Of course, most reading in school should be nonfiction! Older children should be reading science and social studies, learning things about the world, finding out what may interest them enough to lead to a career. 30% of the school day is plenty of time to take up the challenge of somewhat difficult fiction. As for "popular fiction" — read that on your own free time, whatever you want, at any speed. 30% of your school is still for reading fiction, and yet this columnist thinks it's somehow disastrous.
March 9, 2023
"Fields once wide open to English majors — teaching, academia, publishing, the arts, nonprofits, the media — have collapsed or become less desirable."
"Facing astronomical debt and an uncertain job market, students may find majors like communication arts and digital storytelling more pragmatic.... And yet another important and dispiriting part of the story is that the study of English itself may have lost its allure, even among kids who enjoy reading. They are learning to hate the subject well before college. Both in terms of what kids are assigned and how they are instructed to read it, English class in middle and high school — now reconceived as language arts, E.L.A. or language and literature — is often a misery.... By high school, 70 percent of assigned texts are meant to be nonfiction. Educators can maximize the remaining fiction by emphasizing excerpts, essays and digital material over full-length novels... A typical high school assignment now involves painstakingly marking up text with colored pencils in search of 'literary devices' — red for imagery and diction, yellow for tone or mood, etc. Students are instructed to read even popular fiction at an excruciatingly slow pace in the service of close reading in unison. They’re warned not to skip ahead. You wouldn’t want anyone to get excited!"
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"Both in terms of what kids are assigned and how they are instructed to read it"
What is typically assigned?
Do any kids actually read novels these days, assigned or not? Any (male) adults?
"Who" and "Whom" seem to be an increasing problem in published fiction.
I'm just noticing the r tag.
Generally, boys prefer to read nonfiction.
Those professions are out of favor because everyone is pushing every kid, regardless of capability or talent, into STEM.
Generally, boys prefer to read nonfiction.
Those professions are out of favor because everyone is pushing every kid, regardless of capability or talent, into STEM.
For years, my wife worked at the school system here in Central Florida, and among her duties was to write "reviews" of the books on the recommended summer reading list for middle-school students.
It was baffling how awful the books were: one depressing preachy sob-story after another about kids-of-color with one or two parents in prison and addicted to drugs and how they survive. Nothing uplifting or exciting or fun, just woke agit-prop masquerading as literature.
And this was 10 years ago! Who knows what's on the list now.
Man the lifeboats, flood of liberal tears on the way.
I'm ok with the fiction: nonfiction ratio, but - with two kids who graduated within the past three years - I heartily agree with the writer about the markup process and the seemingly coordinated effort to take all the joy out of reading. Plus the selections! Oy vey!
I have three kids who are intelligent and curious about the world, and don't read long form anything. Not allowing, much less encouraging, reading for pleasure in school turned reading into a thankless slog that now makes the oldest's working life dreary (because he has to read things, and reading has been drummed into him as a pointless exercise rather than a benign and fast way of getting information), and is likely to do the same for the other two when they get there. All three would rather watch a video than read a transcript, which strikes me as a waste of valuable time unless there's something in the delivery that the transcript won't show.
"Who knows what's on the list now."
"Heather Has Two Mommies- And They're Both Trans! So- Two Daddies Now, One Pre-Op, One Post!"
The English departments committed suicide. Real suicide, not like Epstein.
I learned to love English in high school, thanks to one teacher at Middleton High School. I memorialized him here: here
My first degree was in English lit. Very useful, but college was a lot different back in the 60s.
Speaking of literature. Taibbi is a Bard grad.
Michael Shellenberger is an academic egghead who probably thinks Trump is a dunce. Matt Taibbi wrote a book ridiculing Trump. They’re Democrats. They are being drawn like flies to shit to their duty as journalists to expose the sabotage of the 2020 election. This seems like an unstoppable process, like an avalanche. A few small stones at the beginning, picking up stones as it rolls downhill.
Democrats are furious with these scribes. They’re inadvertently clearing the path for Trump’s return.
English major, business minor here. Went to law school. It all worked. I have been reading for pleasure for about 65 years.
Let us reargue who is the true protagonist of Dead Poets Society!
