Dear Mr Gove - Don't Axe The American Classics

Dear Mr Gove,
I woke up yesterday to a news feed awash with fears that you had plans to axe To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men from the curriculum because they aren't British Classics.

I understand your desire to expose children to books that have a heritage based in their own country, to make them read books that are specific to Britain and are relatable to British students. I understand that you want to preserve British classics and their authors. However, I also understand that just because a book is written by a British author, it doesn't mean it will have any extra benefit to the British curriculum or portray anything particularly British within the story. I understand that the lessons a book can teach are invaluable, regardless of its origin and that to want to axe the aforementioned classics from the British curriculum, is short-sighted.

You have not banned the books from the classroom, no. But what you have done is taken them from the syllabus, thus making them more difficult to fit into the already jam packed curriculum. How will teachers find the time to study another piece of literature on top of those that are part of the curriculum?  How will students find the time or the will to read works such as Of Mice and Men or To Kill and Mockingbird when they have 12 or more other subjects to revise for at the same time? If they disappear from the curriculum, they'll disappear full stop.
In my class, we initially read Emma and I, (and more than likely my entire class) hated it. I hated every single page I was forced to read and I so clearly remember reading it and thinking I will never, ever read this book again. It taught me nothing, except how to be spoilt and self absorbed. The only lesson I took away from that book was that I should never want to be that kind of person; something I already knew anyway.

Fortunately, we also read Of Mice and Men which saved my concentration from wandering astray. I had never come across a book before that displayed such true, lonely and human emotions. After all, I was just a lonely teenager at the time, and I related with the characters far more than I have done since in any piece of literature.

You see, Mr Gove, we read Of Mice and Men at a time when I was feeling very insecure about who I was. I was a sixteen year old girl, beginning to understand that I was on the outside of everyone and everything else in my environment. I struggled with my identity, my sexuality and my mental health at the time, and even though I sat in a classroom full of other students reading the same books and experiencing the same syllabus, they were not experiencing what was going on inside of my head.
Like Lenny and George, I was an outsider. I was lonely, and depressed, and my self-esteem was non-existent. Like Curley, I was angry at everyone and everything because I was an outsider. Like Curley's wife, I was craving attention, and craving someone to notice something wasn't right and to pull me back into the inside.

It all changed when I read that book. When I reached the final pages, I realised that being an outsider was just fine if I wasn't alone. And I wasn't alone. I was surrounded by wonderful friends and an amazing family who would have gladly sat on the outside with me.  It was one of the most important lessons I've ever learnt, and it changed everything. I was no longer lonely and my self-esteem crept back up. I was no longer angry and I no longer craved that attention I had before. I was so much happier in myself. I wouldn't have learnt that lesson if I had not read that book.

I was inspired by that book, Mr Gove, and I still am. Shakespeare, Dickens, Bronte and Austen; yes I enjoyed their work and I admired the concepts in them, but they were never on my list of inspirational books. At a time when my self-esteem had hit rock bottom, I wondered about who I was, and if I would ever be 'normal', Of Mice and Men  was the book that I read, and was the book that lifted me from the hole I found myself in.

It is more than just a book. It is a thing of absolute beauty; a story that teaches us about raw human emotions, acceptance, friendship and kindness. It shows us the thin veil between life and death, the conflict we face in times of trouble and the tough choices between what is right, and what is easy. It challenges our stereotypes of mental health, loneliness, teaches us the concepts of mercy and hard work. These issues are presented in that story in such a way to facilitate very in-depth discussions about some important issues. It certainly made me face up to my own issues at the time.

 If these are not the lessons you want to continue teaching students, Mr Gove, then something is very wrong, because these lessons could help that sixteen year old student, as I was, who is struggling to cope and understand themselves and the world they live in.

In an ideal world, we wouldn't be forced to study texts in a classroom. In an ideal world, no one would have asked me to analyse why the curtains were blue in the opening scenes of Jane Eyre, or why she was reading a book about birds. In an ideal world, everybody would love reading, and no one would need to be told to read books. But, we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a world with an education system that tests students of different capabilities in the same way - a system that demands perfection in all areas and unity, when really, we should be celebrating the specific abilities of each student, and the diversity of the British student population. 

