Edubabble and other Blither

To Whom it May Concern:

I am a proud graduate of Small Northeast University and am thankful for the fine education I received. It was disturbing, then, to hear of the recent proposed changes in the secondary English program. I've learned that students will no longer be taking young adult literature and that other courses are in danger of being dropped as well. This news shocked, then saddened, and finally angered me.

I do not feel it's in the best interest of the university students or their future students to take children's lit as an alternative to young adult lit. Anyone can see that there's a vast difference between Goodnight Moon and Speak, Give a Mouse a Cookie and You Don't Know Me, Junie B. Jones and Harry Potter. Middle school and high school teachers need to know what's out there in young adult lit-- and it is a huge genre, indeed. Future teachers need to know about the books their students are reading, need to be able to craft meaningful, provocative units around these novels.

As Cool Young Student Teacher, a recent summa cum laude SNU graduate, put it, "YA lit was where it all came together." This course, along with secondary language arts methods, teaches students to do more than simply assign chapters to be read and develop tests. Reading literature with a class, no matter what politicians would have us believe, takes much more than simply coloring in circles, answering short simple questions, and identifying figurative language. Courses like YA lit and secondary methods teach teachers to reach students with literature and language, making them love language and helping them to think critically about our world and their own place in it.

Young adult literature plays an even bigger part as well. I've taught middle school for my entire career. Although I loved all the literature courses I took at SNU-- survey courses, short stories, drama-- I've never once had to teach anything I read for those classes. I have, on the other hand, applied my knowledge of the many novels I read and annotated in my YA class.

At a time when academic rigor is being emphasized and sometimes questioned at all levels of education, it seems tragic that rigor is being removed from the secondary English program at SNU. Let me be clear about this-- students who do not take YA literature are not being prepared to teach English, and I will not have them in my classroom for their block experience or to student teach. I am also the most senior English teacher at my school; I am sure my colleagues, many of whom are former SNU graduates, will agree.

Sincerely,

C. Snow, 1992
Small Northeast Middle School