Hello, and welcome to this week's Top 5 Wednesday blog post. It is September so that means, at least in the United Kingdom, that it is time for students to go back to school for the beginning of a new academic year. I remember this always being a big moment for me as you are entering a new year with new teachers and sometimes put into new classes. This is a particularly big change if you are preparing to start studying for qualifications. So, for this week's post, I am not going to be writing about books that I read at school because I covered them in the Required Reading prompt earlier this year. This week, I will explore my top 5 books that take place in a school or where school is a significant theme. So, in no particular order, let's get straight to this post!
1. Lover Birds by Leanne Egan
This book is set in a Liverpool secondary school and sixth form and is all about Isabel and Eloise. When Isobel moves to Liverpool from London, the connection between Isabel and Eloise is complicated, but they eventually become friends before entering a romantic relationship; Isabel also takes pride in tutoring Eloise to help her with her A-Levels, particularly A-Level English Literature. This book is, therefore, very much about the friendships and relationships which can develop at school. Still, it also touches on the difficulties faced by neurodivergent students at schools and the lack of support available for these students both in compulsory education and even at University level education as well.
2. The Headmasters List by Melissa de la Cruz
This book is very much a who-done-it murder mystery book, centring on a car crash that left Spencer with memory loss, meaning she could not recall the crash or just before the crash. However, this book also takes place in a prestigious school in Los Angeles where high-performing students are motivated by the incentive of getting onto the Headmasters List. The students will even lie and conceal the truth to get on the list. Now, this is an interesting book because of this idea of a list of the best, highest performing students, and that's because it may sound fictional, but similar things happen in the real world. This is particularly true at universities where the highest performing students can be treated more favourably, such as being given exclusive opportunities simply for being top performers.
Now, the main problem I have with such a system is that the top-performing students are treated more favourably, and some of the disadvantaged students are also treated more favourably to help them succeed. However, the average students, some of whom may face their own difficulties and differences, as well as some of the disadvantaged students, are not given any extra support or anything to help them compete and potentially become top-performing students themselves. They are very much left to figure it out themselves. This book also allowed the wealthier families to buy their children places on a list which is symbolic of the attainment gap, particularly between the working class and upper class. I firmly believe that no one can deny there is an attainment gap, and those with the money and education are treated more favourably even in the real world, whereas those who are slightly less advantaged are left to figure it out for themselves.
Therefore, yes this book may be a murder mystery but on a deeper level it highlights both the positive and negative discrimination in the education system in arguably both America and the United Kingdom as well as the presence of the attainment gap which, at least in the United Kingdom, seems to just get bigger, Now there may be multiple reasons for this, but a large part is down to both the government and educational providers.
3. A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll
This book highlights some of the many problems with the educational system in the United Kingdom and society in general. It is set in a little village in Scotland with the autistic girl Addie who clearly has a difficult time at school due to the teachers and many of her peers not understanding her differences and treating Addie less favourably, to the point where the one teacher refers to Addie as a "retard". Addie has long noticed that Juniper has never really been accepting of people with differences, including those accused of being witches, so Addie advocates for a witch memorial.
The main message in this book is how society is not accepting of people with differences, and this is very evident in schools. Admittedly, schools are under-budgeted and may not have the time or the money, but to be honest, that's just not a good enough excuse, especially when they get paid more for students who do have a diagnosed neurodivergence such as autism or ADHD. The problem in the educational system as a whole is that they do not want to make it a more inclusive place, they do not want to put in the extra time and effort to make education accessible for people who have differences. This again links into my discussion of the attainment gap and is very likely to be one of many reasons for this attainment gap.,
4. Shadow of the West by Sarah Brotherhood Chapman
In this book, I have more positive things to say because, like some of the others, it is obviously set in a school, and the main characters do become friends. This is valuable because they provide each other with company but also learn so much. The two girls even go to the other side of the Berlin Wall to see what life is like and also help two less fortunate individuals, including by smuggling a baby onto the other, more privileged side of the Berlin Wall. This book again shows how society is not equal and fair and how people are treated so differently, but this book demonstrates how we should be kind and supportive to everyone, even if they are less advantaged than we may be,
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Now, the final book on this list is not based in a school, but I suppose this can demonstrate how you don't just learn at school but also learn in every aspect of life, including at home. But also, let's not forget that some people are, in fact, home-schooled. But in To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus teaches his children about equality and how people should not be treated differently, in this context, just because of their skin colour. This is a valuable lesson and also demonstrates how we learn so much, both consciously and unconsciously, from our parents and how their beliefs, such as on race, can become our own beliefs, for better or for worse.
It's really interesting because, taking a step back, I see that all these books have something in common. All these books demonstrate how education and the educational system try to be a system for a certain type of person and try to avoid making it accessible to a wider number of people. This book and many others, both fictional, non-fictional and academic textbooks, suggest that the education system is made for white individuals, most often males but increasingly also females, who come from advantaged, often upper-class or upper-middle class backgrounds and who are neurotypical rather than neurodiverse, and very commonly abled rather than disabled. This is really sad for many reasons, but largely because some of the greatest academics had some form of disability or neurodivergence, including Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein. The question is how can we make the educational system more accessible. I think the first thing we must change as a society is our attitudes and become more accepting.
Thank you for reading this week's Top 5 Wednesday post; I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I certainly did not expect to write a critical essay on the education system, but I got carried away, and this just happened to be the end product. I hope you also enjoyed the additional commentary. Please share your thoughts below in the comments section, or just say hello! Please also feel free to explore the rest of my blog, including my other Top 5 Wednesday blog posts and my range of book reviews, many of which will be reviews of the books featured on my various Top 5 Wednesday posts. I hope you look forward to next week's post as much as I look forward to writing it!
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