From my experience, a bad teacher can make Shakespeare boring and a good teacher can make mind-numbing drivel interesting. The added problem these days is the woke teachers who either want the student to identify the oppressed and the oppressors and then denounce Shakespeare and all his works, or poll their charges on which character would be the best to have a threesome with the student and a hypothetical green-haired, non-binary, heavily tattooed, obese educator, who is no one in particular but has pronouns call/me.
God, that marking up the text sounds horrible even to me, someone who liked diagramming sentences. I suspect, though, that teaching a novel is a woke minefield at this point.
2 awesome high school English teachers split 4 years, and I expected to follow my parents by majoring in English. But freshman year I found History to be so much more interesting. My sister followed my parents but two brothers followed me.
Personal favorites: The Sexual Politics of Meat; and Our Black Foremothers.
"I suspect, though, that teaching a novel is a woke minefield at this point."
We read Pudd'nhead Wilson as a class exercise in junior high school. I still have my marked-up copy, but I have no clue what any of those marks mean at this point. Is Twain even acknowledged in schools these days?
I don't care if children read fiction or nonfiction, just that they read challenging and complex narratives. In practical terms this means older English, Russian, and other novels that require effort, once known as "classic literature." Children need to focus on content unlike the iceberg model of Ernest Hemingway. Children require reinforcement and repetition and explicit details to learn.
And yet another important and dispiriting part of the story is that the study of English itself may have lost its allure, even among kids who enjoy reading.... By high school, 70 percent of assigned texts are meant to be nonfiction... They’re warned not to skip ahead. You wouldn’t want anyone to get excited!
Speaking of old vinyl records.
Bottles: I know who did this. It was those bullies at Communist Martyrs High School, that's who.
Porgy: Oh, come on, Bottles. We don't know who did it yet.
Bottles: Oh, I have a very good idea, uhm..
El Dorado: Oh, Porgy, Porgy, you're a white man. You've got to help us. What, what, what do you think... what do you think we oughta...
Student : Speak English, El Dorado.
El Dorado: what do you think we should do?
Student : Yeah, what do you think, Porgy?
Porgy: Well, I don't think we oughta jump to any conclusions or take any...
Student 2: Hey, Porgy! Hey, Porgy! Principal Poop's on the radio. Turn the car radio. Poop's on.
Porgy: Ok, well, gather round kids and stay on camera. We'll all listen together.
Principal Poop: All of us want to know... just as much as I want to know who's responsible...
Bottles: Communist Martyrs High School, that's who's res...
Porgy: Shhh, Shhh
Principal Poop: and until we do I must make my dirty cl... duty clean... clear and announce the suspendering of the upcoming graduating exercises.
Porgy: Oh no!
Principal Poop: which can not... and will... which aren't taking place.
Porgy: I'm never gonna get out of here!
Principal Poop: But don't worry! Don't worry! Your food, housing, insecurity, will be guaranteed by the Department of Redundancy Department and the Natural Guard.
Mudhead: Hey, there gonna surround us!
Principal Poop: And remember trust pressers will be persecuted. So please, stay where you are, don't move, and don't panic! Don't take off your shoes. Jobs is on the way.
Porgy: Golly!
Principal Poop: Thank you!
El Dorado: Wow, that's the darndest thing I ever...
Principal Poop: Now here's a record I think you'll really dig.
Porgy: Hold it! Hey! Hold it down, kids. Don't get excited.
El Dorado: Who's excited?
Majored in English while doing pre-med. In 1960 there were no student loans for pre-meds. I was told it was not a "worthwhile" major so English it was. I enjoyed the courses. One professor told us that the only way he could get through Spencer's "Faerie Queene" was to book a long sea voyage and take only that book.
I had actually had and read a series of books for children that included an abridged version of the story without the poetry.
I was accepted to medical school before I graduated and had an invitation for a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to study English Literature in hand.
@Lem
LOL
A close reading in unison of Watership Down is the clear answer.
All three would rather watch a video than read a transcript,
I'm the exact opposite.
Serious Question: What, could you EVER do with a BA in English? Other than get another degree?
And don't tell me lots of jobs USED TO require SOME SORT of degree; That says Nothing about English BAs
I have a STEM degree with a minor in English. The English minor is so I could take some time out of my day to read guilt-free. Kids not liking to read is not new. When I was in high school, fewer than half the kids actually read the books we were assigned, and that was over 50 years ago. It's just easier to fake it today. Fifty years ago all kids had were Cliff Notes.
