I chose to read the article "Decline of the Literate Culture" by Mark Bauerlein and Carol Jago from Mark's website. This article made me question my ideas about American culture. Why has literature become so devalued in our society? Teenagers want almost nothing to do with it unless the novel contains online lingo. Maybe parents are to blame for this decrease in literary culture. They go to work all day from 9-5 and when the parent arrives home they ignore their kids by allowing them to play the newest video game console. This sickens me, sickens me. Yeah, I said it twice. When has playing Super Mario become more important than reading Hemingway? Literature teaches us amazing life lessons and wonderful values; students cannot learn values from Call of Duty Black Ops. So with this decrease in literary interest comes a decrease of human values. Teenagers are increasingly disrespectful, rude, and antisocial. Maybe reading Tuesdays With Morrie would be more beneficial than watching Jersey Shore. So as future English teachers how do we compete with technology? Well you could incorporate technology in the classroom through laptops/computer based classrooms. Students could be asked to respond on discussion boards online because they are sitting in front of a computer regardless. We could ask students to start an online book club with some of their classmates in order to facilitate more outside reading and discussion. I think we just have to be willing to implement new ideas because the old ones aren't working. I see the classroom as a trial and error environment, so experiment! Try different techniques and read all the latest teaching articles.
With this decrease of literate culture comes the decline of society, and this is something that must be stopped. As educators we must work with parents, colleagues, and administrators to motivate students to open a book. Is Facebook going to make students better people? Or will reading stories about other cultures from different perspectives. As a teacher I do not want to simply bombard my students with information, but I want them to transform into better individuals. If we can have students to view the world from another point of perspective then we will have one more enlightened person. It is quite unfortunate the world is becoming an increasingly ignorant place where literature is devalued. I know students don't necessarily want to read classic literature, but I didn't want to play soccer at first until I got involved. There are so many things we don't like until we try it. There are so many novels I didn't want to read, but once I did I became a better person. So we need to encourage and push students to read no matter how much they disagree. Our society depends on it.
Just for a laugh, here are some great screen shots from The Great Gatsby Super Nintendo game:
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| Sick graphics, bro. |
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| IS THAT GATSBY??? |
There are so many things we don't like until we try it.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't have said it better myself. I often tell this to a lot of students that I tutor. Usually, they'll say they hate a book when they haven't even read it. You just don't know.
Nice graphics at the bottom lol.
"Literature teaches us amazing life lessons and wonderful values; students cannot learn values from Call of Duty Black Ops."
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I'm so glad to hear a guy say this statement. English is so important, and it seems that we are a culture that doesn't seem to value language anymore. Children and pre-teens shouldn't be allowed to purchase.play these games anyways, and I can't imagine they have good side effects anyways.
Maybe Black Ops doesn't teach us "amazing life lessons and wonderful values," but what about movies?
ReplyDeleteI think that you hit the nail on the head with the whole issue of time...I don't know if I think that parents are to blame, but I do think that American culture is to blame in that we value the American "hardworker" or the American "workaholic"..that's what our parents have been trained to be...that's what we Americans do best..work right??...Students can't be bothered with literature because literature won't get them a job and literature won't pay the bills..it's as if we have shut our minds off unless we are focusing our attention towards something that earns a dollar..it's no wonder that children don't want to read, many of them don't have examples in their lives of parents who have time to spend with them let alone leisure activities like readiong..it's quite sad..let's all move to Australia..I hear they throw great BBQs there!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Greta that it's our culture that pushes this workaholic mentality on many of us, especially students' parents. This in turn will mean we need to place an even higher emphasis on getting the students' motivated to find some kind of interest in literature, because otherwise, with mom and pops at work and them alone after school, the TV or game console is going to be way more convenient than a book.
ReplyDeleteAlso, and I know it's inevitable, but I think that we're heading in a direction where we're catering to the technology too much to facilitate learning. I wouldn't be surprised if in an attempt to rescue literature, that we see a novel transferred to a Wii or Playstation that tries to make the novel interactive and fun for the reluctant reader. It sometimes feels like compromise after compromise, always trying to put a band-aid on our learning deficits, when the right diagnosis all along is to have students learn how to read early on without all the distractions that make it a challenge for them later - why not incorporate the use of technology/support when the child reaches a standstill, and then we can introduce the software that can help them start progressing again. If we bombard students early on with a bunch of alternative ways to reading literature, whether through cassette tapes or interactive games, how we they ever really have a true appreciation for what it's like to read a book?