Not only this, but also the impact having to read something has on enjoyment. There are books like To Kill A Mockingbird that I didn’t care for in high school simply because I had to read it. When I revisited it years later of my own volition, I enjoyed it greatly.
I’d say this is by design. Exposure, not enjoyment.
There’s a number of classics I read at the time that I didn’t enjoy until adulthood. Reading them early on gave me a framework for understanding them later on in life.
I rather enjoyed wading through antiquated language in an attempt to understand. Honestly I don't recall if the prose in To Kill a Mockingbird was difficult to grasp and I suspect it wasn't but there were so many other books that we were "forced" to read that really were an enjoyable challenge. Shakespeare for instance.
I don’t think this is always true. I enjoyed reading before school forced me to, and while I mildly resented being forced to read something I didn’t particularly want to read, it never made me enjoy reading less.
I also read a few books I otherwise would’ve never picked up that ended up very interesting.
I don't think they're saying they disliked reading totally, but that they disliked books they were forced to read. Although, if that happened to be every single book in the syllabus, then sure, someone might mistakenly think they don't actually like reading.
Ultimately, sacrifices get made to try and get mass education working; the current system is barely scalable, so anything even more personalized is pretty much out of the question.
So? Many others do enjoy reading even if for school. Should we stop teaching math cuz kids don’t like it in the hopes they’ll teach themselves as adults? School will never be all things to all kids.
I think their comment was, if anything, an hint to check out some of those classics again, even if you didn’t enjoy them when you were made to read them in school.
