|
Aleathia Drehmer: The other day I was contemplating the reason why so many people in the general population do not read books anymore. I began to wonder if it had to do with poverty or other social conditions that seem to be deteriorating in this country today. I did a bit of research and found that in 1993 they (the all mighty "they") did a study about the literacy rate in this country. The numbers are staggering. There were 90 million citizens that held jobs below the poverty level due to lack of education. Many of this lot of people do not have a vocabulary beyond the 4th grade, are so functionally illiterate that they cannot hold a job (and live off government funded programs that comes out of our taxes), and many of these people will never read another book after leaving school. A follow-up study was done in 2006 and it was found to have little to no statistical changes in the 13 years showing that 46% of the 51% maximum adult population read so poorly they cannot even obtain employment.
The Cuban literacy rate is only 1% lower than the literacy rate in the United States.
So, my question for all of you is "What do you think it will take to regain literacy in this country? What kind of message as writers do we have to try and put out there that will jump start the younger generations of this country into enjoying reading again?"
Mathias Nelson: I see the youth today as a bunch of fools, with the exception of a few. I think they're getting worse. You see them everywhere, looking stupid, doing stupid shit. There is a lack of empathy in the youth so great that soon they are going to revert back to the nature of animals and just stop caring at all about anything besides themselves, if they haven't already.
Of course they don't want to read with the 1,000 channels on television and the Xbox 360 and what not. They're too busy shooting people in virtual reality and it's getting more and more realistic, or else they are watching their favorite mobster or porn channel on television, masturbating and dreaming of selling keys of coke for a living.
Now is the age when the small press with some of its "outlaw" ways needs to be allowed to rise up and grow. They don't want to read the boring shit that's out in the mainstream (with the exception of a few good books that they most likely won't find because they won't look). All those porn channels, I mean, come on now. All those people to kill in Grand Theft Auto (I agree with them here).
I think the school should assign them to read books like Dan Fante's "Spitting Off Tall Buildings," a book about a bi-sexual alcoholic who struggles by going from small job to small job, they would find that entertaining and at the same time they'd see the struggle, or T.C. Boyle's "Drop City" with an intelligent view of a drug riddled community. At least they'd be reading about certain "bad" things instead of sitting in front of a television watching a show with terrible dialogue and actors acting out the "bad" things.
You have to appeal to them in a strong way. Grab their attention. Then maybe when they're older and want to read more laid back things about sophisticated adults like themselves they'll delve more into the "good" books and learn the other point of view.
Otherwise...hmmm...I think we should beat them. I see lots of teenagers now days that look like they need a good beating. Make their cheeks swell with empathy, eh?
Yarrrr.
Kathy Polenberg: This is an interesting question. It's a material question not just for it's content, but for it's being posed. It is established fact since I was a kid that newspapers for ex. have always written to a fifth grade vocabulary reader.
With no disrespect intended: We, as writers, can stop dicking around on the computer, role-playing a marketable 2D image, practicing virtual & literal exclusion and discrimination, pretending we are under siege and baring the weight of the world, pretending noble motives while watching the counters tally.
We can physically participate in our communities among 3D young people.
We can stop acting surprised and appalled and demoralized about statistics and yet recording and comparing numbers, and assigning meaning to variations- from our own sites,
and then going all existential in response to how many hits/submissions/guests our blog/site/mag is getting even as we stratagize how to capture more market,
and fucking go masterbate already and move on! Note the key word here is MOVE!
Aleathia Drehmer: Kathy I understand what you are saying and in the past I have participated in the community helping inner city kids with reading. My daughter is getting ready to go to school and I have big plans on helping to do tutoring, not in her class, but in the school in general. I give no hope in the "no children left behind" theory because the schools all depend on funding and funding comes from how many students pass through. A friend of mine who teaches freshmen college english told me a few weeks ago that she gets high school graduates that don't even know punctuation other than a period. How does that happen that a person can graduate from high school and not know basic grammar?
As for watching hits and tally count, I think that has less to do with how many readers one has but how POPULAR it makes one feel.
