"The Reading Class."

[elfs]

The Chronicle of Higher Education says: You Can't Teach Students To Love Reading.:

In 2005, Wendy Griswold, Terry McDonnell, and Nathan Wright, sociologists from Northwestern University, published a paper concluding that while there was a period in which extraordinarily many Americans practiced long-form reading, whether they liked it or not, that period was indeed extraordinary and not sustainable in the long run. "We are now seeing such reading return to its former social base: a self-perpetuating minority that we shall call the reading class."

The argument here appears to be a handwringing one: that between 1945 and 2000, more Americans and Europeans read long-form novels and non-fiction than at any time in history because there was an explosion of publishing and because there was nothing else to do.

Oh, really? No television, no baseball games, no parks, no swimming pools, no theaters? I have my doubts.

Comments

Education assumed to be (re)defined to only include what costs much $ and rules out paid work?

[(Anonymous)]

In his article you link to, the author Alan Jacobs says, "When we say that education is a leisure activity, we simply mean that you can only pursue education if you are temporarily freed from the responsibility of providing yourself with food and shelter. Maybe this freedom comes from your parents; maybe it comes from loans that you're going to devote a good many years to repaying. But somebody is buying you time to read, think, and study. This is not just a legitimate but a vital point, one that every student really should remember. But it can only be misleading and frustrating--trust me, I've learned from experience--to call this leisure, because leisure for us has come to mean "what we do in our spare time simply because we want to." From this kind of leisurely encounter, education, however wonderful, must be distinguished."

What is education? Alan Jacobs seems either to have forgotten or never to have learned that a determined person can gain significant education without paying bloated tuition fees that were gained from parental funding or by taking out large student loans. People who wrest actual education outside a college or university, through some combination of reading, thinking, writing, doing, and/or observing? Jacobs acknowledges that these people existed in the 1800s, but he seems to believe that they obtain only something that isn't education. People who gain an officially designated actual education at the minority of educational institutions that are free or nearly free, such as Coopers Union? Jacobs doesn't seem to think about those either.

Why does higher education cost so much and too often prove to have so little inherent quality or inherent value? Because much of it has been replaced by a changeling and has redefined much of real education to be 'not education.'

[icebluenothing.livejournal.com]

While you might not be able to teach students to love reading, I sure as hell have seen a lot of teachers do a damn fine job of teaching students to hate reading.

[erisiansaint]

Sounds suspect to me. Growing up in the 80s, there was /always/ something to do: listen to music, watch tv, play with friends, ride bikes, go swimming, go to the playground, go to friend's houses.

But I love reading. Always have. It's not lack of anything else to do, it's that I love reading.

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

I would think that the post-WWII boom in long-form reading has at its root the paperback revolution.

It's probably just my cynicism...

[pakraticus.livejournal.com]

But I think that 2000 thoroughly destroyed the belief that literacy and hard work can get you further than illiteracy and the right family connections.