7 ms·

What do you consider very important titles?

mamon 6y ago
Not the GP, but I think that there are many such titles, that's why schools in Poland have mandatory reading lists :) You cannot understand culture and tradition without reading some classics,starting with Bible, Homer's Illiad, or Shakespeare. And of course in Poland we mostly focus on Polish writers. You know, before journalism was invented novels served pretty much the same purpose as newspaper reports - there are the goldmine of information about how Poland looked like back in the day. Unfortunately, contemporary students prefer to just watch movie based on a book than reading the source material.
- Imlus 6y ago
  I mean, reading / playing witcher you'd get better morale / class diversification understanding than reading Bible or Illiad, Shakespeare is definetely not for school readings, if you're not interested in the actual literature that book has no value in your life. I, personally, love reading books. But forcing that material to 12-18 and saying read these classic ones just pushes back youth from reading at all. You either move forward and adapt with the current generation or you try to force old generation habits and slowly curse on the result.
  - billfruit 6y ago
    Poland has a good literary heritage, which was partly responsible for the coalescing of Poland as a nation. So I suppose many of books and authors from that tradition could be essential reading for Polish young people.. I am not from Poland myself. Perhaps Henrik Sienkiewicz is one of those authors.. Perhaps they should prescribe the Witcher novels too.
    - ceceron 6y ago
      I've read Witcher in my school (but only one short novel to be fair, rest I've finished just because I liked it) ;)
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    > morale / class diversification What does this mean, exactly? And why is it valuable? > You either move forward and adapt with the current generation or you try to force old generation habits and slowly curse on the result The classics are thousands of years old and have served as popular educational material for centuries. Why is Gen-Z categorically different from all of the generations that have come before such that we should change? I'm not sure that Gen-Z is even different with respect to their ability to understand or appreciate the classics, and to the extent that they are, I suspect that's because (at least in the US) we've changed how we teach, de-emphasizing things like civics (probably in favor of an increasingly identitarian curriculum). Note that this isn't a defense of the classics--for example, this wouldn't rebut the idea that classics are overrated--it only challenges the specific idea that something abruptly changed such that the classics are obsolete.
    - greggman3 6y ago
      I don't know which is Gen-Z but see my friends 5-6 year olds glued to their phones or tablets. They have the entire world of videos to watch at their finger tips. I'd argue they are in an entirely different situation than previous generations. Even kids growing up in the 90s probably didn't have their own computer and the internet wasn't full of video entertainment and free games and kids growing up 2000-2010 didn't have phones and tablets. 80s kids had cable and VHS. 50-60-70s kids had TV 20-30-40s kids had radio So personally I do think it's a big difference. I'm awestruck by what kids have access to today vs what I had access to growing up in the 70s, early 80s. Kids today can learn about any topic and anytime, anywhere. When I grew up if it wasn't in my family bookshelf or the library I didn't have access to it. Kids today can also watch almost all movies of the last 100 yrs on demand. When I grew up video wasn't a thing and cable didn't happen until I got to high school so all I had was the few channels on the TV and whatever they happened to be showing. That difference has to mean something. Whether it means "classics" are still relevant or not I have no idea but reading of those arguably came from a time when content was scarce. It's not anymore.
