The recent petition from educators pleading with the Government not to show the Netflix drama Adolescence in UK schools under the bizarre pretence that it is a ‘documentary’ was one I would have happily signed during my own previous life as a teacher. My time in the classroom was 15-20 years ago now, but I felt even at the time that the English Literature curriculum I taught was chiefly valued by its creators as a convenient means for ensuring the political re-wiring of captive pupils.
Compulsory set texts for examination tended to focus excessively on issues like race relations and socialist-type concerns, such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men. Most such books were American, encouraging kids to view these subjects through a distorted US-centric prism, and had obviously been chosen due to their ideological message not their innate quality as literature.
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