Literature Of Educational rat wheels & youth

Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, recently attacked the way English is taught in schools. He attacked the educational rat wheel that taught young people to read set texts and pass exams, but did not teach them to love literature, and gave a list of classics his students did not know. But maybe instead of leaning great literature by rote, today's students are better, not less, equipped to read. Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect A-level students to have read great swaths of English literature. Maybe schools can only give them their bearings and an ability to read the compass if they want to make the journey later. It's making it accessible and saying 'you have got the skills to go away and read anything - and you will cope with it, you will make sense of it, you will enjoy it'.
· Excessive expectations [The Guardian (UK)]
· Literature & Art As Therapy [The Guardian (UK)]