As a retired Brookline High School English teacher, with three children having gone through our system, I listened with interest and concern to the recent School Committee meeting. Hearing a member say that students in one of the ninth-grade pilot classes were reading three different versions of “The Odyssey,” and then say that they were all reading the same thing, shows a misunderstanding of what it means to study literature. They are not reading the same thing, they are not all paying attention to the language, and they are all being cheated if told it’s all the same. This was a strong argument against whatever curriculum is being developed in this pilot program.
Nancy Gutmann