The conversation depicted here actually took place.  The student really didn't know Hemingway.  I think that's sad.  Not that I like Hemingway myself, I don't.  But, I know his importance to literature.  Sometimes educational reform is claptrap, voodoo education I call it.

    A student asked me a few years back, "Can you name someone famous who has committed suicide, other than Kurt Cobain?"
    "Uh, who's Kurt Cobain?"
    "You know.  He was in that grunge rock group called Nirvana."
    "What did he do?"
    "Well, he was the leader of the group."
    "No, I mean what did he do.  Overdose like most of the other unfortunate, untimely deaths of
the music industry?"
     "No, he shot himself."
    "Oh.  Ernest Hemingway."
    "Who's Ernest Hemingway?"
    "You asked about somebody who committed suicide."
    "What did he do?"
    "It's generally accepted that he put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.  Actually,
not an easy task when you consider that he was using a long barrelled weapon..."  (I
sometimes ramble in response to students' questions)
    "No, Mr, Mocarski.  I mean what did he DO?  What made him famous?"
    "You know.  Ernest Hemingway.  Nobel Laureate.  Old Man and the Sea.  The stuff you had
in American Lit."
    "Never heard of him."
    "You had American Lit yet?"
    "Yeah."
    "And you never read any Hemingway?"
    "No."
    "WHAT!?!"
    Sometimes a large gap in communication exists between generations.  It's not that one
generation uses a language    different from the next generation.  It's that sometimes
generations don't have the same common knowledge or shared experiences, and part of the
problem facing education today is a seemingly incessant fervor to provide students more with
skills rather than knowledge itself.
    Of course every student should have some basic skills.  They ought to know how to read
and write.  They ought to know how to perform basic checkbook computations.  But they ought
to have a certain amount of knowledge as well.  Stuff they, and everyone else, should know.
    If students are required to study science, for example, they ought to know certain facts and
terms about that field.  If they are studying American History, it seems to me that the Civil War
and its meaning should be covered extensively.  The Bill of Rights and the Gettysburg Address
ought to be required reading.
    In literature classes we need to require students to read certain books by certain authors.
We need to make our students read authors like Hemingway, Mark Twain, and others because
they were important and influential in the scheme of our literature and our society.  We need to worry less about Hemingway's macho image or who might find Twain's Huckleberry Finn offensive
and worry more about what it means to have students graduate from school without having read those authors.
    Far too many times we start adding books and other materials to the curriculum because we
want to include certain groups, certain viewpoints, certain politically correct ideas.  With all
these additions, one of two things happens.  Either the old is thrown out for no good reason, or everything becomes so watered down that it ceases to have any importance or meaning for the
students.
It's a nice idea to have students develop a diverse awareness of the world they will eventually control, but not at the expense of not teaching them of the achievements and, yes, the failures of the past.  We all learn from examples of what is good, and, hopefully, we all learn from our mistakes.
    Students do need to learn a wider variety of skills than ever before.  They still need to learn what used to be called the basics.  They also need to learn to think, to work together, to be technologically sound.
    I have nothing against students striving in high school to achieve certain outcomes and skill levels, but they also have to know something.  They have to know what their parents and adults
around them know.  They have to share the same knowledge, the same culture.  It's what will make them adults, and Americans.
    It's called the content of their character, and what they know counts as much as what they can do.
 Students don't have to think that Hemingway was the greatest author.  They don't even have to like Hemingway's writing.  They might even think that Kurt Cobain has much more importance and
relevance.  Students, though, ought to at least have the opportunity to make up their own minds.
    "You know.  Ernest Hemingway.  Nobel Laureate.  Old Man and the Sea.  The stuff you had in American Lit."
    "Never heard of him."
    "You should have."