Why every school should have a classical music club and its pros

This leads to my main argument why every school should have a classical music club. A classics club encourages students to read a classic they may not have considered, or, if they have one, forces them to look at the book from an unfamiliar perspective. When asked the teachers who started my school’s classics club what prompted them to start a classics club, Emily Cartmel said, “There are so many incredible novels that aren’t on the curriculum – why shouldn’t we want to share some?” Emily Cartmel is right. A Penguin article published in June 2021 shows that less than 1% of GCSE students in England study a book by a black author and just 7% study a book by a woman. These are pathetic statistics and feed into the rhetoric of the white male academics who control the literary world. By choosing the classics, educators have an opportunity to show their students that this is not the case.

When Holly Manning asked another teacher why she started the Classical Club, Holly Manning responded with this explanation: “A recognition that the classical texts students are exposed to at KS4 are not particularly diverse or representative of society are in which we live. However, rather than labeling such texts “outdated” or lacking in inclusiveness, I wanted to encourage students to experience them through a critical lens; this allows students to find beauty in writing while also realizing where their flaws or problems may lie. Beyond I also wanted to present texts that included a wide range of voices and appropriately addressed universal themes.” Holly Manning understands that while classical literature is a beautiful medium, it can also be deeply problematic, and it’s important to understand that these are becoming obsolete views were the norm for the time, and these texts are best examined from a 21st-century perspective.

Overall, a classics club will improve students’ understanding of how the world used to be, what has and hasn’t changed, but most importantly, what needs to change. Because it’s up to all of us to make this world we live in better. We can start one classical club after another…