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Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

nytimes.com

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

#221

Post by UncleMeat »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #125
idle_zealot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives The problem is that if you don't force them, they never actually become literate enough to discover that reading is fun later in life.

The kids don't hate classroom reading because of the reading; they hate it because of the associated curriculum. “Why were the curtains blue?” is a skill wasted on children. I only gained an appreciation for such meta-reading during a weeks-long TV Tropes bender during a spat of unemployment after getting fired from my first big-boy job.

The blue curtains has become an almost deranged meme at this point, completely disconnected from either curricula or evaluation. Students are not asked why singular descriptive details are chosen as such.

Being able to perform critical analysis of text is an essential skill today. It might be more essential now than any other moment in history. Understanding how narrative writing uses symbols translates cleanly into understanding how political messaging or any persuasive writing uses symbols.

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

#222

Post by sureglymop »

haizhung wrote: post #150

Im seeing the same in Germany. Here’s an incomplete list of all books that I read as mandatory high school assignments, which I can recall from memory . * Die Vorstadtkrokodile * Faust I * Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum * Antigone * Die Verwandlung * Bahnwärter Thiel * Der Sandmann * Die Räuber * Hamlet * Der Besuch der alten Dame * Im Westen nichts Neues * Unterm Rad * Woyzeck Im probably missing 5 books or s…

I graduated high school less than a decade ago and I had to read about 90% of those books. And those are just the German ones, there were at least half as many English and French ones too. I have younger cousins who are in the school system now and I am fairly certain that it is still the same. Actually I think it is probably mandated by the curriculum.

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

#223

Post by rawgabbit »

saltcured wrote: post #220
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…

As a native US English speaker, I enjoyed Shakespeare and even when we read Beowulf and some Chaucer in mildly transcribed and annotated Middle English. More than any history lesson, it developed in me a feeling for how, in spite of lots of technological and other societal change, the basic human condition is the same. I imagine it would be interesting to read early texts in other proto languages too. Sadly, I'm not…

I graduated from public school a long time ago. I hated Shakespeare. The phrasing and Englishness of it was a complete turn off. And I read a lot. I believe I read almost a fourth of the books in my little public library in my rural town in Texas. As far as writing, I admire the writing in the King James Bible more than Shakespeare although I am Catholic. I would say most of the books I read were crap and written poorly.

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

#224

Post by physicsguy »

I’m in my 30s but the UK English reading choices weren’t very inspiring when I studied and you could pass the exams without ever reading full texts so of course that’s what schools encouraged.

I remember doing sections of Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth but we never did the whole thing. We did read Of Mice and Men and An Inspector Calls but that was it for books/plays. Poetry we had a book called Anthology where we had to read and re-read many poems for analysis.

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

#225

Post by rawgabbit »

physicsguy wrote: post #224

I’m in my 30s but the UK English reading choices weren’t very inspiring when I studied and you could pass the exams without ever reading full texts so of course that’s what schools encouraged. I remember doing sections of Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth but we never did the whole thing. We did read Of Mice and Men and An Inspector Calls but that was it for books/plays. Poetry we had a book called Anthology where we had…

You should be thankful. I had to read the whole canon of Shakespeare and hated it. I learned about the great vowel shift and more about English trivia than I cared to know.

https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/literature/l...

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

#226

Post by Aerroon »

dybber wrote: post #211
Aerroon wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing happened to me. Required reading in school killed my interest in reading. When I graduated I was very happy that I wouldn't have to read books ever again. It took me about 5 years or so until anime and manga got me to try another fiction book. That eventually led to reading more books. But when school was done I really did think that I wasn't going to touch a (fiction) book again. --- It makes me wonde…

In our local highschool (near Copenhagen, Denmark) they have scheduled reading time for all pupils while in school - weekly as part of their normal schoolday. That is, instead of normal class everyone needs to bring a book of their own choosing and read in it. No phones allowed during this time, so they can either read or stare out the window. The local library helps them find books of their own interest. The idea is…

Ironically this wouldn't work for me because I do almost all of my reading on my phone these days. It has become the main use of my phone at this point.

It is a good idea though, as long as they can find things they want to read. I've been sucked into the "bleeding edge" of reading (web novels), so it can be a bit more challenging to find things I really want to read. They are still out there though. Eg The Martian and Project Hail Mary (the former actually started as a web novel) .

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

#227

Post by techblueberry »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #209
techblueberry wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think independent thought and deep thought are correlated or uncorrelated? When you say most people copy their perspectives do you think that’s bad? A lot of the thinkers I’ve been interested in lately seem to deeply embed their thoughts in a tradition, so I’ve been thinking that in order to have better thinking I should copy more. > why do you care so much about me? Sad question, but what is life but a series…

> Yes yes, I started this as a bit of a gotcha, I have a bias against people who proclaim to be independent thinkers, and decry others as sheep (“copiers”), but I would love to be wrong! Yes, I got this sense. I'm not what you're looking for.

> I'm not what you're looking for.

I very much doubt that, alas, good day to you sir.

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

#228

Post by ku-man »

theultdev wrote: post #196
apparent wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in a rural Red State, a place you'd expect less reading I would not assume this, given that the states with the highest literacy rates are mostly rural and at least half red (NH, MN, ND, VT, SD, NE).

Break that down further and you'll see it's blue cities in those red states that have the highest illiteracy rates. Same with crime. Kind of goes hand in hand. Education in blue cities needs to be fixed.

[dead]

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

#229

Post by qball »

smelendez wrote: post #163
idontwantthis wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Clark County high schools in NV, they do not read a single whole book in English classes even in honors.

Is it an aversion to assigning homework? I remember teachers assigning “read chapters 4-6 by Thursday” and then giving a quiz to make sure people read and remembered the details.

No, it's an aversion to having (and enforcing) basic standards.

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

#230

Post by serf »

eudamoniac wrote: post #174
smelendez wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it an aversion to assigning homework? I remember teachers assigning “read chapters 4-6 by Thursday” and then giving a quiz to make sure people read and remembered the details.

It's an aversion to giving bad grades to the inevitable bulk of students who just won't read it.

something still changed; i've been in classes where the bulk of the students got bad grades and that never stopped the instructor from handing them out.

if we use grades as a yardstick for elementary progress and efficacy then you'd think it would be a bigger deal if a single cog in the system decided to systematically add inaccuracy to the measure simply because a failing student irks them.

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