Kathy Polenberg: Of course by "we" I mean myself, adults in general, and educated adults specifically. And also by participation I mean interacting in any capacity - not only specifically for the purpose of literacy. I have some faith that curiosity about the larger world causes literacy as a side effect of interest (interest by adults in childrens worlview and the childs interest being aroused and responded to with respect.)
I feel the irony is that we (editorial we) are lamenting the decline in literacy via the very "machine" which has furthered it among the younger generation.
I also feel that this counter-cultural "movement" is fairly stationary, anchored and not moving much beyond the threshold of the modem.
J. Ryberg: I'm a part owner of a used bookstore in KC (the one that gained international fame/infamy two months ago for burning books as an act of protest). A fair amount of young people shop at our store but I know a lot more of them are not reading. I'm also a part owner of a small publishing house and have a few books of my own, so I know what it's like to try to push new "product." Forgive me for calling it that. I also tour around the country several times a year doing reads at universities and highschools (and even the odd correctional facility) and I always walk away with the feeling that at least some young people still care; having usually sold a few of my books, engaged the students in serious conversations about authors and writing, partied with them later, etc. I don't doubt that part of what engages some of these kids is my relative youth (I'm 35 going on mean old man), my quasi-beat/Bukowski swagger, the fact that I travel a lot and tell drinking stories, own a record store (another one of my failing ventures) and have several books published. They're usually impressed to meet someone who's doing something "out there" even after I tell them that I'm always broke (any profit I make usually goes back into the publishing house or allows me to travel). I do my best to drive home to them that none of that shit really means anything and has nothing to do with literature or the act of writing itself (which is where the "shit" really lies). But there is probably something about having someone closer to their age wearing a Motorhead shirt standing at the front of the class that makes some of them snap to a reconsider some of their views about reading and writing. I've been doing this stuff for a while and I've logged a lot of time behind the counter at our store. Sometimes I think I can get a "read" on things but other times I'm not sure. Maybe I'm full of crap. Probably. Sorry for the rant. What the world of literature probably really needs is a J.K. Rowling every couple of years. You'd think, statistically, some of those kids will grow into readers.
David Blaine: I think if we want to get a younger generation to read, we need to work towards adult literacy. We know a large percentage of the adult population can't read beyond an elementry school level. It's a case of "Monkey see, Monkey do." Kids whose parents read to them will become readers. It's already a part of them before they ever reach school. When was the last time you saw a scene in a movie or a television program where the children begged for a parent to read them a bed time story?
As for adults and what might be wrong with our society? I've got ideas, theories. Why do you read? Why do you write? Why the hell are you on the internet? To share ideas? To learn? Sure. But we have Madison Avenue and Wall Street telling people that all they need to "be all they can be" is the right brand of shirt, bluejeans, the right jewelry and cologne. Drive the correct vehicle, vacation in the right locale. You'll be just like Mike. That's what people want. Instant validation. No wonder self esteem is in the crapper and people canibalize their neighbors for sport. Who seeks knowledge and wisdom so that they might be able to feel good about the inside of themselves instead of the outside? Few people under retirement age, it seems.
Someone said that television wasn't doing enough to teach kids, but I contend that television was never meant to educate. Television is the corporate world's marketing tool. The two smartest kids I knew in school, different families, neither one was allowed to watch television on a school night. Did they read? Yeah, and the one painted, drew, played the drums and guitar. The other one's a teacher.
Remember that line from Shakespeare, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the Lawyers?" Maybe we should shoot all the televisions!
Old people always want younger people to read. One of the reasons is that old people, if younger people are around, don't want to hear their voices and especially hear those voices talking about what the "serious" older person considers meaningless. (Of course it's not, but what do old people know?  )
My father in particular pointed me towards reading, I think for nobler reasons than just to shut me up. But by then, it was too late: I was 15 and starting to go out on dates and once I got caught up in the HS social life, rock band practice, gigs, more dates, on the phone with girlfriends, etc., my reading life was doomed for a long time. Reading is a hard sell at that point because you're at the age where you want to "do", not read about an elf, knight, salesman or whatever "doing".
