Philip Pullman: teaching leaves pupils hating books

Philip Pullman, the bestselling children’s author, has compared the way in which books are taught in schools to torture.

Philip Pullman, who has updated Grimms' Tales. Photo: CLARA MOLDEN

By Telegraph Reporters

The Telegraph 09 Dec 2012

The award-winning writer of the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials criticised teachers for the “painful” way they tore stories apart to try to reveal what they “really mean”.

The result is pupils who end up hating the books, he said. Instead of being drilled and quizzed about them, children should be given time to enjoy the stories.

When you read a book, “you should get magic from it”, he said. “There should be plenty of books and plenty of time, and teachers should leave children alone.

“Sometimes a book will not make its full impact known to us until 20 or 30 years later,” he told the Economist Books of the Year event.

“At the time, it might make such a deep impression that we don’t want to talk about it. It’s too important to us.” 
Full article at The Telegraph