- zaksoup 6y ago
  Not to start a flame war over book choice but forcing kids to read the Bible, Homer's Iliad, and Shakespeare are probably what is causing such marked disinterest in the first place. There are so many interesting and valuable works of writing, fiction and non-fiction, that can captivate and entertain modern children that aren't unapproachable tomes translated from ancient, dead languages, or written in Iambic Pentameter. One of the first plays I read that actually interested me in Theater was Waiting for Godot. Reading The Stranger in high school exposed me to so many new and complex ideas. Even extremely recent books like "Something that May Shock and Discredit You" by Daniel M. Lavery or "Trick Mirror" by Jia Tolentino are fascinating works of the modern American Canon. I'm not Polish but I'm sure there are equally relevant works in Polish. If you think kids just prefer to watch a "movie based on a book" maybe stop making them read boring books that truly lack lots of meaningful relevance to their lives today. And seriously, stop making kids read The Bible as a literary lesson. Nothing made me dis-engage in school like being told "I know you're Jewish and this feels like proselytizing, but I promise, this is purely a lesson in literature, nothing more". That is proven to be a lie when King James's edition is selected over an English translation of the Torah, and when no other non-Christian religious texts are selected for literary evaluation...
  - mamon 6y ago
    >> Not to start a flame war over book choice but forcing kids to read the Bible, Homer's Iliad, and Shakespeare are probably what is causing such marked disinterest in the first place In my experience what's causing young people disintrest in reading is that noone teaches the physical skill of reading correctly. I mean, I never really took any speed-reading courses, but still, when I take a test my speed is usually 400-500 wpm. I read somewhere that typical high school student reads about 100-120 wpm. If I were to read a lenghty book, like any of Dickens of Tolstoy works at that speed I would probably also give up very quickly.
  - caymanjim 6y ago
    Where and when did you go to school such that you were given a Bible to read? I started school in the US in the 1970s and never saw or heard anything more religious than the Pledge of Allegiance or a Christmas decoration.
ceceron 6y ago
I would say that non-fiction books, giving a view on the past errors in the human history, should be considered very important titles. "A World Apart" by Herling Grudzinski was the most important book on the lecture list when I was in high school. I'm happy to see that "Conversations with an Executioner" has been included in the list recently. Humanity tends to forget the bad times far too easily... Other than that, I believe it is important to know the roots of the modern culture and society, and classic literature from authors like Dostoevsky, Mickiewicz, Conrad, Prus, Bulgakov, Shakespeare, Orwell, Hemmingway, Schulz, Twain, Huxley and many many others. I've met all of them in my school years and I'm thankful for that.
- grugagag 6y ago
  Yes but the current power structure doesn't want woke citizens, it's been proven that they are much easier to control this way (it's all from the Soviet propaganda playbook)
t0ughcritic 6y ago
Bhagvad Gita for spirituality which generally isn’t taught or considered in the Eastern bloc