My parents dropped the ball in not reading to me as a kid and if it hadn't had been for a couple of key teachers making it exciting I may have never gotten the habit. Back then, academic reading could be quite a limited proposition though, with nothing but the works of dead white guys -- there was little diversity, nothing contemporary (the most modern were Steinbeck and Hemingway...maybe some Updike, but no Mailer or any New Journalists) and it wasn't until college that women's and ethnic lit were even offered to us.
For the majority of Gen Y -- if you define that as what, 15-23 or so? -- getting them to read right now is a lost cause. There are too many other attractions in their lives and reading is pretty low on the list. The best you can do is at least educate them to take a more active role in their coming children's reading lives. As Gen Y marries and settles down, they will have more time and come to reading naturally. And at the same time their children will be in need of exposure to lit, setting up a potential win-win situation.
David Blaine: JD, I'll take that bait as I'm over fifty and consider myself old chronologically. I love to listen to younger voices. And I do, especially when they say something. And if I don't agree, or understand, I ask for explanations. Because I'd like to know how and why, not just what, other people think. Of course, you can always get someone in a generation older or younger to tune out by using slang and jargon that's not familiar to them. Bet you never heard anyone say "beat me daddy, eight to the bar."
So maybe some older people want kids to read so they can shut them up. But not all. Probably not even most.
JD Finch: Well David, as I was using hyperbole and even put a little funny emoticon up there, I didn't think I was creating "bait" as you call it, but as you were cruising by I can understand your hunger and the desire to take a bite out of me. I have been described as tasty. In fact, parts of me are excellent. 
But the point of my post was that reading and reading the right stuff is not a sense one is born with and it's necessary that a bit of guidance -- and not just from teachers -- is given, especially in the early to mid teens when more serious work is picked up. No adult in high school told me to read the Beats, Bukowski, etc., but I knew/hung out with people who made me aware of them and saved me -- in later years -- from the horror that is the "bestseller list". Sure, I enjoyed the classics, including Dickens, et al, but I knew there was something more that related directly to my existence and the person I was becoming and the likes of Edith Wharton wasn't going to show me who that was. 
And I think the only person I ever heard say "beat me daddy, eight to the bar" was Hoagy Carmichael. But I tuned him out pretty quickly. 
Miles J. Bell: David is right. Read to your kids. Every night.
Make schools accountable for poor teaching performance. Allow greater freedom of choice in what school your kids can go to. Maybe vouchers for kids books for those that can't afford books, or don't see it as a neccessary expense.
But the internet wrecking literacy? I don't buy that. It's a tool, and parents can use it as such. Like tv. I watched (and still watch) tv, play computer games, and did as a kid, but I read too, as I was encouraged to do so. Any kid of mine will be able to read pretty well, pretty early.
But that's where my involvement ends, I think, if I'm an Outsider Writer. People who CAN read don't read my stuff, never mind those who can't so well. If I wanted to make a difference I'd write kids books and get a petition up to demand the changes I mentioned.
In the end, it has to start at home. It's all I, personally, can do.
Aleathia Drehmer: Miles, I agree that the largest part of the job starts at home. My parents are not very educated (my father didn't graduate high school and my mom had some community college) but I remember my mom reading to me most nights, or at least making books highly available to me even when we had nothing. Stories were the best way to escape poverty and aloneness, at least they always have been for me. We read to our daughter every night and she has bookshelves overflowing with choices, but I know that is not the case for the majority.
I love your idea of book vouchers for kids that can't afford to buy them. I will have to check into my local area to see if such a program exists or maybe talk with the school district about starting a program that is based on volunteers. That sounds like something I could get behind.
This topic isn't as sensational as others we have done, but I think it really is something that needs looking at. I feel bad for the multitudes of children and adults that cannot read, that do not have the desire to do it. I feel angry at the hordes of people that will be unable to obtain jobs because they do not have basic skills of reading and writing, and how much weight that puts on the system to take care of them. I really feel that it is the over extension of welfare programs in some cases that take away from enrichment programs at least in New York State.
Anyway, I would like to thank those of you who shared your opinions about this subject. Keep making noise and using your voices. Change can happen.
Aleathia
 Add as favourites (15) |  Quote this article on your site | Views: 302 | E-mail
Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.4
|
