Reading vs. Technology
I have linked here an important article about the decline in the ability to read complex texts among entering college freshmen. It is one of the best diagnoses I have read of what I am seeing in my classroom every day. Read it especially if you have children in school or soon to be in school. It is by Prof. Mark Mauerlein at Emory University and is titled "Too dumb for Complex Texts?"
posted by GRap | 10:00 PM
3 Comments:
YES! Reading requires time and effort, but the result justifies the investment. Many students just go to Sparknotes (or some other substitute) and, in some cases, with the blessing of the teacher and the school skip merrily along to graduate having acquired little of the requisite skills necessary to succeed in college. "Tech" reading is like junk food for the brain. Kids load up on this garbage, leaving little appetite for real sustenance. Ironically, they starve because they are over-consuming.
Yeah, students seem increasingly proficient at absorbing large quantities of low-complexity information, to the detriment of their abilities to process more sophisticated ideas.
Said another way, the sheer volume of available media seems to encourage students to develop excellent skimming skills. Excellent analysis skills? Not so much.
"When faced with a U.S. Supreme Court decision, an epic poem, or an ethical treatise—works characterized by dense meanings, elaborate structure, sophisticated vocabulary, and subtle authorial intentions—college-ready students plod through them. Unready students falter."
Another important class of texts that the author fails to mention is scientific literature. The depths of analysis and vocabulary required to understand scientific literature are the main factors discouraging most students from ever attaining numeracy or scientific literacy.
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