I don't think that "70%" is meant to be 70% of all high school reading. I think it's 70% of Language Arts class reading is to be non-fiction.
It’s not 30% of the school day. English is just one out of generally six to seven classes students will take at a time, so 30% of that is more about 5%.
Lit major. History minor. Thought it would make me cultured. Enjoyable nonetheless. A McPhee junkie.
LH in Montana: My reply.
Our nation desperately needs more engineers and, in some cases, scientists. As a recently retired employer, it is quite difficult to find well-qualified applicants in those fields. Those fields also pay enough to support a family.
We do not desperately need more English majors with $100,000 in student debt. One can go to community college and receive perfectly fine instruction in English and languages.
English lit should be fiction. Interesting novels, not dreck. I still remember a couple of titles from Jr/Sr High: "Return of the Native" and "Native Son"; "The Importance of Being Ernest" (read that on the plane to Houston and then Cape Carnival for the Apollo 17 launch). We did two Shakespeare: The Scottish Play and "Merchant of Venice."
Today, nonfiction reading will often put me to sleep while novels will keep me awake. The non-fiction is interesting, but I think it's the passive voice that lulls me to sleep.
A good history book that uses active voice, provides background on the principal personalities and provides a good description of what happened will keep my interest. School text books are boring by nature and should be replaced with commercial publications. Good histories might include "Grant", "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors", "Dreadnought", "Strategy of Victory
" (George Washington's Revolutionary War strategy), to name just a few good, interesting history books.
Common Core has led many teachers to teach as if they are checking items off of a list. Even in the AP courses that my children took, the teachers were more focused on preparing students to answer questions on the exam than discussing works of literature.
"Do any kids actually read novels these days, assigned or not? Any (male) adults?"
There's still a very healthy male audience for genre fiction - SF, Westerns, thrillers. We can tell this by what's offered on Kindle, where lots of people are writing to this demand.
I got a degree in English back when tuition cost me $350 per semester. Even a poor pizza-maker could afford that. No way could I spend so much time on that kind of low-return indulgence at today's prices. Oh well, it's all gone to shit anyway; today you can get a degree in English without studying Shakespeare. Which means it's just another POS Social Justice major.
Older children should be reading science and social studies
Don't they do that in science and social studies?
Long time since I was in high school, but I remember reading all kinds of classic stuff in English that I wouldn't otherwise have read.
Who knows what's on the list now."
Not to mention white people suck, men suck, America sucks, heterosexuals suck, and so on….
This is a fine new political thriller, work of fiction steeped in non-fictional events--
THE OLD TOWN HORROR: Murder and Theft in America’s Most Historic Locale
https://www.amazon.com/OLD-TOWN-HORROR-Americas-Historic-ebook/dp/B0BX27RWYG
This is a fine new political thriller, work of fiction steeped in non-fictional events--
THE OLD TOWN HORROR: Murder and Theft in America’s Most Historic Locale
https://www.amazon.com/OLD-TOWN-HORROR-Americas-Historic-ebook/dp/B0BX27RWYG
Teaching, academia, publishing, etc. remain open to English grads. They don't pay well, but they never did. I earned an English and Creative Writing degree in 1974, and went into journalism. It's never been a big-money major.
In my day, we read a lot of excellent short stories, so we had exposure to many writers, as well as classic books. We also did a lot of writing. When my daughter was in high school in the late '90s, they read books agonizingly slowly and "closely," so they couldn't get through many. They didn't do as much expository writing either. (Journaling isn't very useful in my opinion.)
Now? Well, a lot of teachers assign easy-to-read Young Adult books that don't require much to understand and then use the beat-it-to-death method to kill any possible joy in reading.
Usually you find those that can't cut it become... teachers. No practical experience in the real world. And nowadays it's a woke field. That is unless you go to private schools where the teachers are held to a higher standard.
Now see I'm a sub teacher, at a parochial school, but with 35 years of programming computers. About 1/2 state government and 1/2 private enterprise. I only teach cause I get my fun money that way... No woke teachers where I work.
So lots of luck.
Well, a lot of teachers assign easy-to-read Young Adult books that don't require much to understand and then use the beat-it-to-death method to kill any possible joy in reading.
Definitely my experience with my three. Say farewell to the Western canon....
