University of Kwazulu-Natal

Why Do We Read Hard Books Rockbridge

Bonisiwe Shabane
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why do we read hard books rockbridge

By JD Head, Upper School Literature Teacher, Rockbridge Academy Reprinted with permission Paradise Lost. The first three times that I attempted to read this book on my own, I failed, never making it out of book 2. I was a literature teacher with several years of experience and at the beginning of my happy career at Rockbridge on my third failed attempt. It’s a hard book. It’s a hard book, and Milton’s classical allusions, Latinate constructions, and theological asides were completely overwhelming to me, so I quit.

I remember waiting at Annapolis Honda for my Civic’s oil change, trying to make sense of the thing. I finally abandoned the poem and comforted myself by asserting that “the Emperor has no clothes”: nothing that was this hard to slog through could be worth it. It is largely my fault that Paradise Lost is in our present 9th grade curriculum; I made my case to Ralph Janikowski and Mike McKenna in 2010, worked to maneuver Pilgrim’s Progress into the... My deepest regret about that? Not having a chance to read Milton’s epic with Rockbridge students again. Because it was a hard book, and it was worth it.

In our modern era of instant information and bite-sized entertainment, reading intellectually challenging material can seem like an unnecessary burden. Why struggle through a dense classic novel, a difficult philosophical treatise, or an intricate historical account when easier, more accessible options are available? However, those who embrace the challenge of “hard books” often find their intellectual lives enriched in ways that lighter reading simply cannot provide. In the context of classical education, where the cultivation of wisdom and virtue is paramount, reading hard books is not just beneficial — it is essential. Reading a difficult text requires patience, focus, and perseverance. When a book is challenging, the reader cannot simply coast through it in a passive way.

Instead, he or she must engage actively, rereading passages, looking up words, and considering complex ideas. This process strengthens the mind much like physical exercise strengthens the body. In an age where attention spans are shrinking, the discipline developed through reading demanding works is invaluable. A student who has struggled through The Republic by Plato, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, or The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer will develop the ability to sustain deep thought. This intellectual stamina prepares individuals for rigorous study in any discipline, whether in law, medicine, theology, or philosophy. Even more importantly, it enables them to engage with the weighty questions of life with clarity and insight.

Many of the greatest works of literature, philosophy, and theology do not provide easy answers. Instead, they invite the reader into a serious intellectual and moral struggle. Consider Augustine’s Confessions, where the author wrestles with questions of sin, grace, and divine providence. Or regard Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which raises profound questions about justice, revenge, and the meaning of existence. These works challenge us not just to understand but to engage, to debate, and to form our own reasoned conclusions. By reading hard books, we learn that truth is not always simple.

Life’s most significant questions — What is justice? What is virtue? What is the good life? — are not easily answered. Grappling with these texts prepares us for the complexity of real-world ethical and philosophical dilemmas. “Good books are over your head; they would not be good for you if they were not.

And books that are over your head weary you unless you can reach up to them and pull yourself up their level.” — Mortimer Adler I’ve just finished reading The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist. It took 10x longer than expected. What slowed me down was the numerous moments I sat back in awe at what I’d just read on the page (it’s profound—you should read it). But also the fact that it’s not an easy read. It’s certainly not something you can leisurely scan through and gain an understanding of the concepts.

Thanks for reading Sam Matla! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. And tt’s been a good reminder of the value of difficult books. There’s something you get from reading hard books that you don’t get from easy books. And that something is what I want to explore in this post. Dr.

Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris] Everyone knows reading is important. But sometimes digging down and saying why reading is important … can be harder than we think!

