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Comment by beams_of_light | Hacker News Reader

This is a problem I have yet to see schools tackle. A kid in junior high school has no mental context for the Russian Revolution of 1917, for instance. Having them read Animal Farm is a pointless waste of time.

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Poor choice. Animal Farm is way, way more than an allegory of one historical event. It's a broadbrush statement on the kind of people likely to seize power at every opportunity (or if you prefer, the effect unrestrained power has on most people), and a humorous jab at authoritarianism.

The other books mentioned (Gatsby et al.) really require context, but literal pigs sitting down to dinner with powerbrokers is something a 14yo can grasp.

Reading allegory is the way start building mental context.

I read Animal Farm in 9th grade and it had a profound impact me. Hmmm is that you Napoleon?

Same with things like (picking at random) The Great Gatsby and a lot of literature having to do with adult relationships and romance. How on earth is a 16-year-old in 2025 going to understand what's happening in Gatsby? I read it, wrote some papers and got As on them, but didn't really make sense of it at the time.

The Great Gatsby is an Americanized version of a Greek tragedy, I don't think it's too hard for a 16 year old to understand. It's no "Rabbit, Run", at least.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

In addition to being a short classic, I think teens could identify with Gatsby being obsessed with getting the approval of people who have nothing but contempt for him. There's a devastating scene at the end where the narrator, Nick Carraway, organizes a funeral for Gatsby and literally none of his friends show up. I think that might resonate deeply for more than a few teen readers.

That's more a commentary on 2025 than 16 year olds I assure you. In the 90s adult relationships weren't particularly mysterious to your average 16 year old.

I was a 16 year old in the 1990s and it was mysterious to me.

…or so the 16-year old still thought.

I mean you leave with whatever take suits you but don't expect buyin for some revisionist narrative that casts 90s era 16 year olds as infantilized incompetents. I'd like to point out that the majority of kids that age at that time had cars, jobs to support said, and relationships of their own of varying levels of "adult"-ness.

So you were born circa 1979?

Close, you're late by 4 years.

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