanted British schools to broaden the choice and variety of literature, not limit it.
New regulations require that students study at least one play by Shakespeare, at least one 19th-century novel, a selection of poetry since 1789, and “fiction or drama from the British Isles from 1914 onwards.” The government does not prescribe — or proscribe — any particular work.
Some examination boards have chosen to replace some recommended US novels with British ones, like Meera Syal’s “Anita and Me,” a 1997 multicultural coming-of-age tale, and “Never Let Me Go,” by the British-based Kazuo Ishiguro.
But dropping the works has caused a ruckus online and in newspapers and weeklies. The books left out include Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” removed in the week the author died; Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”; and Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.” And at least one exam board, Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, has no US novels or plays on its list of proposed texts.
Related: Caged Bird Sings No More
Not getting much of a song from me, either.
Gove, a Conservative and former journalist, responded to the criticism by arguing that students were reading too narrowly, and that beyond the core requirements, exam boards had no restrictions on their choice of authors.
Suggestions that US works were being banned, he said, were “rooted in fiction.”
A spokesman for the Education Department said the requirements represented “the minimum” students must learn and that exam boards could include literature from anywhere.
Teachers and teachers’ unions have said Gove should not interfere. Last year the National Union of Teachers called for his resignation, asserting that he has based policy “on dogma, political rhetoric and his own limited experience of education.”
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