# Michael Gove, UK Education Secretary and raving ideologue, removes American classics from curriculum **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 26, 2014, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279 "2014-05-26T13:48:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/21 "2014-05-27T00:27:38Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > They’re certainly not keen on Ezra Euro, that’s true. Dammit. That’s twice in about a week I’ve missed an obvious joke. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/22 "2014-05-27T00:36:38Z")
Chalk this up as a non-story. What’s most sad about it is that people who should know better are reacting to an incorrect story to further a political point-of-view. I’m not a Tory supporter, but Gove consistently comes across as smarter than the usual lefty knee-jerk teaching activists he’s up against: > [@](#): > > “Last year the Department for Education set out new requirements around which exam boards would frame their specifications. > > “The new subject content for all GCSEs is broader and deeper than before - reflecting a higher level of ambition for children. > > “In English literature we emphasised that students must read a wide range of texts. We also set out a minimum core that had to be covered - specifically a whole Shakespeare play, poetry from 1789 including the romantics , a 19th-century novel, and some fiction or drama written in the British Isles since 1914. > > “ **Beyond this exam boards have the freedom to design specifications so that they are stretching and interesting, and include any number of other texts from which teachers can then choose**.” It just makes the anti-Gove crowd looks petty and childish. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/23 "2014-05-27T02:07:15Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I’d be curious to see what the entire list looks like. Both before and after. There isn’t “a list”. Wallenstein’s quote includes [the requirements](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/254498/GCSE_English_literature.pdf): > [@](#): > >  at least one play by Shakespeare >  at least one 19th century novel >  a selection of poetry since 1789, including representative Romantic poetry >  fiction or drama from the British Isles from 1914 onwards. So students can read _Ethan Frome_ but not _Of Mice And Men_ or \*Catch-22 \*or… any other American novel they might actually enjoy. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/24 "2014-05-27T02:17:33Z")
> [@Wallenstein](#): > > Chalk this up as a non-story. What’s most sad about it is that people who should know better are reacting to an incorrect story to further a political point-of-view. > > I’m not a Tory supporter, but Gove consistently comes across as smarter than the usual lefty knee-jerk teaching activists he’s up against: > > It just makes the anti-Gove crowd looks petty and childish. By “teaching activists” you mean teachers, yes? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/25 "2014-05-27T04:12:12Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > There isn’t “a list”. Wallenstein’s quote includes [the requirements](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/254498/GCSE_English_literature.pdf): > > So students can read _Ethan Frome_ but not _Of Mice And Men_ or \*Catch-22 \*or… any other American novel they might actually enjoy. It says it has to include those things, not that it has to be exclusive to those things. A little cursory research indicates that these GCSE programs are meant to last two years, more in the case of complicated subjects, including literature, which seems more than enough time to cover the four required topics, and throw in plenty of Steinbeck or Twain. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/26 "2014-05-27T04:46:17Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > No, he’s getting rid of _Of Mice and Men_ because he’s a useless twat who wants to feel like he’s revolutionising education by randomly changing things… No, he’s upset the mice are getting top billing. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/27 "2014-05-27T08:35:20Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > It says it has to include those things, not that it has to be exclusive to those things. A little cursory research indicates that these GCSE programs are meant to last two years, more in the case of complicated subjects, including literature, which seems more than enough time to cover the four required topics, and throw in plenty of Steinbeck or Twain. There’s less class time for that than you’d think. Kids get between 3 and four hours of English a week, but that’s for English Lit and English Lang, which are taught together but are separate GCSEs. More class time is spent on English Lang because you can’t get into sixth form or do anything, really, without at least a C grade in that subject. So that’s about 80 hours’ total class time for Eng Lit. GCSEs don’t last for more than two years in any subject. Where are you getting that from? The prescribed areas - Shakespeare, etc, listed above - are what the kids will be examined on in Eng Lit, plus general reading and writing skills assessed separately to those texts. It would be a very unusual school that took some of its limited time to teach stuff kids they won’t be examined on. There’s also no guidance on what other changes there are to English GCSE, WRT marking schemes, weighting, how exactly they want to assess speaking and listening, etc, despite the changes coming into force from September. I mean that even teachers haven’t been given any guidance. It’s ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/28 "2014-05-27T08:53:27Z")
