Carlos Collazo

Joshua Bennett writes about the value of a well-rounded and well-read education—what should a core reading curriculum look like for students today?

My sense of the transformative power of literature didn’t come from the academy. It is an inheritance, largely from my great-grandmother. She was born 30 years after the abolition of slavery, lived into the 1980s, and ultimately shaped my mother’s approach to education. The beauty of reading, she told her, of what you learn and preserve in your mind, is that it can never be stolen. It is yours the way little else in this life is yours. A reader is never entirely alone; the text opens a portal between friends and strangers, the dead and the living. Amid a nationwide crisis in education—and a parallel crisis of transcendent meaning and social belonging—my sense is that this is a crucial time to return to works that help us practice patience, astonishment, and deep attention to the details of the world around us. This work, if it is effective, will not only beautify our days. It will also make us more courageous, imaginative, and free.