Today, this article about Duluth removing To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn from their required reading list popped up on my Facebook feed. People get really up in arms about changes to curriculum. Some are strong proponents of certain books or pieces that must be read: Romeo and Juliet for example (or Shakespeare in general). Others just can’t imagine high school without The Great Gatsby. I don’t really get any of this. I like to read and I think it’s good to read, but I don’t always get why certain books or texts are required or prioritized. I don’t even get why we spend so much time with novels and narrative reading, even though I think they can be great. We prioritize certain ways of reading and certain modes of reading to the exclusion of so many other things. So I went out to do a little research. I know that reading helps build empathy, it’s good for vocabulary, and the skills of critical reading are key for learning in many areas, so I wasn’t so much worried about why reading is important in and of itself; I wanted to know more about why we prioritize reading as a “good” pastime and something that people should be doing the rest of their lives, specifically novel reading. Many educators don’t just have the goal of teaching reading skills and enjoyment, but they want people to be “life-long readers.” What does that mean? What does that look like? I read a ton, but I don’t read a lot of fictional novels. Am I a “life-long reader?” Reading is great, but why do we prioritize it as a hobby over making art, doing crafts, dancing, playing an instrument, cooking or baking, building things, or playing sports or games? All of these things make for healthy, happy, fulfilled lives. I like to spend my downtime doing all sorts of things, like writing, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for reading. Am I somehow a lesser person for that? If not, are our students somehow lesser people for that? I came across this blog by Matt Haig that was pretty interesting: 30 Things To Tell a Book Snob. I worry about book snobbery, and taste snobbery in general. I like to read and I like to think about things deeply, but I’m wary of making judgments about how people should spend their leisure time. For some people, this makes me a bad English teacher. I guess that’s probably fair. I’m glad I have colleagues who are deeply devoted to teaching literature and I hope I can complement their skills with my own skills with non-fiction, writing, cultural studies, and communication. I am learning all the time from my colleagues and I’m sure my opinion about all this will change as I learn new perspectives on the purpose of all of this. I’m glad to be in a place that challenges me to think about all this stuff.Finally – the formatting of this whole blog post seems really weird as I’m writing it, but I can’t figure out how to fix it. Sorry if it looks weird.