My two sons enjoyed exactly one assigned novel each in high school - the same one. Ender's Game. As a Golden Age SF fan, I loved it too. It's the only book I've ever read where, when I finished the last page, I turned immediately back to the first page and started it again.
(I reread most of the books I enjoy - but that was the only one where no time elapsed between finishing it the first time and rereading it.)
I don't remember my daughter's ever enjoying a novel.
It makes me sad - I've had a ready collection of private worlds to inhabit almost all my life because of my love of reading. But these days even I seldom enjoy a new book enough to keep it in the rotation. Is it me getting older and less patient, or the ubiquitousness of interesting short form things to read like this blog, or the wearying preachiness of so many books now, or what?
My parents encouraged me to read, rather than my teachers. From the age of 10 I was reading a lot of science fiction, and branched out from there. By the age of 14 I was reading classic literature and college level history texts, and at twice that age I had a personal library of 3800 books.
Yeah, well... Here's the deal: Language is the tool of thought. If you don't have the ability to articulate the things you're thinking, then you cannot possibly convey them to anyone else.
This is the reason all the left-wing "intellectuals" want to have power over language; they get to define the terms, they control everyone's thinking by changing the definitions of everything, which flows into their thinking.
Ask yourself if all this crap we've been dealing with in terms of the "woke takeover" would be possible unless they controlled the language we use to discuss the issues. You can't be frank and honest about things, because they've managed to define the frank and honest terms for those things such that they're now off-limits and beyond the pale.
The root problem with why the English departments are dying is that people sense this falsity in them, and do not want anything to do with them. When you have English "professors" saying that grammar is racist, and a tool of colonialism? LOL... Ya wonder why nobody wants to go into the field? As well, once you've said there are no rules, why bother with studying it at all? Just do your own thing, baby...
Same assholes who tore the edifice are now whinging, whinging, whiney-woe about the effects of their hard work tearing it down. It reminds me of the guy who tore his house down and then complained he had nowhere to sleep... Did you not recognize what you were doing as you did it?
“And yet another important and dispiriting part of the story is that the study of English itself may have lost its allure, even among kids who enjoy reading.”
Toni Morrison and Bob Dylan won Nobel Prizes in literature. John Updike and Philip Roth did not. There may be a correlation.
Takirks--well said.
All of my kids absolutely loved the Harry Potter books (before the movies).
The oldest was already an avid reader before HP, but the other two really got turned on to reading through those books.
Might be why they are working so hard to cancel Rowling.
40 years ago, you could get an entry level management degree with a liberal arts degree. Cost less, too.
"Toni Morrison and Bob Dylan won Nobel Prizes in literature. John Updike and Philip Roth did not. There may be a correlation." Go read the list of Nobel Prize winners. How many names do you recognize?
I remember spending hours in my local library in my pre-teen years in the early sixties. There was a young fiction section with Lady Chatterly's Lover removed but lots of adventure stories.
I loved it. I remember one book where the 12 year old protaganist becomes a protege of the revolutionary war naval hero John Paul Jones. The high point is when the young man fights in a sea battle with a British warship. The boy settles things by climbing through the entangled rigging and dropping a fire starting grenade into the cabin of the British captain. That story is more or less true, by the way. Or at least 'based on fact'.
My 12 year old self loved it.
I recently saw a reading list from the local Junior High School. No naval heroics. It was all "My Story of Victimhood and Oppression". No wonder the kids hate reading.
Say farewell to the Western canon....
My best friend is a high school administrator who likes to brag that he has never read Shakespeare.
A close reading in unison of Watership Down is the clear answer.
I first read that book at 10 years old, and wanted desperately to discuss the book with someone. My Mom would take years to finish it, and my Dad never read it.
I felt the same way about Asimov...
@Jamie:
Are you aware that Card has gone back and written companion books to the Ender's series that tells the same stories from the perspectives of different characters than the original books?
“All of my kids absolutely loved the Harry Potter books (before the movies).”
“The oldest was already an avid reader before HP, but the other two really got turned on to reading through those books”.
“Might be why they are working so hard to cancel Rowling”
Agree 100%.