BTW, in case anyone thinks teachers will be free to choose any books which meet those specifications, they won’t. Now that the exam boards have been told the areas that will be examined, _they_ will choose specific texts to put in the exams. Teachers will have a choice of two prescribed texts from each area. Not that they know which texts yet. One change I actually don’t mind is the change from modern poetry to Romantic poetry. Some of the modern poetry on the curriculum is really hard for kids to access, as well as not actually being very good; the Romantics will actually be more accessible and enjoyable. But it’s going to be hard for the first year when teachers have to rush to prepare new resources after they’re finally told what texts they’re going to use. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/29 "2014-05-27T12:44:48Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > There’s less class time for that than you’d think. Kids get between 3 and four hours of English a week, but that’s for English Lit and English Lang, which are taught together but are separate GCSEs. More class time is spent on English Lang because you can’t get into sixth form or do anything, really, without at least a C grade in that subject. So that’s about 80 hours’ total class time for Eng Lit. Yeah, there’s not going to be a lot more time for other things, especially with coursework, various exams and revision, etc., in between. The list as a whole is just so backward-looking. And it’s not just this change. There’s a pattern of this sort of traditionalist, looking back to the “good old days” thinking in policy decisions throughout government. It’s unnecessary interference according to personal preference and values, and the product of an ideology rooted in the mad belief that at some point we knew how things should be. Those who didn’t like it were rightly (figuratively) beaten into submission, since they obviously didn’t know what was good for them. Unfortunately, liberals took over and started believing in such lofty ideas as relevance, looking at other cultures or keeping students awake with content rather than canes. On a personal level, I wouldn’t mind seeing “19th century novel” replaced with “foreign English language novel”. The obvious choice would be an American one, but it wouldn’t have to be. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/30 "2014-05-27T13:14:19Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Yeah, there’s not going to be a lot more time for other things, especially with coursework, various exams and revision, etc., in between. > > The list as a whole is just so backward-looking. And it’s not just this change. There’s a pattern of this sort of traditionalist, looking back to the “good old days” thinking in policy decisions throughout government. It’s unnecessary interference according to personal preference and values, and the product of an ideology rooted in the mad belief that at some point we knew how things should be. Those who didn’t like it were rightly (figuratively) beaten into submission, since they obviously didn’t know what was good for them. Unfortunately, liberals took over and started believing in such lofty ideas as relevance, looking at other cultures or keeping students awake with content rather than canes. > > On a personal level, I wouldn’t mind seeing “19th century novel” replaced with “foreign English language novel”. The obvious choice would be an American one, but it wouldn’t have to be. My daughter’s coursework was all “controlled assessments.” Coursework done in class, with a teacher invigilating, and only using school computers. Art coursework al had to be done in class too. The difference was that you could improve stuff by coming back into school to work on it some more (up to a limit), rather than an exam where you go in, write, and that’s it. But they’re getting rid of controlled assessments too. It’s all final exams. They’re saying “for every subject” but that just won’t work for drama or art or music. Mind you, Gove is mandating them out of existence too, so it’s not clear what’s going to happen to them. It’s not clear at all what’s going to happen in the coming academic year, which is not that far away. Anyway, it’ll be 80 hours or so of teaching for all the topics covered, where the texts will be decided by the exam boards. I think some American posters may be under the impression that the teachers grade this stuff; they don’t. Even for coursework, it was graded first by them and then by someone else; sometimes, their grades were sometimes taken as they were, but you could never count on it, and it was always on a scale where you basically ticked boxes saying they’d acheived this, this and this. For exams, the teachers have no part in the grading. They also have little choice in the texts they teach - they can choose from two for each section, then their students have a choice on what question to answer in the exam. This does have a lot of plus points, IMO, but when a minister decides to dictate what will be studied, the minus points come into play. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/31 "2014-05-27T13:28:33Z")
Note that “[a]ll works should have been originally written in English.” So no Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky either. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/32 "2014-05-27T13:34:51Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Note that “[a]ll works should have been originally written in English.” So no Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky either. That’s actually fair enough. These are 15-16 year olds (when they take the exam). Give them a chance! ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/33 "2014-05-27T13:40:32Z")
Bah! I had to read _Crime and Punishment_ at 12 or 13. If I had to suffer, these little bastards should too. Seriously, though, none of Dostoyevsky’s novels are anywhere near as boring as _Ethan Frome_. It is quite literally the least interesting thing I have ever read. That includes the labels of household products, laundry tags on clothing, Haynes manuals, and political manifestos. ---
