Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 364 posts

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#151

Post by amanaplanacanal »

RajT88 wrote: post #139
anon7000 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s odd, I read ravenously as a kid/teen, as did my siblings. You need to read what you enjoy, and for it to not be forced. (For example, summer reading at the library gave out prizes kids cared about for reading books.) Plus, we didn’t have access to much digital media like TV/video games (though it was the early 2010s) because my parents were strict, so books were a solid source of entertainment.

I too read ravenously as a kid. Strangely, in the 90's we were never assigned full books in English classes, just short stories or chapters.

I'm older than you (graduated high school in 1975). I read tons of sci-fi as a kid. I also don't remember reading any whole novels for English class. Maybe we did, but if so I have successfully blocked them out.

I have been amazed at the number of houses I've been in over the years which didn't appear to contain a single book.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#152

Post by bmitc »

barbazoo wrote: post #136
tyleo wrote: post #40

Comments here are very strange, “Reading books should go the way of cursive! Education is more like childcare anyways.” It’s bizarre stuff to say. What would you have the education system do? Put iPads in front of kids all day?

Let the market solve it. If the market requires educated adults the market will create that environment or something, answer is probably private schools. I assume they’d say something like that.

The market has never solved anything in ways that are beneifical for humanity. (Just commenting on the first part of your comment, given that your last sentence implies you're just saying what market evangelists would say.)

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#153

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

TitaRusell wrote: post #127
squigz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares? If people enjoy it, let them enjoy it. I've read a few YA novels as an adult that I enjoyed, even though I regularly read more complex stuff. Most people, for most of history, have only ever enjoyed what might be considered "low quality" entertainment - pulp fiction, shitty plays, etc. > real novel that isn't so bounded by tropes or genre limits. Interestingly, even discounting YA and other stuff like that…

Jane Austen was considered pulp. So was Charles Dickens. And Conan Doyle. Nobody considered those high literature back in the day!

That cherry picks the best of the best without comparing them with the other 99.9% of their contemporaries who were pulp authors. They and their literary output are forgotten for good reasons.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#154

Post by tayo42 »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #134
techblueberry wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious - do you think you’re an independent thinker? Do you think it’s a competitive advantage? What does thinking differently mean? It seems like a thing people say because it sounds good without really interrogating it. I objectively find myself to be an independent thinker, and I mostly find it distracting. I could be much more functional to society/work/relationships if I spent more time thinking about the k…

I think I'm an independent thinker. One symptom is that I repeatedly find myself observing that other people do things because they're copying other people. This is one symptom, but there's more. > Do you think it’s a competitive advantage > I could be much more functional to society/work/relationships > most successful people in society, are successful _because_ they have mainstream thought patterns Don't care, I'm…

So what is your independent thinking doing for you? Are you happier then most?

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#155

Post by amanaplanacanal »

stevewodil wrote: post #4

I don’t know if this matters much. When I was in school it was rare to actually read a book assignment anyways, and I’m sure with LLMs now it’s less. I’ve started to have a positive association with reading only in the last few years, I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives.

I don't understand this. If kids are reading for enjoyment already, is assigning a book in school going to kill their love of reading? Or are we taking about kids who never read until school forced them to?

From what I understand, if parents read to kids when they are little, they become readers who enjoy it.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#156

Post by dooglius »

opello wrote: post #81
bgbntty2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should've used "archaic" instead of "outdated". As in, "incomprehensible to someone speaking proper modern $language". Without a dictionary, a normal student couldn't understand what was being said in many sentences throughout the book. Some books actually had a dictionary in the end, but not for all the archaic words and phrases.

I was intrigued by the idea that it might be unreasonable for a book to include a glossary or dictionary to explain usages for made up or unfamiliar terms. I like that this list [1] exists because I was struggling to think of such a book. But then I thought about The Lord of the Rings, and it even includes an index of terms among its appendices, which is something I remember using to revisit parts of the story when I…

I think you are missing the broader point: why should one read things occurring in an alien context to begin with? It's not as if there is a dearth of more modern works. It seems like the main function of selecting older works is to make it artificially harder for students to read.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#157

Post by threethirtytwo »

anon7000 wrote: post #5
stevewodil wrote: post #4

I don’t know if this matters much. When I was in school it was rare to actually read a book assignment anyways, and I’m sure with LLMs now it’s less. I’ve started to have a positive association with reading only in the last few years, I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives.

It’s odd, I read ravenously as a kid/teen, as did my siblings. You need to read what you enjoy, and for it to not be forced. (For example, summer reading at the library gave out prizes kids cared about for reading books.) Plus, we didn’t have access to much digital media like TV/video games (though it was the early 2010s) because my parents were strict, so books were a solid source of entertainment.

It doesn’t happen anymore because of phones and the internet. Most people in the past read because they had nothing to do and they were willing to invest the time into a good book. You sacrifice a lot of energy in order to get enjoyment from a book.

Now with the internet there’s an unlimited stream of zero investment snippets of entertainment. People naturally dive into that because it’s more rational in the short term to do that.

Schools stopped reading but it’s as a result of the way students behave. The causal driver is student behavior.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#158

Post by impossiblefork »

delichon wrote: post #132
impossiblefork wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fanfic reading is not like novel reading in that you don't need to really understand new, unfamiliar characters though. Thus it can tend to become limiting; and I say this as someone who actually does enjoy fanfiction.

> Fanfic reading is not like novel reading in that you don't need to really understand new, unfamiliar characters though. So the Lord of the Rings series counts as one book? I'd believe diminishing returns, but not one and done. Also, I thought that Yudkowsky's HPMOR fanfic had more interesting ideas than the whole Rowling series, which I like a lot.

>Also, I thought that Yudkowsky's HPMOR fanfic had more interesting ideas than the whole Rowling series, which I like a lot.

Then you do not understand writing. If Yudkowski really had more interesting ideas, then he would have been able to do HPMOR as original fiction.

Rowling is actually really good, inventing very charming things, very fun sentences, and there's nothing even close in HPMOR (I have read it myself, and enjoyed it to some degree), but you really underestimate how good Rowling is.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#160

Post by threethirtytwo »

TitaRusell wrote: post #135
bgbntty2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think school ruined fiction books for me. I had to read long boring books about stories that didn't interest me, with useless sentences describing what the scene looked like or what someone had for dinner. Most of the stories and themes were outdated and didn't have enough context to make them understandable. Some books even used outdated words and phrases. Maybe if I wasn't forced to read a book in an outdated lan…

It is interesting how everyone parrots that art is important when the vast majority of the population will never actually engage with it. Opera? Ballet? Literature? Poetry? Classical music? Modern art? Do the numbers it seems most people can do without them and still be functional.

Avengers end game is also art. I engage with this type of art. I don’t consider opera the art of our modern culture. It is unfortunately a niche.
Post reply on HN