Students are found to be part of general slide away from reading
“. . . it’s bad business to let the killer get away with it. It’s bad all around . . .”– Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon
The Big Read is coming to the Wabash Valley this March. It’s a program that works and encourages everyone to read and discuss the same book. This year’s book is Dashiell Hammett’s classic hard-boiled detective novel, The Maltese Falcon. Let’s hope it’s not too late, because right now . . .
It’s almost as if we’re living in a cheap sci-fi horror movie.It’s not that tin can robots are clanking up Wabash Avenue. And we’re not being terrorized by pre-historic lizards or ravenous super crows looking for a meal after being starved out of their native land fill habitat by our recycling efforts. No World Wrestling Federation behemoths with tiny heads gliding about uttering the timeless command:
“Take me to your leader–Burke or Bennett will do.”
Nothing this unusual to report. Yet sunny skies on unusually warm late winter days carry a sense of dread and unease. As in all sinister horror movies, the marks of trouble are subtle, hiding in plain sight.
Much of the evidence of this lowering darkness comes from whispered rumors. A coffee shop in town drops subscriptions to several newspapers. Magazines and newspapers add “Short Take” type sections and more pictures and less print to their publications. Walks through a college campus revealing students staring blankly into their cell phone screens rather than into books. A report that the Cracker Barrel Syndicate is cornering the supply of audio books [sic] while buying up and scraping printing presses.
Meaningless, or (add scary music here) predictors of a creeping catastrophe?
As we read less and less literature, we labor under the impression that truth can only be found in numbers. But this may be due to Killer Smog from Outer Space deadening our critical sensibilities. But, OK, here are some shocking statistics of a stealth-type monster in our midst.
Over the past few decades fewer and fewer people are reading newspapers. In 1970, Billy the newspaper kid plunked a newspaper on or near your front porch about once every three days. Today Billy shows up less than once every five days and, lacking practice, he usually misses the porch. On purpose, or is he one of Them!?
In 2002, only half of the adults, aged 18 to 44, read at least one book as a leisure time activity over the 365 days in that year. (A full page a day!) And what exactly were the non-reading human beings doing every day of that year? Is the answer too frightening to contemplate?
“It’s all about the kids.” And the kids are more than ready to match and surpass their parents and grownup role models when it comes to not reading. More kids are reading less and understanding less of what they read. Is this an omen or are they from “The Omen”?
In 2004, 25%, one in four, high school seniors spent ZERO hours per week on leisure reading. Up from 20% in 1994. Americans between 15 and 24 do 7-10 minutes per day of volutary reading.
Are they zombies? Well, maybe. They’re like us. They watch TV for 2 to 2 1/2 hours a day. And 7th to 12th graders multi-task (meaning they can do two things poorly at the same time) like fiends. While reading, 11% watch TV, 3% play video games, 2% play computer games. This leaves them with plenty of time for drug therapy and counseling, the growth industries for teenagers with Attention Deficit Disorder.
In the heart of America’s heart, employers have started to notice something different about the latest batch of job seekers. 38% of these picky employer types find high school applicants “deficient.” Oh, they’re personable enough, confidently “casual” in dress and conversation, but they just can’t seem to fully comprehend the meanings of those strange symbols on paper pages.
Holding their aching heads and waving their fists at the public school system, business leaders handing out the pay checks report that one in five workers read at a lower skill level than that required by the job. Panic follows. More multiple choice tests are given. Fewer books are read and discussed. Writing becomes a lost skill limited to tattoo artists.
Not surprisingly, given their youthful years of non-reading or reading with TV remote in hand, our students in college and those with degrees in hand are found to be part of the general slide away from reading. Around 35% were found to be “proficient” readers in 2003 (down from 45% in 1992). “Proficient” in this case fits nicely with the rumors of grade inflation. One measure of a “proficient” reader is the ability to compare two newspaper editorials from two different points of view. Election coverage increasingly emphasizes the candidates haircuts, facial wrinkles and celebrity posse.
Does all this add up to the horror movie atmospherics mentioned at the outset? Life goes on in our “happy-busy” non-reading, deficient reading, low skill level reading, and meager proficient level reading America.
We may not yet be the Pod People of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” writhing shells of humanity, but the blank looks on the faces of the iPod people seen every day on the streets can give you the chills.
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All statistics in this column are from the NEA publication, “To Read or Not to Read.”
[Published in Terre Haute Tribune Star, March 2, 2008 -- Go Here]
