7/30/2019 Reading, Writing, And Education in the 21st Century

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READIN G, WRITIN G, AND

EDUCATION IN THE 21ST

CENTURY

Joe Kalicki

One of the prescient issues Inoticed from the time I was a child inelementary school was the declininginterest in reading amongst myclassmates. With the ever increasingavailability of other forms ofentertainment (and specifically withthe internet becoming something thatanyone could access and use to full

potential) I observed more and morekids opting to play their Nintendo 64or Playstation instead of going outsideor delving into a book. My schoolroutinely assigned summer reading(we would choose from a list of 40-50novels deemed appropriate) andvarious novels to read during theschool year that accompanied our

regular English class, but these bookswere viewed as a laborious slag ratherthan a medium that could genuinely beentertaining. This isnt to say that Inever shared this opinion. I can recall

b lowing t h rough books , on l yattempting to garner the most basicunderstanding of the plot so that Icould go read something that Iactually was interested in.

As I progressed through middleschool, I noticed my classmates andmyself developing abilities to furthertreat our assigned books almost like a

history text---skim, condense, whatwas the point, move on. If The Old

Man and the Sea and Tom Sawyerwould have had bold terms, we wouldhave been grateful. As the books grewlonger and more complex as wemoved into high school my grade splitinto a few disparate categories---thosewho were in advanced classes wouldread difficult, Victorian literature (byassignment, mind you, not by choice)and those who were in the lower levelclasses would usually read poems orabridged excerpts of novels. Being thedisengaged autodidact I had developed

into in high school, I was usually inthe lower of the two options. Ourfreshman year we worked our waythrough Oedipus Rex and Much Ado

About Nothing, but after that it wasmostly the snippets that we would bereading, rarely trying work novelreading into the mix as we shiftedfocus to research papers.

We were often so swamped withreading that the concept of a studentchoosing to read outside of classwould mean diverting our preciousfree time into an activity most peoplefound boring. Once we had workedthrough all that was assigned for class,kids would much prefer to go onlineand spin their wheels doing absolutelynothing, play video games, spend timewith friends, etc. If people werereading, it wasnt much beyond themost entry level of pop culture

phenomenons (Harry Potter, Twilight,etc.). I was happy people were readingat all, but I dont think these novels(often defended as reading for fun)

provide any worldview expansion orintroduction to complex vocabularythat a diverse slew of books can

provide. The assumption that morechallenging novels couldnt be funwas a disappointing stance many

people chose to take. I feel like asolution isnt far out of reach, and can

be achieved using the very technologywhich is likely distracting the studentsof 2012.

Apples iPad, the Barnes and NobleNook, and Amazons Kindle aresupreme l y popul a r and ve ryreasonably priced items that providethe best option for reading in the 21stcentury beyond the archaic bookwhich many students look on withdisdain as it is the homework giver,the damned bound beast that they had

to read 30 pages in every night. Weshould be giving kids time during theirschool-day to read whatever theywant, as long as theyre reading. Yes,schools are going through budgetaryissues and schooldays are getting cutshorter and shorter, but encouragingyoung adults and children to explorenew topics could be a potential fix tothe slow death of interest in the STEMfields. If we view education as thisrote knowledge seeking behemoth, ourschools end up looking like anindoctrination factory as opposed to a

place where people can learn critical

reasoning skills and how to form theirown opinions. We must move awayfrom standardi zed testing andapproach the classroom in a mannerthat can adapt to the kids, not forcethem to do things that children andyoung adults inherently wont want todo.

Its worth noting that the introductionof concepts like reading for fun dooften have to start at home, and

parents must be aware enough toprovide their kids with readingmaterial at a young age. If it doesntget introduced until they are shippedoff to school, then it will certainlynever be viewed as something beyondan assignment. I recall going to checkout a book in my schools library in9th grade, Albert Camus TheStranger. After checking it out, Iflipped to the check out information inthe back out of curiosity, only to seethat it hadnt been checked out in 23years. 23.Years. Several thousand kidshad progressed through my K-12school in this timespan and not oncehad the book been checked out. Thiswas routine among many other classicnovels and nonfiction books. Iwouldnt want to come across as

elitist, claiming that one cant besuccessful in life with having readsome made up stories.

That being said, it certainly doesnthurt to have been exposed to differentschools of thought, cultures, oranything that shakes up the status quoand instills the idea that the world is

bigger than the town we grow up in. Itcertainly helps develop empathy whenyou can read Frederick DouglassMy

Bo nd ag e an d My Freedo m an dunderstand a first person perspectiveof slavery. Obviously, other iconic

books like The Diary of Anne Frankorany other precious encapsulation ofhistory provides us modern people avisual gateway into situations that arevery different from our own time andgive us greater perspective on humanstruggle and the human condition. Weneed creativity and imagination tore tu rn to the c lassro om andencouraging consumption of a varietyof media is the best way to meet thatgoal.