Born in 1991, and reading a bit above grade level, the HP novels perfectly fit my daughter’s advancing reading ability. Each got a bit longer and complex from its predecessor in the series, and she finished each in turn, year by year, in a weekend. Every summer, the release of the new HP book was the occasion that she and her friends waited for. Then they all raced through them, in order to talk about them. And woe be to the slow reader, who couldn’t discuss them a couple days after their release. And, yes, she picked up many of my reading preferences - we both like fantasy, but I prefer science fiction over her (female, to stereotype) modern urban (female protagonist, with love interests) fantasy (though she does agree that the Twilight series is horrid for female empowerment). In fantasy, I think that we both prefer female authors. Or, as I tell her, “authorettes”. When she did a semester abroad (in Spain) in college, we shared a BN/Nook account, and I read many of the books we purchased (usually her buying using my credit card, but with the tuition I was paying, it was de minimis).
I ended up in a field (law) where reading well is really a requirement of being competent. I still read voluminously and compulsively in retirement. I blame it on my mother sitting and reading with me every day between 1st and 2nd grade, and then my discovery of science fiction by the time I left elementary school. And I surely did not get that love for reading from my English teachers in school.
Bill R, that sounds like one Of the "You Were There" series. Quite engrossing and fantasy-stimulating for this kid.
My parents taught all their sprogs to read by about age 4 using a classic little red book on phonics. Absolutely painless. Also, books everywhere, and two local papers every morning, plus Newsweek, New Yorker, Scientific American, Nat. Geo., Approach (Marine Corps pilot's mag), Atlantic. Very limited tv.
School c. 1964 screwed up by slow and poor teaching of reading, then switching to grammar and diagramming right when my peers were finally starting to enjoy reading. Even then I noticed their interest collapse.
My high school English department hired ignoramuses and pedophiles, for the most part. My French teacher used to complain in faculty meetings that he had to teach us English grammar before he could teach French grammar.
A parent who trusts an elementary school to educate their child is a fool.
Writing fiction and poetry has mainly been supported throughout history by wealthy sponsors, and then for a brief time through periodicals that sometimes led to publishers for the very few.
Attending college itself wasn't common until after WWII.
Journalism/communication degrees are a very modern invention. People learned to be reporters by reporting, or they were experts in geopolitics or some other speciality and wrote about that.
One previously studied literature past high school only to participate in upper class society. But an ordinary secondary school student fifty years ago read more serious literature that even graduate students do now.
Even British secondary students going into technical or trade school tracks have read more quality fiction than our graduate students in literature departments.
Good literary training is complementary to studying historical nonfiction. The two are not in conflict.
Leftist nonprofits are a fast-growing field and quite profitable. Academia collapsed as a profession because tenured professors shunted off their already relatively minimal workloads onto impoverished adjuncts so they could work even less.
Common Core was a politically useful term to describe the sorts of numbing busywork described here. But the busywork preceded it and continues despite bans merely addressing things titled Common Core. We should have targeted the state curriculum directors and teacher training schools instead, but targeting Common Core taught activists a lot about the extremists running education, at least.
Technology has replaced reading. I had many college students who had never read a book.
It’s not all lost for English majors. Daughter of one of my good friends, with an English major in college, spent the last decade breaking into a career in writing. And she has succeeded. She now has an established readership, fan clubs, etc, and makes enough that she and her husband (her business manager) are paying cash for a nice house this year. That was after maybe 5 years of touring the country in their motor home. She writes fiction. Too female for my tastes… In any case, the reason that she has been successful is Amazon, and their different programs, and esp for Kindle Unlimited, where people like me pay a membership every month, and get up to maybe 10 books at a time through it (Dr K has/had his autobiography available through that program). It used to be that publishers acted like gatekeepers for new books. Much less today. Amazon discovered how to make money when there is a long tail on the sales volume plot. Most people don’t sell much, some almost none, but the top authors make a lot. And the trick is to slowly move up the curve, until you start making a good living. It takes a lot of discipline, but it can be done, as she has shown. I will suggest that programs like Amazon have greatly brought down the barriers to entry in the field, and that is all to the good.
The way English is taught now is one of the reasons I homeschool.
I was told by relatives (not a parent) that I taught myself to read before I was in kindergarten. I don't know if that's literally true, but I don't remember much, if anything, before I was into reading everything I could get my hands on -- newspapers, my mom's women's magazines ("Can this marriage be saved?"), my uncle's men's magazines (which I had to sneak), and the Saturday Evening Post, which I loved and read cover to cover.
At the age of ten, I read Heinlein's "Space Cadet" and became a life-long SF fan.
