Believe it or not, school is not right about everything – especially regarding what our generation should be reading. Not many students go home and sit down to read books like The Great Gatsby and The Scarlet Letter, which society has deemed classics. Some teachers and administrators even labeled these books as extremely outdated, suggesting students drift towards books with fantasy and contemporary elements like Harry Potter and Shatter Me.

Philosophy and English teacher Nicholas Stambuli humorously describes these books as “male, pale, and stale.” In other words, they were written a very long time ago by old, white men. “It’s not just about classics, it’s about recognizing literary merit. And I think there’s a lot of novels that can be fantasy that have really strong literary merit and then there’s other novels that were written just to get on the shelves and become a New York Times bestseller.”

Stambuli mentioned author Octavia E. Butler, a black female author known for her works Parable of the Sower, Dawn, and Kindred, saying she could “give similar ideas and similar themes [to books like The Scarlet Letter] that are important.” Especially since over ninety percent of classics were written by white men and during the English 10 Honors curriculum last year, three of the four books that were read were written by white men.

Stambuli has shared his opinion on the school’s literary curriculum during his years teaching at Montclair High School. He expresses how he wanted to add Perks of Being a Wallflower (along with many other books) since it is “a becoming classic […] It was written in the 90s, so it’s not old, but it’s got this cult following and it doesn’t have as much literary depth as a lot of other great literature does, but if we’re also looking to give a love of reading, I’ve never really had any students who didn’t like it. It would be a great addition to any curriculum. Especially to the ninth and tenth grade.”

Commercial fiction and literary fiction are very different. “Literary has more depth, metaphors, stronger writing. That’s the stuff that becomes classics. Commercial fiction is stuff that is easy to read, mostly plot-based, but doesn’t have much merit for teaching in schools,” Stambuli said.

Perhaps if teachers tried to build up a love of reading in students, they wouldn’t have to do their English homework so begrudgingly. This is not to say that MHS students have not learned anything from the classics. It is just that we’re forced to. Hence teenagers are drifting toward the more popular books, which will most likely become classics from their current popularity but may not be taught in schools if boards do not consider them educational.

A book being old doesn’t make it good and a book being popular doesn’t make it good. Classics are books that have been cherished for generations and teach valuable lessons to those who read them. For all we know, the next To Kill A Mockingbird could be right around the corner. But that doesn’t mean everyone will want to read it.