Are we as a society getting dumber? If not, why are so many of our books written as if we are?
We have a seventh grade Canadian history textbook at home from maybe about 15 years ago. It's written at a level that you would expect 12-year-olds to understand, is interesting, and has graphics and pictures but is not too heavy on the flash. Recently my wife saw a second edition of the same textbook in the library. Same title, same grade level – totally different book. It was about 30 percent thinner, with a lot less writing and a whole lot more pictures, many of a cartoonish nature.
Why? Are 12-year-olds losing their ability to concentrate on text? If that's the case, are we doing them any favors by steadily asking them to do less and less?
Will we start making football fields shorter next, or eliminating sharps and flats from music? No doubt that would have made music easier for me as a kid, but would it help promising musicians to reach their potential? What would the orchestras of the future sound like? And how would they play all the great music of the past – or the present, for that matter?
Obviously, we're not going to do these things – our society is hard-wired not to coddle athletes (at least when they're on the field), and the music industry will always have high expectations for those who seek to join its ranks.
So why don't we have the same attitude when it comes to reading?
Even many adults now are reading graphic novels. I don't get it, frankly. Not everybody loves reading, but when I was younger everybody knew how – even the guy I met on a school ski trip who proudly proclaimed he had never read a book that wasn't assigned to him knew HOW to read.
I don't understand why a reader needs to have page after page of what, to me, is essentially very grown-up cartoons in order to follow a story.
A hundred years ago, eight-year-olds were reading books that are now considered too challenging for 12- and 13-year-olds. They were reading the unabridged, unexpurgated stories of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. They were reading Dickens. In fact, when Dickens was writing, an important segment of his audience was people who had enough education to read but not much more. Now people don't read Dickens until university, if at all.
Personally, I don't think great writers like Dickens, Twain and Shakespeare are beyond the understanding of any teen who doesn't have a specific developmental delay. Shakespeare might require a little hand-holding due to the archaic language, but not a ton.
What they do, perhaps, require is the ability to concentrate. And maybe this is where we're failing our kids and ourselves. When I was growing up, TV commercials were 30 or 60 seconds. They were sometimes mini-dramas in their own right. Now they're often just 10 or 15 seconds and they hit you over the head with their message. Not that I'm advocating more or longer commercials, but something has definitely changed in our brains whereby many of us don't seem willing or able to concentrate on anything requiring a time or mental commitment.
When this happens, those who do have the ability to focus on a task for longer periods will have a definite edge in the workforce. Will you be one of them?
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Great article Gerry. I too have noticed the "dumbing down" of text books especially when it comes to reading. The attention span of most people today is no where near what it was even 20 years ago.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, I remember not even being introduced to algebra until 9th grade. My youngest child is in 7th and is already in her second year of doing algebraic problems. Is it me or are students doing more advanced mathematics at an earlier age? Maybe I just went to a school that was slower than most ;)
Thanks Allen,
ReplyDeleteI started algebra in eighth grade in my school, so it might be matter of jurisdiction. Don't get me started on the teaching of math, though.
I think it begins with the "moving along" to new subject matter before the old stuff is mastered. Eventually the concepts become so complex that only students who are naturally good at math are able to keep up. Those of us who kept passing with Cs and Ds suddenly find ourselves totally out of our league.
After all, if you pass with 60%, it means you don't understand 40% of the subject matter.
You can't blame the teachers; they have 30-35 kids in the room, many of whom have behavior and other problems. These days they have to be a cop, social worker and surrogate parent on top of actually teaching our kids.
For about the last 100 years there has been an ogranized plan to dumb down through the schools. It is a power and control play. the less people can Read, 'Rite and do "Rithmatic - the less independant they become. Indendance = Liberty.
ReplyDeleteWhat does that mean?
We start creating little robots who cannot make change at the Gorcery without reading what the register says.
We start creating people who cannot logically think through problems and find solutions for themselves.
We start finding less liberty because these people need someone "Smarter" than they are to take care of them.
When I went to college - you had to pass tests in writing and math just to get in. if you did not pass, you could not enter until you completed remedials. Now colleges just offer even more lower classes and students graduate with a Ba or BS in 6 years instead of 4 ($$ for the colleges).
The results are sad. A majority of these graduates still cannot Read, 'Rite, or do 'Rithmatic.
When my family came to America in 1632 - all the kids could not only comeplete those three things, they could read the New Testiment in Greek.
In college when I was younger it was all about Cliff Notes.
now, if you cannot get the message through in the 10-minute YouTube - well, no one will care or bother.
Sad... truely sad.
Thanks for your comment Wayne,
ReplyDeleteI recall tutoring two promising fellow students in English when I was studying broadcasting. One was a technical whiz and the other a gifted leader who now runs an award-winning sound studio.
Both would have dropped out in their first year of post-secondary - not because they couldn't learn to write, but because no one had ever taught them how.
They are both exceptional professionals and brilliant in their fields, but somewhere along the way our education system let them down. How many smart and talented people don't get the help they need and end up working in dead-end jobs that are far beneath their capabilities?