I planned to double-major in English and Journalism in college, but got an appointment to a federal academy, which was free, so that's where I went. My reading and writing skills didn't help much in a curriculum that was highly math and science focused; My formal major was "Deck", but it was essentially a major in navigation.
Perhaps disagreeing with many, I think schooling should, first and foremost, prepare students to earn a living. School should give them skills that will guarantee worthwhile employment in the marketplace.
As for literature, the arts, etc., all of that can be (largely) self-taught. Get a library card, subscribe to well-written magazines, watch worthwhile television and otherwise feast on the intelectual life easily available to everyone.
Perhaps disagreeing with many, I think schooling should, first and foremost, prepare students to earn a living. School should give them skills that will guarantee worthwhile employment in the marketplace.
As for literature, the arts, etc., all of that can be (largely) self-taught. Get a library card, subscribe to well-written magazines, watch worthwhile television and otherwise feast on the intelectual life easily available to everyone.
Perhaps disagreeing with many, I think schooling should, first and foremost, prepare students to earn a living. School should give them skills that will guarantee worthwhile employment in the marketplace.
As for literature, the arts, etc., all of that can be (largely) self-taught. Get a library card, subscribe to well-written magazines, watch worthwhile television and otherwise feast on the intelectual life easily available to everyone.
Perhaps disagreeing with many, I think schooling should, first and foremost, prepare students to earn a living. School should give them skills that will guarantee worthwhile employment in the marketplace.
As for literature, the arts, etc., all of that can be (largely) self-taught. Get a library card, subscribe to well-written magazines, watch worthwhile television and otherwise feast on the intelectual life easily available to everyone.
Perhaps disagreeing with many, I think schooling should, first and foremost, prepare students to earn a living. School should give them skills that will guarantee worthwhile employment in the marketplace.
As for literature, the arts, etc., all of that can be (largely) self-taught. Get a library card, subscribe to well-written magazines, watch worthwhile television and otherwise feast on the intelectual life easily available to everyone.
(I keep getting the "publish your comment" page. Apologies if this is a dupe.)
University creative writing specializations (I teach in one) have become de facto literature programs. Students who loved to read and to write as children flock to these classes, so much so that conventional English department enrollment would collapse without them. My classes—now denominated “digital narrative” in part because I encourage my students to engage with generative AI—start with The Epic of Gilgamesh and proceed from there.
The first and most basic problem with public education is that it is dominated by people who liked school. The laws and regulations of education are created by people who took as many AP classes as they could stuff into their schedule. The content of the textbooks is directed at them, because they decide what textbooks to buy.
Take Common Core. It's actually a fantastic educational program... if you are an AP student. But not everybody is an AP student.
Public education today is dominated by one statement: "Everybody can, and will, go to college."
Five years ago the most popular class on my campus was autoshop. We had two full time teachers each teaching an extra period, so 12 packed classes. There was a waiting list. Today the autoshop room is used by the ASB/competitive cheer teacher. My school's lowest level of class for students not in the special education program is college prep. There are literally no general education classes. They spend half the professional development days trying to get us to use AP strategies, and the other half telling us to use scaffolding and sentence frames. Every kid is expected (and hounded) to file a FAFSA.
The worst thing of all? They are really teaching content, they're teaching ideology.
If I won the lottery I'd open up a charter school that would use the curriculum, standards, strategies and discipline as every local High school in America in the 1950's.
How is it that Teaching now requires certificates and not just an English degree? Certificates that you can only get by taking Education Classes at University? Why, it's almost like Make-Work activity for People with Education doctorates. Who pushed that through?
I would say Union members. But I'm not cynical.
The job market for English majors collapsed for a reason.
"How is it that Teaching now requires certificates and not just an English degree? Certificates that you can only get by taking Education Classes at University? Why, it's almost like Make-Work activity for People with Education doctorates. Who pushed that through?
I would say Union members. But I'm not cynical."
Maybe because teaching is so poorly paid and teachers such readily available punching bags for opportunistic and posturing asshole politicians scoring cheap points to win elections that fewer young people are willing to do the work and spend the time and taking on the loan debt acquiring their advanced degrees just to go into the miserable occupation of school teacher. School boards may have no choice but to loosen job prerequisites just to attract anybody to fill the increasing vacancies.
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