Your Daily Portent of Doom and Gloom
From the anonymous tip line:
“I work in the NYC public schools as an English teacher and a friend of mine who is an editor told me about GalleyCat. Let me tell you about a problem that you probably have not addressed: kids and reading. I am on the front lines of this issue and I can tell you unless publishers and the like address reading, books will be [a] thing of the past in our lifetime.
“Most of the kids that go to school here do not want to read and their writing skills are horrible. They write like they text message. One problem is that they cannot visualize from the words, so a classic novel like The Tale of Two Cities is nothing more than a bore and a chore to them. We had to show them the movie, so that they would understand the story. The publishing biz is interested in selling books, but I can honestly say that there will not be any books to sell unless something is done to improve reading. In the near future books will be like Model T cars—something to look at in a museum—not something to buy and enjoy!”
A thought: Obviously “publishers and the like” have a vested interest in cultivating and maintaining a literate citizenry, as a reliable consumer base if nothing else, but ulimately the publishing industry can’t fix the problem described in this letter, nor should it be expected to, not on its own. Our anonymous letter writer is right—this isn’t an issue that has been discussed in depth on this blog, because the pedagogical reforms entailed in that discussion are beyond our scope. Publishers, booksellers, even librarians can only wield so much influence in this situation—and they should continue to wield every ounce of that influence—but if kids aren’t coming out of school with at least the ability to read prodigiously, if not the passion, then the system needs to be fixed.
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