Of Mice, Men and Celibates

I'm not sure how I got roped into three weeks work with some North African miners in Namur and Charleroi, but it was an interesting period. I discovered Belgian chips fried in horse fat and learned some French.
    In the morning I did an overtime shift on ward three which was easy because they were all long term patients,  middle aged and mostly quite stable. Some of them needed to be shaved before being served breakfast.
    A rather dull morning was enlivened by Charlie, a former Catholic Jesuit priest who was a GPI, General Paralysis of the Insane, the Christian disease, the Black Lion or neurosyphilis as it's usually known today. Charlie had discovered a pronouncement by the Pope about Celibacy in the paper. It must have been the Telegraph because every ward had a copy of it.
    Charlie was in a marvellous humour, swearing about the Pope and his dishonesty.  In his view and experience, the priesthood and celibacy was about not getting married not about not having sex. He always boasted that being a priest gave you access to all the sex you could ever want. He must have got the disease that made him mad somehow.
    So on 24th June 19xx I set off for Belgium on the train and overnight ferry. At the station I stopped at W. H. Smith and bought two books for the journey, Of Mice and Men and Three Men in a Boat.  I read the first on the way to Dover and the second on the way to Charleroi. The Belgians must have wondered why I was laughing so much. Jerome's book remains one of my favourites.
    The reason I mention Steinbeck's book is that it is a set work in a great many school and students don't so much read it as have it inflicted on them. They see the film, then read a chapter of the book every lesson, analysing the plot and discussing the character of Curly's wife, searching for metaphors and coming up with alternative endings.
    I thoroughly enjoyed the book when I read it in just over an hour on a train. I understood it and remembered it well enough when called upon to teach it but I am forced to ask what purpose is served by hours of forced labour trying to drag out additional meaning from students who lose interest by the hour.
    Surely more purpose would be served by having them read it for themselves and then recording their feelings and interpretations rather then being forced to regurgitate the meanings given by the teacher from the scheme of work.