

Why college students are avoiding the study of literature - rglovejoy
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/why-college-kids-are-avoiding-the-study-of-literature/

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dalke
It's a difficult question. Here are other factors to consider.

For example, "Time and again, students tell me of three common ways in which
most high school and college classes kill their interest in novels". The
author then describes those ways, but doesn't describe _why_ there has been an
increasing emphasis "now than in those proverbial eras of backwardness, the
1950s and 1980s".

There are at least three that I can think of. The author writes about students
who study Russian literature, among others. Those decades were the Cold War,
and many Americans studied aspects of the Soviet Union and Russian culture.
For example, Condoleezza Rice studied Russian at Moscow State University and
her PhD thesis was on military policy and politics in Czechoslovakia. From my
own youth, I remember the TV show "Head of the Class", when it was filmed in
Moscow. One of the characters loved Russian short stories.

I do not think there's the same interest now that the Soviet Union no longer
exists, and Russian is not a superpower balancing the US. Thus, the sample
population of students has changed.

The second thing I can think of is the rise of high stakes testing, which is
all that incoming college students have ever experienced. These tests don't
use novel-length reading passages. From what I gather, students are more
tested on the _technical_ aspects of the reading excerpt, rather than the
reader’s _experience_ \- exactly what this essayist does not want.

The third is that the GI bill after WWII opened up college to a lot more
people than previously, and until the start of the all-volunteer force in 1973
it offered a way to delay conscription. However, that is only the first 1/2 of
"the 1950s and 1980s."

