Why Literature Matters

 As an English teacher, I have heard a variety of derogatory things. First, the general teacher comments like "those who can, do; those who can't, teach." I have also heard "Go experience life instead of just reading about it." The most common statement I hear is from students who tell me that "reading is boring." Books, reading, stories, and literature can and often is seen as archaic and unnecessary. Students want to know why they have to read and learn about fiction in school. They tell me all the time "It's not like I am going to use this in my life." I would argue that statement is very incorrect. Not only is it used in life, but gives instruction for life and what life will look like.

Let me give you the example I use with my students. In modern America, we don't have arranged marriages. We allow each individual to choose who they are going to marry. This is just natural, and we of course believe this is the best option. From a purely logical and pragmatic sense, it is a horrible idea. Arranged marriages make more sense. Young people who are attempting to choose a mate, a lifelong commitment, are not rational. They are using emotion and are not seeing the picture clearly. Most individuals enter relationships before their frontal cortex is fully formed. They don't have the life experience to make the kind of wise, rational decisions required in this kind of commitment. The further parents have moved away from the process of choosing a mate, the higher the divorce rate in our country rises. Parents, who deeply want what is best for their child, would make a better choice of mate, based on shared values, compatibility, and maturity. As a father, I would pick a husband for my daughter who was kind, loving, hard-working, and would be supportive in every way. Why don't we see this in American culture?

The answer is Romeo and Juliet. We all read Romeo and Juliet, and the story is told and retold in our culture in a million different versions. Juliet reaches marrying age, and her parents find a good suiter. Paris is well-off, respectable, and comes from a good family. What does Juliet do? She runs off and marries the bad boy, the hot guy from the rival family. Their love is so powerful, they are willing to die to protect it. Their death brings the feuding families together. It has become the ideal. In reality, the story is about a girl and a boy who decide they are madly in love after meeting once, get married the next day, and are dead by the end of the week. Not a good model for a relationship, but somehow it has become the way young people act about love. It is repeated in love songs, romantic comedies, sappy romance stories, soap operas, and teenage dramas. The couple that defies the odds to be together.

Here is the point, literature shapes our society. We are defined by our stories, and it has been that way since the beginning of human history. Our identity is shaped by the stories we hear and relate too. By reading, learning, and thinking, we have a better opportunity to shape our lives, our communities, and our culture in positive ways. The stories that are being shared in schools, homes, churches, and the marketplace today will shape the next generation. The things we tell the younger generation will impact their identity. This is why there is such a fight over children and schools. The stories we tell matter. The narratives we communicate to our students today are the truth that they live tomorrow. Now, more than ever, being an English teacher is critical. If students do not get a balanced, accurate view of life from the stories, they are simply being manipulated. Teaching should be making students into informed, free-thinking, responsible adults. It should not just be creating smaller versions of our ideas and ideology to further our political or social goals. We need to be honest about the power and impact of stories in our lives. Our future may depend on it.