Mr Gove, you want to broaden the literary horizons of students but it seems rather limiting to me to only allow literature from one sliver of the anglosphere. There is much that can be learnt from books, no matter who they are penned by. Give students copies of The Book Thief, On The Road, Little Women, The Great Gatsby, The Phantom Tollbooth and The Colour Purple.  Give them To Kill and Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men. No, they aren't British Classics, but they are still classics that teach invaluable life lessons.

The biggest losers here are the students, Mr Gove. Please remember that.

The Grey Area

Tesco now has 98 varieties of coffee. It's completely true; I was there just yesterday wandering around the aisle, when it hit me how much damn coffee there is in that place. I'm kind of ashamed to admit I went home and looked up how many varieties there were. How are you supposed to choose between Colombian Coffee beans, Illy Espresso Coffee Beans, Decaff, Nescafe or all the other varieties I've forgotten to mention? There was too much choice to wrap my head around. In this crazy world where  Tesco now has 98 varieties of coffee, it seems ridiculous to me that my choice about my sexuality seems so limited.

We've all heard the stereotypes attached to being bisexual; indecisive, confused, wanting your cake and eating it too, gay or lesbian in transition, the list goes on and on. If you identify as bisexual, it's likely that you've encountered these clichés at some point. I know that I certainly have.

Being gay or lesbian sometimes has its difficulties attached to it, but it can be more of a hardship to be bisexual, in a world where you are either this or that, everything is black or white and there is no middle ground or grey area to settle in. When you aren't one way or the other, but sitting on the fence, life can be problematic with issues that homosexuals and heterosexuals simply do not encounter.

Like everyone who has a sexuality, I didn't choose to be bisexual. None of us choose whom we are attracted to, and none of us have any control over our attraction. It baffles me when people tell me that I am simply in a limbo and that I can't choose which gender I am more attracted to, because it has never been a choice for me. Honestly, I like both genders equally. I am certain that I'm not in transition to come out as a lesbian, and that I haven't been experimenting for all these years. For some, it may be true that a transition or phase is occurring, but for most who identify as bisexual and maintain that identity, it is not, and, for me at least, it's boring, annoying and pretty insulting to have these lines of reasoning thrown my way over and over again.

All these clichés and exaggerated myths make being bisexual a very confusing and irritating experience. Do I really need to correct people who ask whether I'm "a bit more lesbian than I am straight?" When I was single, did I need to lay my sexuality on the table if I was flirting with someone, or was it unfair of me to keep quiet? Do I still have to explain to some people that I'm still bisexual, despite the fact I am in a relationship with a man now? It's actually quite annoying and it has gotten to the stage where I feel I should just keep quiet about it.

It feels as if it's just downright difficult and awkward being bisexual. You'd think the opposite; you  have the freedom to choose from  a pool two times larger than heterosexuals and homosexuals can choose from, you can have both gay and straight nights out and you can openly enjoy relationships with partners from both genders. And you can do all this while showing the world how open minded you are in your approach to sexuality. Great stuff!

Of course, I'm being sarcastic. All these cliches and ideas about what bisexuality should be/is, coupled with my own ideas about what my sexuality is about makes it feel like I'm trying to look left and right at the same time. It's expected considering the nature of what bisexuality entails, but it makes it feel as if being bisexual is almost impossible. With no etiquette or rule book on bisexuality, it is difficult to know what it should be about.

It's a grey area of sexuality.  It's not this or that. It's not black or white. It's slap bang in the middle, the area between the black and white of monosexual orientations. So tell me this; how on earth do you begin to fit in when you aren't in one camp or the other?

Bisexual identity is both complex and contradictory. There are few, if any, people who identify as bisexual that I know that fit into the societal description of bisexuality. Still, as is the case with lesbian and gay representation, as more individuals speak openly about attraction to both genders and more bisexual role models appear, the term may become more well-understood. Now, who wants some cake? Any flavour you like.