"Yes, at first I was happy to be learning how to read. It seemed exciting and magical, but then I read this: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I read every last word of this garbage, and because of this piece of s**t, I am never reading again."
Posted on 10/04/2024 9:44:17 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Several university professors expressed concerns to the Atlantic about students who come to college unable to read full-length books.
Assistant editor Rose Horowitch spoke to several teachers from elite schools like Columbia, Georgetown and Stanford, who each described the phenomenon of students being overwhelmed by the prospect of reading entire books.
Columbia University humanities professor Nicholas Dames described feeling “bewildered” when a first-year student told him that she had never been required to read a full book at her public high school.
“My jaw dropped,” Dames said.
Some professors do find a few students up to the task, but described them as “now more exceptions” rather than the rule, with others “shutting down” when facing difficult texts.
“Daniel Shore, the chair of Georgetown’s English department, told me that his students have trouble staying focused on even a sonnet,” Horowitch wrote.
“It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading,” she said. “It’s that they don’t know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
University of Idaho where one of my girls is?
I didn't think so, looked at your profile and also the U of I (daho) doesn't have too much of that woke stuff).
" ... And there was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn't just for fags and neither was writing. People wrote books and movies, movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!"
To each his own, gator. The author of that quote obviously skipped over “The Aristocracy of Pull, Miracle Metal, and
The Concerto of Deliverance. Three of the most weighty chapters in a powerful novel.
They only had a limited number of books that they had the Q&A sheets for. We ended up buying them for the more advanced books our son wanted to read.
I was speaking with an acquaintance that teaches at the middle school (7th graders?). He is ready to retire. Between trying to teach kids that don't even know english to the terrible behavior of the students it is really difficult to teach the normal kids.
Yes, they have the attention span of a gnat.
I see them at my workplace. They do their job for maybe 5-10 minutes, then have to get to their $8 coffee and surf on their phone.
Rinse, repeat all day long. Absolutely no focus, discipline or work ethic.
Try Alibris.com. I’ve found quite a few books there that are out of print or otherwise hard to find.
I've always read books (in full) because I WANTED to read them, not because of some requirement. So this person never felt the interest to actually read any book at all. OK.
That said, some books on my English Lit reading list I found tedious and not to my interest by topic and/or style. THOSE books I did not read to the end. I had better books to read.
TL;DR
“I think you meant Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”
LOL, it’s been about 40 years. I’m lucky to have any remaining memories. :)
We knew 50+ years ago that the “elite colleges” were cesspools of liberalism. Furthermore, they do not produce the best educated graduates.
I just remember that book, too. Yes, we are lucky that we can remember even a few things from so long ago.
Mostly among dark skinned minorities. Not Asians.
Gee I wonder why? No I don’t, I know exactly why.
I was exactly like that. I always considered it a gift. They showed me how to sound out words and I was off to the world of reading.
Our local Board sit like silent, stone monuments during the Public Comment Period as each subject is given exactly 3 minutes to talk to the walls. There is no engagement whatsoever.
After Public Comments, the Board go into Closed Session where they either gush over or laugh at the Public Comments and then debate the stuff that ought to be public but isn’t.
Then they re-emerge and Report Out the results of their Closed Session decisions to garnish them with a fig leaf of public-ness sufficient to pass strictly legal — if not rational — muster.
Then everyone leaves
But at this point they have the most private school graduates who are the most likely to have some sort of extended reading background, grasp of major points and timelines of history, etc.
The lesser colleges are teaching what used to be taught by middle school.
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