I just finished reading Feed by M.T. Anderson for class, and I found the picture that Rogers painted in his article of a headline in 2025, strikingly similar to the horror that Anderson describes. Rogers quotes an article from today's Washington post,
“’It's appalling -- it's really astounding,’ said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and a librarian at California State University at Fresno. ‘Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. That's not saying much for the remainder.’”
Rogers used today's article as a prompt for a futuristic article set in 2025 wherein only 5 percent of college graduates could perform the same measure. The futuristic article claims that these "Educational doomsayers" are claiming that education is on the decline based on a measurement that is somewhat ancient- the ability to read "long-form literacy." Rogers' fictional article explains that, "today’s young people are not able to read and understand long stretches of text simply because in most cases they won’t ever need to do so."
The rest is not necessarily an argument against literacy all together, as Rogers gives feigned condolence to the aprehensive reader by explaining that,
"young people today ... have plenty of literacy for everyday activities such as reading signs and package labels, and writing brief e-mails and text messages that don’t require accurate spelling or grammar."
The fictional artical goes on to explain how most media is so advanced, that one does not need to read since most things are communicated in pictures and audio. It then talks about the old days when technology was still under privaledged and everyone needed to be able to read articles and long books in order to get by in their personal and professional lives. The article established reading as liesurly, but unnecessary, and often times undesireable.
The predictive article sets up two forms of offence in my mind. The first is to education, the second to society as a whole. While the fictional article explains that many people still enjoy reading, it sets a lowered expectation of the next generation of students and educators explaining that,
"just as every citizen is not forcibly trained to enjoy classical music, neither should they be coerced into believing that reading is necessarily pleasurable. For the majority of students, reading and writing are difficult enterprises with limited payoffs in the modern world." "We have made at least two generations of American children miserable trying to teach them a skill that only a small percentage of them really need. And we have wasted billions of dollars that might well have gone for more practical education and training."
In this way, students become victims of literature and teachers become vocational instructers. Is this really what schools will turn to in 2025? Of course it's an exageration, or is it? Perhaps this demonstrates more than ever that technology is a tool for teachers as much as students to try to bridge the communication and cultural barrier between the generations, just as teaching YA lit may help to bridge the gap between a child's love to read and a college student's ability to "extrapolate from complex texts."
So who cares if people no longer read in the future? Shouldn't we just accept it as a new cultural norm if people no longer need to read because of technological advances? Could it be true that, "reading is an artificial construct that is of high value for a very limited set human activities — but by no means all activities"? Of course not! But what are the consequences of a generation who may grow to think so?
"Some positions in society do require significant literacy skills: senior managers, screenwriters, scientists and others need a highly efficient way to absorb and communicate abstract thought. A broad written vocabulary and strong compositional skills are also powerful ways to organize and plan large enterprises, whether that means launching a new product, making a movie or creating legislation. But for the vast number of the workers who actually carry out those plans, the same skills are far less crucial. The nation’s leaders must be able to read; for those who follow, the ability should be strictly optional."
Almost unimaginable, a society wherein reading is "strictly optional" would merely promote the dicotomy already existing between the haves and the have-nots. Illiteracy or the abcense of an ablility to think abstract thoughts would serve quite nicely to ensure that the working class could never rise to the success of the "nation's leaders." Truely this is the purpose of education: to empower youth to think abstractly and to cling to literacy as a means of freedom and power. Teaching all ninth graders how to use the screw gun that will carry out the plans of the literate will by no means serve to empower the way that teaching an awe for reading can.
So What are We Going to Do about This?September 23, 2006 at 6:31 am
by David Warlick
Complete Article
What is the worth of words?
Will it matter if people can’t read in the future?
by Michael Rogers
Columnist Special to MSNBC
Updated: 9:52 p.m. ET Sept 21, 2006
Complete Article
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