My early childhood reads consisted of the works of the Brothers Grimm, Frank Baum, Lewis Carrol, Jack London, Louisa May Alcott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Daniel DeFoe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Washington Iriving, to name but a few. There were no educational age-guidelines set in place, at that time, as to what a child of eight, or ten or eleven might be able to read and comprehend.
I cut my reading baby teeth on some of the finest works of literature ever published. To say this set high, my standards, as to reading material, sought after, during my lifetime, is an understatement. I read these works before reaching the advanced age of twelve. Imagine my surprise at discovering Irving’s, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, is material touted today by educators, as best introduced to students, only at the twelfth grade level. Meanwhile, elsewhere, schools are promoting works stamped classics, by mere virtue of their common popularity, and not due to any obvious literary value. This is but another example, of the continuing promotion of the mediocre, so rampant in every aspect of our society.
Is this not a sad truth concerning today’s teaching of the young? It is only by presenting our youth with examples of the extraordinary, as opposed to the ordinary, in literature that we may hope for future literary gems. Have we fallen so low, have we become so saturated with mediocrity, that perhaps, we no longer have the ability to distinguish worthy from worthless? I wonder upon which works of literature the majority of today’s elementary educators cut their reading baby teeth. I wonder.
--Jeannine Schenewerk
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