Eeesh

This article's from Britain, but that makes it no less depressing or distressing. If things are that bad there, where they've had a fairly long tradition of turning out quality literature, think what the statistics must show for here... /:-/

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Reading is a closed book to today's children
By Chris Hastings and Julie Henry
(Filed: 23/07/2006)

Children spend less than an hour a day reading at school and many do not pick up a book at all during lessons, a study of reading habits has found.

The research also revealed a widespread ignorance of key works of literature. A third of secondary school pupils were unable to name the author of Oliver Twist. Others thought Wuthering Heights was just a pop song. And there was a very strong showing for Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, named in a survey by The Sunday Telegraph as the fourth favourite book.

The survey, of 1,200 schoolchildren, raises questions about the effectiveness of Government attempts to improve reading skills. More than half of those in the survey (56 per cent) spent less than an hour a day reading in the classroom, and almost one in eight (13 per cent) said they did not read at all as part of their studies.

Despite the introduction of the Government's flagship literacy strategy in 1998, which requires primary schools to devote an hour a day to reading and writing, more than three quarters (78 per cent) of the youngest children in the sample said they had little opportunity to read.

The lack of time devoted to books at school, and the sorry state of many school libraries as revealed in a damning Ofsted report, in March may be among the reasons why many children have so little regard for reading.

Many of the pupils surveyed were bemused by the question "Is reading your favourite activity?" Eighty-five per cent responded in the negative and cited watching television, playing computer games and socialising with friends as their main priorities. A significant number expanded on their answer with phrases such as "You must be joking". By contrast, 79 per cent of children spent more than an hour a day in front of the television set, and more than a third (39 per cent) watched for three or more hours a day, often late at night, without the knowledge of their parents.

While just under two thirds of the sample (66 per cent) were encouraged by parents to pick up a book at home, a significant number (32 per cent) said they were not. Some said they were actively discouraged from reading "too much" and others that their family "didn't care".

Many of the 825 secondary schoolchildren knew next to nothing about classics which are on school reading lists. The survey asked them to identify the authors of 10 books: Oliver Twist, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Of Mice and Men, 1984, Pride and Prejudice, Tracy Beaker, The Lord of the Flies, Far From the Madding Crowd, To Kill a Mockingbird and Wuthering Heights.

More than two thirds (69 per cent) failed to identify correctly even five of the authors. Over a third (35 per cent) of the children, who were aged between 11 and 15, did not know who wrote Oliver Twist. Several thought Roald Dahl, rather than Charles Dickens, wrote the novel and three opted for David Dickinson, the antiques dealer and BBC broadcaster. A number of children thought Wuthering Heights was only a pop song by Kate Bush rather than a novel by Emily Brontë, and several others thought Bob Marley was the author of the work. The American rap artist Eminem was named by some as the author of To Kill a Mocking Bird. One of his songs is called Mockingbird.

The results made uncomfortable reading even for some of the schools that took part. One assistant headmaster hoped that The Sunday Telegraph would not find the results as "depressing as we did".

Bethan Marshall, a lecturer in education at King's College, London, said: "Reading matters, because a recent study found that pleasure in reading is one of the most important factors in social mobility. These findings are depressing, but not surprising. Teachers have been overwhelmed by the curriculum coverage they are supposed to achieve. They don't have time to sit and read a story with the class."

On a more positive note, two thirds of children (66 per cent) had read more than five books in the past 12 months and a significant number claimed to have read more than 20. But a number of girls said they read magazines, not books, and one 14-year-old listed the Radio Times among her favourite reads of the year. Other chosen works included The Exorcist, The Manchester United Miscellany and Roy Keane's autobiography. Jacqueline Wilson, the childrens' laureate, and J K Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter stories, were runaway favourites among the more avid readers. Wilson was named favourite author and Harry Potter was the most frequent answer to: 'What is your favourite book?' By contrast, many traditional authors, such as Enid Blyton, Lewis Carroll and C S Lewis struggled to make the list of favourite authors.

A total sample of 1,205 primary and secondary schoolchildren, aged between eight and 15, from schools all over England, completed the questionnaire.

# Additional reporting by Beth Jones and Hannah Wignall.

Smells like Kali Yuga? (a little grim musing)

Generally speaking, I don't agree with the view that the world will be "ending" any time soon. (The dinosaurs ruled the earth for a good 100 million years before being wiped out; we've only been around for roughly 2 million. I know that doesn't mean anything in and of itself, but it does lend perspective. On top of it, all of the other "ZOMG Teh world is ending, the sky is falling and we're all gonna die!!!1!!11" crazes have proven to be for naught, so I'm not going to place all that much credence in the currently-popular 2012 thing.)

I do however think that there /is/ a time of significant change coming, and I think it will be more ideological than physical. The way things seem to be headed, I suspect it may be something along the lines of a New Dark Age. Scary? For anyone with brains, hells yes. The March of the Morons is upon us, and that's going to cause (is already causing) a lot of problems for the world.

However, I have to wonder if this couldn't potentially be for the good. Observation of nature shows that wildfires are necessary for the enrichment the soil, the destructive eruption of volcanoes builds new land. Similarly, old ideas (and illusions) must be destroyed in order for new and better ideas to take proper hold. People have forgotten why the mind--or rather being able to /use/ it to the best of one's ability--is important. It may be that this idea that intelligence is unimportant can only be destroyed by society having to live without people who know how things /should/ be run. We've already seen what it's like to have doctors to whom money is more important than the well-being (or knowing how to help the well-being of) their patients. We've already seen what it's like to have a government that's more interested in money and fear-mongering than seeing to the continued well-being of the people it's meant to govern. How much more do we need to see--how much more needs to be destroyed by people who are incapable of thinking as far as tomorrow--before the mind can be returned to it's rightful place of exaltation as the first and foremost thing that has made humanity great?