**Author:** ![Echo\_Charlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Echo\_Charlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Echo_Charlie)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/34 "2014-05-27T14:02:50Z")
> [@Wallenstein](#): > > Chalk this up as a non-story. What’s most sad about it is that people who should know better are reacting to an incorrect story to further a political point-of-view. > > I’m not a Tory supporter, but Gove consistently comes across as smarter than the usual lefty knee-jerk teaching activists he’s up against: > > It just makes the anti-Gove crowd looks petty and childish. Agreed - this is a non-story. The Guardian reliably parrots any old tosh about the Education Secretary. Even Labour’s Education Secretaries were not immune from this nonsense. [The Telegraph](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10857079/Michael-Gove-attacks-fictitious-claims-he-has-banned-US-books-from-schools.html): > [@](#): > > “I have not banned anything,” Mr Gove writes. “Nor has anyone else. Teachers are as free to introduce children to the brilliant writing of Lee, Steinbeck and Miller today as they were yesterday and nothing this government is doing will change that in the future. > > “All we are doing is asking exam boards to broaden - not narrow - the books young people study for GCSE.” … > > Mr Gove adds: “Do I think Of Mice And Men, Lord Of The Flies and To Kill A Mockingbird are bad books? Of course not. I read and loved them all as a child. And I want children in the future to be able to read them all. > > “But sometimes a rogue meme can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.” Editing to add: here Michael Gove’s [response](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/10857133/Michael-Gove-Kill-a-Mockingbird-Id-never-dream-of-it.html) to the charges that he has “banned” American literature. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/35 "2014-05-27T14:29:53Z")
I read “Of Mice and Men” at school. I liked to play truant a lot, so I think it’s the only book I ever did read under orders. It wasn’t much good. If you want to get kids reading then give them books which aren’t tedious. No Jane Austen, no Hardy, preferably no poetry of any kind, or if you must then make it something from the first world war rather than silly introspective wander-lonely-as-a-cloud stuff. More Buchan. More Beano. Maybe Bab Ballads. Stuff children might actually like, or at least be able to read, rather than endless bullshit aimed at eighteenth century noblewomen. > [@Mangetout](#): > > The Grapes Of Wrath was the first book that ever made me miss my stop on the train. I couldn’t stop reading it. I had a similar experience with “The Sprouts of Wrath”. > [@](#): > > This isn’t the first of Gove’s boneheaded ideas. This is the guy who wants history taught sequentially as children progress through school. His new curriculum is almost completely devoid of exploration of method and focuses heavily on rote memorisation of facts. Insane. Yeah, who needs facts or memory? I’ll just google it. Personally, I think school is just somewhere lazy people deposit their children to be bullied into conformity because they can’t be arsed teaching their own children and invariably staffed by a gaggle of ignorant thugs. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/36 "2014-05-27T14:38:00Z")
> [@Echo\_Charlie](#): > > Editing to add: here Michael Gove’s [response](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/10857133/Michael-Gove-Kill-a-Mockingbird-Id-never-dream-of-it.html) to the charges that he has “banned” American literature. Yeah, aside from jokes, nobody has claimed that he “banned” anything. ---
**Author:** ![Echo\_Charlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Echo\_Charlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Echo_Charlie)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/37 "2014-05-27T14:54:56Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > Yeah, aside from jokes, nobody has claimed that he “banned” anything. Really? Nobody at all? [The Mirror](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/education-secretary-michael-gove-set-3604971): " Education secretary Michael Gove set to **ban** children’s classic ‘Of Mice And Men’ from British classrooms." [The Sunday Times](http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/article1414764.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2014_05_24): “Gove kills the mockingbird with **ban** on US classic novels”. The Guardian and the Independent write that Gove has “ **axed** ” certain American texts. You yourself said, “He’s **getting rid of** Of Mice and Men because he, personally, doesn’t like it?” Someone further up the thread made reference to censorship. So yeah, there are plenty of (false) claims that certain books have been banned. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/38 "2014-05-27T14:57:31Z")
When I said “he’s getting rid of…” I didn’t mean he was banning it, I meant he was seeking to remove it from the school curriculum, which isn’t the same thing. But it seems you are correct - there are people inappropriately using the word “ban”. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/39 "2014-05-27T15:39:23Z")
It’s not banning. Teachers are still free to teach texts that are not on the curriculum. They will lose their jobs and their students will fail their GCSEs, but it’s not banning. It’s just restricting the core texts more and more, not banning. Nobody else has ever used the word “ban” in the sense of “restricting” before. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279/40 "2014-05-27T16:10:32Z")
Does this guy have some personal animus against American literature or is this simply a case of British kids being taught British things? I’m asking, I really don’t know enough about the situation to determine it either way. On one hand, these are classic books. But on the other hand, they are classics to the US because it deals with our history. Someone growing up in England will not have the same history to deal with. What’s wrong with teaching English kids English things? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-gove-uk-education-secretary-and-raving-ideologue-removes-american-classics-from-curriculum/689279.md?page=3)