Posted on 12/22/2024 9:07:23 PM PST by Fiji Hill
Kids aren’t reading anymore. That’s the conclusion of a recent article by The Associated Press noting that children are not only reading less for fun — only 14% say they do so daily compared to 27% in 2012 — but they are also not getting assigned actual books much in class either.
Per the AP, “In many English classrooms across America, assignments to read full-length novels are becoming less common. Some teachers focus instead on selected passages — a concession to perceptions of shorter attention spans, pressure to prepare for standardized tests and a sense that short-form content will prepare students for the modern, digital world.” (The idea that students who don’t read entire books perform better on standardized tests is complete nonsense, as evidenced by the astronomical test scores of schools like Success Academies.)
Teachers are not just reacting to the problem. They are also causing it. In 2022, the National Council of Teachers of English issued a statement saying: “The time has come to decenter book reading and essay-writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.”
This trend has created problems in higher education as well, where students are now less prepared to read even a few pages for their classes. Professors are trying to adapt there too, giving shorter assignments. But how much lower can our expectations get? Not only is reading short passages of novels significantly less interesting than reading the whole thing, but there are skills that one gets from reading something longer that many young people seem to be missing.
On a recent podcast, Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Beth McMurtrie noted, “A lot of the faculty members I’ve talked to frequently say, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen to these students once they enter the working world.’”
She notes, “We’re not talking about, wow, they didn’t read ‘Moby-Dick.’ We’re talking about these fundamental critical reading and writing skills that students are really struggling to master, and maybe even don’t necessarily see the point of mastering through very little fault of their own.”
But even before they get to the working world, there are ways that this inability to read is exacerbating the terrible atmosphere on campus these days. Many adults have bemoaned the lack of civil discourse in higher education. Protests, boycotts, violence and vandalism seem to have replaced reasoned debate about the most important issues of the day.
One reason this happens is because students are rarely presented with nuanced arguments and when they are, they have trouble understanding them. If you’re getting your understanding of the world from TikTok, it’s going to be pretty shallow. But if no one has actually asked students to read a whole book or even a chapter of a book about the conflict in the Middle East or the history of the Civil Rights Movement or the isolationist strain in American politics, it’s hard to blame them for speaking in slogans.
It’s hard to know how to stop this cycle of ignorance followed by lowering expectations followed by ignorance and lowering expectations even more. Individual professors might have the courage to take a stand. But maybe students could demand better.
Earlier this month, Princeton professor Robert P. George offered advice to conservatives on campus: “Don’t hide and don’t be silent. Exercise and, if necessary, defend your right to think for yourself and to dissent from campus orthodoxies.” All good advice, as well as his encouragement to steer clear of thinking of yourself as a victim — college students, he rightly notes, are among the most privileged people on the planet.
But what these students really need — and not just conservatives but all students — is to spend a lot of time reading. They need to read their own side, the other side, the history of both sides. They need to read things that are not political, and things that are, so they can understand more of the world, in all of its subtleties. It would be nice if more professors assigned them these texts, but students should seek out faculty who do.
It is easy to imagine in these times that winning is everything — on the right and the left, the language used about the other side is apocalyptic. It gives people a sense that the time spent reading a long book, or several, is time wasted, time that could be spent in battle. But you don’t need to go to college to do battle. And you’ve been cheated out of a real education if that’s how you spend your years on campus.
Getting back to reading will not be easy for students who have been accustomed to learning from YouTube and Instagram. But decentering books has been a disaster for our colleges and our country.
“The dumbing down of our educational curriculum continues.”
As long as THEY run the schools, they can do what THEY want, after all it’s government money that they’re spending.
In Texas Governor Abbott is going to TRY to finally pass a school voucher bill so that more schools are paid with money from the parents, rather than from the government, but the RINOs are still powerful and likely will again stop him.
learning to read was my escape, from everything...
now, their every desire is on their phone.
