Bill for compulsory science fiction in West Virginia schools

A bill calling for science fiction to be made compulsory reading in schools has been proposed by a politician in West Virginia in order to "stimulate interest in the fields of math and science".

Ray Canterbury, a Republican delegate, is appealing to the West Virginia board of education to include science fiction novels on the middle school and high school curriculums. "The Legislature finds that promoting interest in and appreciation for the study of math and science among students is critical to preparing students to compete in the workforce and to assure the economic well being of the state and the nation," he writes in the pending bill.

"To stimulate interest in math and science among students in the public schools of this state, the State Board of Education shall prescribe minimum standards by which samples of grade-appropriate science fiction literature are integrated into the curriculum of existing reading, literature or other required courses for middle school and high school students."

"I'm not interested in fantasy novels about dragons," Canterbury told Blastr in a recent interview. "I'm primarily interested in things where advanced technology is a key component of the storyline, both in terms of the problems that it presents and the solutions that it offers."

A fan of Isaac Asimov and Jules Verne, Canterbury believes that "one of the things about science fiction is that it gives you this perspective that as long as you have an imagination and it's grounded in some sort of practical knowledge, you can do anything you wanted to".

"In Southern West Virginia, there's a bit of a Calvinistic attitude toward life – this is how things are and they'll never be any different," he said. "[Science fiction] serves as a kind of antidote to that fatalistic kind of thinking."

Scientist and award-winning science fiction author David Brin, who has long fought for the educational value of the genre to be recognised, said it was "wonderful to live in a country where politicians can raise this possibility".

James Gunn, author, critic and a "grand master" of science fiction, agreed that "classrooms should expose more students to science fiction", and said that Canterbury's plan "sounds like an enlightened idea".

"As long ago as Future Shock, Alvin Toffler was calling for exposing young people to science fiction as 'a sovereign prophylactic' against 'the premature arrival of the future'. Today in an even more rapidly changing world, it is even more important for Toffler's purpose but also for making the kinds of informed decisions about present issues that will lead to better futures," said Gunn, who is founder of the Centre for the Study of Science Fiction at Kansas University.

"Because science fiction incorporates the one thing that is undeniably true in today's fiction – that the world is changing – it has the capability of shaping that change as well as adjusting to it. As I say in my signature motto, 'Let's save the world through science fiction.'

"Science fiction has the capability, at its best, of exercising the rational portions of the brain. You have to think to read it. And what the world needs now is people who can think better and more clearly and make good choices."

Brin, author of The Postman, has suggested a range of titles which might be useful in schools in the past, from "books that explore the edges of tolerance, like those of Octavia Butler and Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr)" to "books that ponder biological destiny, penned by Greg Bear and Joan Slonczewski", and "those by Robert A Heinlein, Arthur C Clarke, and Ray Bradbury that instruct almost invisibly, because the authors were teachers at heart".

He told the Guardian that he "approve[s] wholeheartedly" of Canterbury's plans – "though with a cavil – that 90% of the most recent wave of 'science fiction' tales appear to have been either gloomy dystopias or else fantasy tales wallowing in dreamy yearnings for a beastly way of life called feudalism".

"Some of the best science fiction deals with gloomy or dire topics, and often without happy endings. But always implicit in the best tales is the possibility that human beings might do better. That is why Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 … qualify as 'self-preventing prophecies', having girded millions to help make their dark scenarios never happen. My own The Postman was an attempt at that territory," said Brin.

"But it is science fiction that offers hope for a better world that does the most good, in the long run. Star Trek did this, while confronting one after another potential pitfall or roadblock that might confront us along the way," said the author, also pointing to the authors Vernor Vinge, Neal Stephenson, Kim Stanley Robinson and Nancy Kress.