Swapping the study of Shakespeare for working-class writers simply reinforces stereotypes
No one could put DH Lawrence in a box. He was born to a working-class mining family in Nottinghamshire but roamed the world, from Europe to North America, south Asia to Australia, with his aristocratic German wife. Over 20 years, he published 12 novels, multiple short stories and poems and an assortment of non-fiction texts, from travel books to literary criticism. He never suffered from writer’s block.
As Adrian Wooldridge puts it in his history of meritocracy, The Aristocracy of Talent, there was a time when “the Labour Party was the party of merit rather than levelling, and opportunity rather than equality”. The 20th century was a tribute to such a Labour Party: people from provincial backgrounds became acclaimed novelists, rock stars, broadcasters, even prime ministers.
But there is a tendency among some teachers and experts today towards another goal with education. That it should be relatable. This thinking regards the education system as exclusive, obsessed with subjects that children from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot relate to because they have never had experience of them.
