There are countless problems with modern education. Those of us with a sincere passion for learning, those of us who believe that education should internalize this passion and those of us who believe that education should be more than a series of standardized tests marking a rite of passage into the world of adulthood, understand these problems all too well.

One issue that is seldom acknowledged yet remains critical to the intellectual improvement and emotional enrichment of our youth is the ongoing defamation of popular literature by English teachers and school curricula.

I start by going back to a time when I was seven years old. I have vague memories of the first novel I read. I don't remember the title or the author, I can only recall flashes of the virtual movie that played in my head; a summertime garden blooming with freesias and tulips, a small girl in a white dress, the phantom emptiness that filled the garden after her death. The gist of the plot is lost somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, but I do remember settling into the soft blue of my carpeted floor that afternoon and not coming back to reality until hours had passed and the sun had set and the last page had finally been turned.

That novel was the first I read entirely of my own accord. It was a scintillating experience and it without a doubt contributed to my transformation into an independent reader. After that, I read more and more often. I read J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew, C.S Lewis’s Narnia.

What saddens me is that often novels such as those are ignored by school curricula. There is an emphasis on classroom reading that is supposed to have an inherent educational value. I disagree. I don’t believe that certain books have inherent educational value while others don’t have any. I believe that what a student receives and retains from a reading is dependent on how the teacher encourages analysis using outside sources to give the book historical and literary context. This is true regardless of whether she is teaching Homer’s The Odyssey or stories from The Arabian Nights.

What is even more outrageous is the attitude of some English teachers. I’ve heard a teacher tell my friend that if she wanted a love story, she should ignore Twilight (whose dialogue I found quite funny) and should instead go for Romeo & Juliet (which, thus far, I still believe is Shakespeare’s worst). Another teacher scorned Harry Potter (the same series whose seventh book I eagerly anticipated for months and is one of the few items I’ve ever been willing to stand in line for) for not being “the type of book that students should be reading.” Come on, you’re an English teacher! It’s your job to instill a life-long love for literature. You should not be scorning books, no matter their genre, no matter their status as “high” or “low,” if a child finds them intriguing.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m against the traditional literature we’ve been exposed to in American classrooms. In fact, Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and Orwell’s Animal Farm are some of my favorites. Instead, I’m against the attitude that there are certain types of books, namely “high” literature, that hold educational value, and that there are certain types of books, such as “low” literature, that don’t. This attitude is harmful; it can discourage students from reading independently of school and it can cause them to question their own intelligence if they find themselves attracted to books about magic or mysteries.

The ideal, in my opinion, is a syllabus that incorporates a wide range of readings. Take, for example, the “Intro to the Study of Women Writers” class I took my first semester freshmen year of college. Not only did we read Judith Butler’s canonical work on gender performativity, but we also read a novel whose title was on the tip of every passerby’s tongue and whose story was converted into a major motion picture — Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. We used Butler’s work to analyze Gone Girl, which not only gave us a better understanding of Butler’s argument, but also provided us an enjoyable and relevant classroom experience. I, for one, gave the professor raving reviews.

You may have noticed that I titled this piece the “The Ironic Arrogance of ‘High’ Literature.” I did so because, well, isn’t it quite ironic? One of the main purposes of reading literature is to better understand humanity. Yet, the stigma surrounding the reading of certain genres discourages access to the different lens of understanding provided by these genres and thus prevents the development of a deep, multifaceted life perspective.

Ultimately, while "high" literature continues to dominate English curricula, we need to understand that there’s a lot to learn from Harry Potter, too.