Not the GP, but I think that there are many such titles, that's why schools in Poland have mandatory reading lists :) You cannot understand culture and tradition without reading some classics,starting with Bible, Homer's Illiad, or Shakespeare. And of course in Poland we mostly focus on Polish writers. You know, before journalism was invented novels served pretty much the same purpose as newspaper reports - there are the goldmine of information about how Poland looked like back in the day. Unfortunately, contemporary students prefer to just watch movie based on a book than reading the source material.

Imlus 6y ago
I mean, reading / playing witcher you'd get better morale / class diversification understanding than reading Bible or Illiad, Shakespeare is definetely not for school readings, if you're not interested in the actual literature that book has no value in your life. I, personally, love reading books. But forcing that material to 12-18 and saying read these classic ones just pushes back youth from reading at all. You either move forward and adapt with the current generation or you try to force old generation habits and slowly curse on the result.
- billfruit 6y ago
  Poland has a good literary heritage, which was partly responsible for the coalescing of Poland as a nation. So I suppose many of books and authors from that tradition could be essential reading for Polish young people.. I am not from Poland myself. Perhaps Henrik Sienkiewicz is one of those authors.. Perhaps they should prescribe the Witcher novels too.
  - ceceron 6y ago
    I've read Witcher in my school (but only one short novel to be fair, rest I've finished just because I liked it) ;)
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  > morale / class diversification What does this mean, exactly? And why is it valuable? > You either move forward and adapt with the current generation or you try to force old generation habits and slowly curse on the result The classics are thousands of years old and have served as popular educational material for centuries. Why is Gen-Z categorically different from all of the generations that have come before such that we should change? I'm not sure that Gen-Z is even different with respect to their ability to understand or appreciate the classics, and to the extent that they are, I suspect that's because (at least in the US) we've changed how we teach, de-emphasizing things like civics (probably in favor of an increasingly identitarian curriculum). Note that this isn't a defense of the classics--for example, this wouldn't rebut the idea that classics are overrated--it only challenges the specific idea that something abruptly changed such that the classics are obsolete.
  - greggman3 6y ago
    I don't know which is Gen-Z but see my friends 5-6 year olds glued to their phones or tablets. They have the entire world of videos to watch at their finger tips. I'd argue they are in an entirely different situation than previous generations. Even kids growing up in the 90s probably didn't have their own computer and the internet wasn't full of video entertainment and free games and kids growing up 2000-2010 didn't have phones and tablets. 80s kids had cable and VHS. 50-60-70s kids had TV 20-30-40s kids had radio So personally I do think it's a big difference. I'm awestruck by what kids have access to today vs what I had access to growing up in the 70s, early 80s. Kids today can learn about any topic and anytime, anywhere. When I grew up if it wasn't in my family bookshelf or the library I didn't have access to it. Kids today can also watch almost all movies of the last 100 yrs on demand. When I grew up video wasn't a thing and cable didn't happen until I got to high school so all I had was the few channels on the TV and whatever they happened to be showing. That difference has to mean something. Whether it means "classics" are still relevant or not I have no idea but reading of those arguably came from a time when content was scarce. It's not anymore.
zaksoup 6y ago
Not to start a flame war over book choice but forcing kids to read the Bible, Homer's Iliad, and Shakespeare are probably what is causing such marked disinterest in the first place. There are so many interesting and valuable works of writing, fiction and non-fiction, that can captivate and entertain modern children that aren't unapproachable tomes translated from ancient, dead languages, or written in Iambic Pentameter. One of the first plays I read that actually interested me in Theater was Waiting for Godot. Reading The Stranger in high school exposed me to so many new and complex ideas. Even extremely recent books like "Something that May Shock and Discredit You" by Daniel M. Lavery or "Trick Mirror" by Jia Tolentino are fascinating works of the modern American Canon. I'm not Polish but I'm sure there are equally relevant works in Polish. If you think kids just prefer to watch a "movie based on a book" maybe stop making them read boring books that truly lack lots of meaningful relevance to their lives today. And seriously, stop making kids read The Bible as a literary lesson. Nothing made me dis-engage in school like being told "I know you're Jewish and this feels like proselytizing, but I promise, this is purely a lesson in literature, nothing more". That is proven to be a lie when King James's edition is selected over an English translation of the Torah, and when no other non-Christian religious texts are selected for literary evaluation...
- mamon 6y ago
  >> Not to start a flame war over book choice but forcing kids to read the Bible, Homer's Iliad, and Shakespeare are probably what is causing such marked disinterest in the first place In my experience what's causing young people disintrest in reading is that noone teaches the physical skill of reading correctly. I mean, I never really took any speed-reading courses, but still, when I take a test my speed is usually 400-500 wpm. I read somewhere that typical high school student reads about 100-120 wpm. If I were to read a lenghty book, like any of Dickens of Tolstoy works at that speed I would probably also give up very quickly.
- caymanjim 6y ago
  Where and when did you go to school such that you were given a Bible to read? I started school in the US in the 1970s and never saw or heard anything more religious than the Pledge of Allegiance or a Christmas decoration.

ceceron 6y ago

I would say that non-fiction books, giving a view on the past errors in the human history, should be considered very important titles. "A World Apart" by Herling Grudzinski was the most important book on the lecture list when I was in high school. I'm happy to see that "Conversations with an Executioner" has been included in the list recently. Humanity tends to forget the bad times far too easily... Other than that, I believe it is important to know the roots of the modern culture and society, and classic literature from authors like Dostoevsky, Mickiewicz, Conrad, Prus, Bulgakov, Shakespeare, Orwell, Hemmingway, Schulz, Twain, Huxley and many many others. I've met all of them in my school years and I'm thankful for that.

grugagag 6y ago
Yes but the current power structure doesn't want woke citizens, it's been proven that they are much easier to control this way (it's all from the Soviet propaganda playbook)

t0ughcritic 6y ago

Bhagvad Gita for spirituality which generally isn’t taught or considered in the Eastern bloc