Spending time reading keeps one out of trouble.
Trouble is defined as relying on cellphone information and entertainment, watching hours of mindless television and pop fads and trends.
When you read you are teleported to a world where you have to think, imagine and yes, even struggle trying to comprehend. The key word is struggle or make an effort.
All of the above cellphone culture and TV causes one to become lazy and passive which means that they can then be easily swayed politically or through propaganda. End result? A docile and misinformed population with no clear priorities, moral, spiritual or legal.
Maybe they should read a book..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_(Uris_novel)
That means future lawyers will also be emerging from these intellectual swamps and stagnant pools of peer groups.
https://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Novel-Israel-Leon-Uris/dp/0553258478
heh. Wikipedia like confusion with pro Israel stuff
Sadly.
Biggest reasons kids don’t read…
1) Their parents don’t read for enjoyment
2) They were never read to every day, and so their own imagination and narrators voice are non-existent.
3) Most kids are forced to learn to read visually before they are developmentally ready.
4) They did not learn to read phonetically.
5) They participate in award based reading programs (these are the worst because reading becomes a chore to get an award. Reading is its own reward).
Just read the horrendous word butchery on this site and you will see that the idea this is some sort of recent phenomenon will evaporate. It is rare to read any reply much beyond two sentences that doesn’t include multiple errors - not fat finger errors - but lack of a basic understanding of English usage.
That said, I'm on the edge of retirement, and yes, kids are definitely not reading as they were in the past. Parents aren't, especially newspapers, many of which are now on life-support. Technology shouldn't be a part of education until, maybe, the 4th or 5th grade. Kids don't need cellphones at school, or at all, and the use of them has greatly diminished the ability to form ideas, converse, and put them on paper across the board. My sons' school had one of those 'read to reward' programs. My eldest read a 300+ page book as a 5th grader and took the test. He didn't pass the test for the points because he couldn't remember the color of the 2nd protagonist's shirt, or some stupid detail like that. It killed reading for him, and he reads only rarely, and not for pleasure.
But yeah, as far as reading goes, unless the cleaning of house by Trump filters down into areas like this, we are sunk as a nation.
My 11 year old granddaughter reads books. One day when I was bringing her somewhere I got a flat tire. While I waited for someone to come change my tire she sat quietly in the back seat reading a book. She loves to read.
I’m 76 years old and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be. I have always loved getting involved in a good book but I have trouble reading them, so now I listen to them on audio. I can access most of them on my local librarys website and I belong to an audiobook website. I like especially listening to them at night with my earphones. So relaxing.
President “Not Sure” talked about this at the end of Idiocracy.
“Some teachers focus instead on selected passages — a concession to perceptions of shorter attention spans, pressure to prepare for standardized tests and a sense that short-form content will prepare students for the modern, digital world.“
It is not a digital world. It is a world which God created ruled by natural law.
You screw with that and it will come back to bite you
Teachers don’t have the authority only parents do. Parents give over their authority to idiots
A novel ba classic novel is an account of events which has a rhythm and a sequence of events necessary to the development of the mind
I work with kids who in their late twenties have the maturity of fifth graders. They’re educated and have college degrees and licensures and the possess no logic. They don’t know history, context, humor. They can’t think in advance nor analyze peoples’ behaviors and reactions. They cant follow direction. They have no family. They have fiancés. They’re idiots
They lack planning capability. They lack self awareness. They are not creative. They’re critical, defensive, self aggrandizing.
They read Harry Potter. Harry Potter is a comic book. It reads like a tv episode. The hero is a satanic spellbinder. There’s no character development. No resolution no proper rhythm. It’s stupidity and disturbing
Teachers want to cater to kids’ short attention span
How totally destructive
According to Kindle, I have read 125 of the 50 book goal I set in January. But then, I am only young in heart and spirit. It is funny. Growing up, I read too much and spent too little time building relationships with real people.
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