In short: I'm hoping they're not going to be in for much longer. So get out there and vote, people.
On another, related, issue, though:
I find some of the choices on the GCSE quite strange, actually. This is probably at a tangent. But I know there are going to be a lot of teachers on this thread, so I'm going to throw it out there:
My son has just studied this. I found it all a bit odd. The questions he was given on the book were all about its "style", "language" and "aesthetics" - which I found bloody strange.
Sure, it's a lovely read. The author has a lovely style.
But isn't the real reason everyone reads it because of the content? because of the contest: America's troubled history with race -- which is ongoing?
Freakishly, there appeared to be no questions at all about this!!!!
Why? I'm guessing it was because we feel hesitant about teaching children - in schools - about this; and because we assume that many children just don't have the historical knowledge, the political knowledge of the present situation; the ethical finesse to discuss this issue with clarity. And some of the "answers" might be awkward and tricky to mark.
So it is ignored. Which is a bizarre kind of whitewashing, frankly - with the aesthetics serving to render invisible the actual content of the text. Ironically, I think this is a complex manouevre which actually serves to diminish the book overall. The aesthetics are discussed as a kind of proxy, which implies that the content is not actually discussable in an exam context (why not? These children are, by and large, of voting age), and the aesthetics are not actually a substantial and important aspect of the book.
There are better examples of "beautiful writing". There are more stylistically rewarding and structurally complex novels.
i find the way "To Kill a Mockingbird" is enclosed within the GCSE really strange.
All of us on this thread think "Oh yes, my child is learning about how awful it is to be structurally racist. That's great. Nasty Mr. Gove stopping children learning about how horrid racists are." Well, before we all indulge in a love-in, may I just say that it infuriates me that "To Kill a Mockingbird" isn't taught in the context of America continuing to have an enormously high prison population, which is predominantly black; is still a country with a massive wealth differential; still has a huge problem with race.
If we want books on the syllabus about America and race, why not Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison? Why not Malcolm X, even?
I like "To Kill a Mockingbird" well enough but it's chosen as a safe choice, and the questions set on it are pretty safe. I'm quite sure that if someone were to write an essay on "To Kill a Mockingbird" at university, it would be looking at its inclusion within the American literary pantheon, and its use on the syllabus, and looking at the context. So I guess I can't see why this hasn't filtered into the GCSE or A level approach yet.