So here are some reasons it is important to read. Reading is important because it helps improve your life. Benefits include that: books help our cognitive development, prevent cognitive decline, make us more empathetic, and improve confidence. Many of us may take reading for granted, but many countries in this world have millions of people who lack fundamental reading skills. For example, check out this graph of literacy rates around the world – I was surprised at how low literacy rates were in some parts of the world: An Ambrose Parent Education article by Chris Browne, 7th & 11th Grade Humanities Teacher

I recently finished reading Dante’s The Divine Comedy with my junior students and Homer’s The Odyssey with my seventh grade students. You will not find either on the reading lists of many high schools around the country, as both have been deemed too difficult, inaccessible, or antiquated for young readers. If the rest of the world has given up on these books and others like them, then why haven’t classical Christian schools like ours? Wouldn’t we be better off assigning our students reading that was less difficult, easier to digest, and frankly, more enjoyable? There are great answers to those questions! In a roundabout way, an article published in the The Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago gets at some of those answers.

The article cites a tech company’s analysis of what kind of books kids enjoy reading. Not surprisingly, ninjas and dinosaurs are high on the list, while ethical philosophy and Trinitarian theology didn’t make the cut. The basic concern of the tech company involved is that they publish the kind of books that kids want to read. Though the article is specifically about what algorithms say kids enjoy reading, the underlying questions it raises apply to our student reading lists. Should we be primarily concerned with giving students what they want? As Dr.

Mohler, the President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminar and Boyce College put it regarding the results of the study, “if we just give children what the algorithms say they want, they’re going to... Our job as parents and teachers is not to give our students what they want, but to give them what they need; not to give them what they enjoy, but to give them what... We do not read The Aeneid with students because they are entertained by it or they want it; we read it with them so they might see the beauty in it and be transformed... It is true that through careful cultivation by parents, teachers, pastors, and friends that many students will come to love the books we read, the conversations we have, and the liberal arts we study. By “love” I do not mean they will necessarily have some warm sentiment towards The Aeneid or the other books we read; that may or may not happen. By “love” in this context I mean something greater: we hope our students will come to have a deep and abiding respect and appreciation for the true, good, and beautiful things we expose them...

This respect and appreciation can exist independent of any feeling our students might have about the things they encounter during their education. The importance of reading can be a hot button topic. When you bring it up, it tends to cause one of two dramatic reactions in adults—both of which probably come from thoughts of their childhood experiences. What is it about reading? Some people will get a dreamy look in their eyes and tell you about the hours they can spend curled up with a book, in a different world, or with a highlighter, dog-earring pages... For others, they glaze over a bit, and you can almost see the confidence drain out of their body.

“Reading was hard,” they’ll tell you. “I still don’t think I’m a good reader.” I’m sure you can relate to one or the other, or maybe both depending on your experience. For some, reading comes easily, they receive and process sound and print associations and can move quickly into more sophisticated structure and content. For many others (more than we previously thought), their teachers did the best they could, but perhaps didn’t have the training to offer the direct instruction they needed to really understand the nuances of... For still others, they had something standing in their way—whether they knew it or not.

And sadly, maybe some gave up. The body of research called the science of reading now helps us understand that virtually all children can learn to read with the appropriate evidence-aligned, direct instruction. And the benefits of being a fluent reader are far greater than just feeling confident in school. So why is reading important? Reading is a lifelong skill that improves memory, builds a robust vocabulary and foundation of knowledge, and adds a richness and depth of meaning to life for all those who can access true, deep... We all understand that one of the benefits of reading more is that you might know more factual information or understand something more deeply.

But as it turns out, reading doesn’t just fill your head with information, it actually changes the wiring in your brain. One of the significant ways reading affects the brain is through perspective taking. When you read and find yourself thinking about the characters in the book as if they are real people, with perspectives possibly very different than your own, it allows for growth of emotional intelligence... When your brain is deeply engaged in reading, you have a huge increase in brain activity—and not just in the language centers. In middle school and high school, your teachers probably encouraged you to seek out primary sources, which are original accounts of a topic, as opposed to secondary sources, which are retellings or summaries of... However, teachers often don’t acknowledge an important fact: Primary sources are really boring and hard to read.

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