In high school, I bet we can all remember reading a classic book, whether it was The Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Romeo and Juliet, or The Grapes of Wrath. There have been so many other great books to come out in more recent years, that it would only make sense to also use some more modern texts. While these are called classics for a reason, there are some reasons that we need an update. Books such as To Kill a Mockingbird have been taught in classrooms for years, even considering its profane and inappropriate language; some teachers would even say these words in class to show “how bad racism was back then.” We can look into using books such as The Hate U Give, Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me, or They Could Have Named Her Anything. These are books that can talk about racial identity and how people of color deal with life. This gives a more updated view into race and this allows for more informed talks about race. For me, we didn’t talk about race in high school and that left me a lot of learning to do in college. Now especially with the Black Lives Matter movement, we should be educating ourselves on other racial backgrounds and to better understand their situations. There is more to race than the racism that happened in the past, we need to be aware of racism now.
Another topic that we don’t have books on in school is other sexualities. Some students even see that the sex education in their schools is following a heteronormative path. I want my future children to be able to have the same opportunities to learn about themselves no matter what their sexuality may be. Books we could be reading in the classroom to represent students in the LGBTQIA+ community include Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, City of Strife, or Vanished. Having more updated books in the classroom can also keep the students interested. The classics are good stories, but they can be very dated; giving students books to read that are more modern could get them more excited about reading.
This does not mean that we need to get rid of the classics altogether, there are still some books that don’t need to be pushed to the side. The Catcher in the Rye is a great example of this because it’s a coming of age story, students in the class would be the same age as main character Holden and would be able to relate to him more so than in other books. This was one book I fell in love with as a senior in high school, I liked it so much I went out and bought myself a copy because I knew it would make a comeback in my life, even before I wanted to pursue teaching. The Outsiders is another that is older, but still good. The Outsiders is also a good example of this. I leave you with not a call to action. We don’t need to get rid of the oldies, but with food for thought, would it be better to get some books from this century?