Outside was a world of adventure, but we wouldn't have known it had not mom shouted, "Go outside and play." When I was younger, mom rationed television time. If she was away from the living room, she'd feel the TV for warmth to see if my brother or I snuck a few extra shows.
By the time I was five, mom bought Let's Read, a reading program like Hooked on Phonics only without the hook. Every afternoon in the family room, my mother and I sat reading from that book, and I learned to read in six months. My first grade teacher had to create a special reading group for me and my buddy Ricky, whose mother was in cahoots with mine, because we were the only kids in the class who could actually read. The teacher wasn't prepared for that.
Today, most students aren't prepared for middle school or high school - or, worse yet, college. "More than 8 million U.S. students in grades 4-12 struggle to read, write, and comprehend adequately," writes Carol Guensburg for edutopioa. "Only three out of ten eighth graders read at or above grade level, according to the 2004 National Assessment of Educational Progress."
At a school I worked at a few years back, 70 percent of our high school students read at or below the fifth-grade level. In random surveys of my students, the average student read maybe one book per year, not counting the school texts, which many did not read either. Only a few expressed frustration at not being good readers. The rest simply acquiesced to their illiteracy.
Like Orwell describes in 1984, the great masses will be content in their illiteracy for they will be entertained. What Orwell imagined were machines that could produce trite pop songs and pulp-fiction novels that would satiate the masses. It did not matter what they watched or read, as long as they were still functionally illiterate.
Article comments
1 - Gina Weiss
A sad but well written commentary, Mark.
Yes, we were told to go out and play as well...Not being glued to the television put us eons ahead of our peers. On an inclement day, we opened a book. Books were all the rage in our home and we devoured them.
The same held true for my own child, who was reading whole newspapers and books on her own at the age of four. Also eons ahead of her counterparts, upon entering public education.
I agree, It's Time To Kill the Television!
2 - Mark Adams
I remember that my family took two newspapers throughout all my childhood. We subscribed to the local newspaper and a national one. Each morning, my brother and I would rise to read the funny pages, then the sports, and finally--and quite extensively--the national pages. Meanwhile, my buddies would wake up to watch an hour of television. I needn't say who knew more about what was going on in the world.
3 - sean
Hey,
I really enjoy your blog! Thanks for your honest heart and truthfulness, it is refreshing to hear someone be real. Its cool to read about real people who serve Jesus.
I am a musician, and I would be honored if you would check out my music. All music on my site is free for download. Anyway, don't want to be a pest, I just thought that I'd share.
Thanks,
-Sean
_____________________
www.SeanDietrich.com
"All my music is free."
4 - Nancy
IMO, the television & its various entertainment-oriented offspring are the worst things to ever happen to humanity, simply because they did - and do - reduce us to automatons sitting waiting to be fed the next piece of entertainment. They keep us ignorant, stupid, & dependent, on someone or something else to tell us what to think, how to react, and what to do. Our elected leaders love it: a quiescent population of sheeple conditioned to react solely to 15-second (or less) sound bites & accept uncritically any statement or propaganda they care to market to us. Even more criminal is that most TV/etc. programming is directly aimed & marketed at the young, who are least able to resist & use critical thinking to defend themselves. At the very least, TV advertising directed at children should be completely, utterly, without exception forbidden .