When reading hurts

T H E O P I N I O N P A P E R glenn3@frontiernet.net
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
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Dis-education

Letter to the editor;

The most basic part of education is to learn to read. Reading is the key to a lifetime of self-education and enjoyment. What a shock it was, therefore, to hear that there exists a scientific method to teach school-children to dislike reading.

Aldus Huxley’s memorable book, Brave New World, depicts giving selected children electrical shocks when they touched beautiful, bright, illustrated books. The idea was to keep them from being attracted to books, getting educated on their own and therefore becoming unsatisfied with their assigned low-grade lot in life.

We can only speculate on what evil motives and/or stupidity might drive modern American school administrators to purchase “readers” deliberately designed to inflict emotional pain on children who read them.

Remember the “readers” of generations a-gone, with illustrated stories of pioneer families, victorious children, brave and assertive children, and young inventors?

The sad news I hear now is that these have been replaced to some degree by pitiful stories of losers, mocked and discouraged and forever failing in valueless endeavors. The stories are especially hard on children who make an individual effort on self-chosen projects.

The suspicion is that such emotional pain is inflicted deliberately on children who read this stuff so that they quit reading – except when forced to read by overwhelming authority. That is, they would not read for fun or information or inspiration.

Now, someone is going to respond that, why, um, these stories are furnished to prepare children for modern life. What? Prepare them for un-ending failure? How about a few shining examples to prepare them to detect problems, make corrections, push forward despite the obstacles, and succeed?

There are thousands of really good children’s books available. They can be borrowed for free from libraries or purchased outright. There is no reason to inflict emotional pain on children because of the choices of “educational” bureaucrats.

Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona