i is Literate. R U?

i is Literate.  R U?

In her article “America’s Death March Toward Illiteracy,” published in the 28 April 2007 edition of The Washington Post, Kathleen Parker wrote, “A 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) found that fewer than half of Americans read literature.”  Parker also went on to quote another statistic from the NEA that said between the years 1992 and 2002, the number of American adults reading any book dropped seven percent.  An even more astounding statistic is literary reading, the reading of novels, short stories, and poems, has dropped 14 percent.  A life without books seems drab and inconceivable to me, yet more than half of Americans are living such a life.

Illiteracy, or the inability to read and write, is on the rise in the United States.  The type of illiteracy I will address is not the complete inability to read or write but the inability to read or write past the bare fundamentals of the English language.  The prospect of having millions of citizens of this great country unable to read or write beyond the bare essentials is terrifying.  Who will lead us in the years to come if we are a country of illiterates?  Although there are a plethora of reasons for the growing illiteracy rates in this country, I will address what I feel are three contributing factors to the vast majority of the illiteracy we see today.  First, I believe the quality of education our children receive in schools is substandard.  Sadly I feel parents in general have a laissez-faire approach to parenting, leaving the parenting to the schools and various forms of mindless entertainment from television to X-boxes.  I also believe that technology is leading us down a treacherous road to ignorance.

The abilities to read and write are skills taught in our schools.  This leads me to believe the quality of education our children receive is in direct correlation to the illiteracy levels in this country.  According to The Standard Examiner article entitled “Poll:  Schools Not Properly Preparing Kids” written by Nancy Zuckerbrod and Trevor Tompson, “Half of Americans say U.S. schools are doing only a fair to poor job preparing kids for college and the work force.”  Zuckerbrod and Tompson’s article goes on to say that while Americans are unhappy with the quality of education provided, they rate education behind the economy and gas prices in importance.  Clearly the general population cares more about the cost of driving their kids to school in gas guzzling SUVs than the education their children receive. 

Last Friday night I was watching the news program 20/20.  They were showcasing the new book titled, SuperFreakonomics, written by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt.  One of the opinions Dubner and Levitt expressed in their new book is that the feminist movement brought on the deterioration of the education system.  While I am not sure I agree the feminist movement is the sole event causing the demise of our schools, I do agree with their train of thought in which the smartest people are no longer becoming teachers.  Dubner and Levitt opined the feminist movement opened more employment opportunities to educated women.  The smartest women took jobs in other sectors of the employment market leaving the teaching positions to those who might not be as intelligent. 

Since the general population does not place education high on the list of priorities and teaching positions are being filled with those of perhaps a lesser intelligence level, it does not surprise me that the quality of education our children receive is substandard.  However, in my opinion there is one secret ingredient to this mix.  There appears to be an increasing sense among some parents that teachers are there to rear the children.  In talking with a family friend, who retired this summer after spending decades as a kindergarten teacher, I learned that over the years she felt an increasing need to spend her time teaching life skills instead of academics.  How can educators teach our children to read, write, and do arithmetic if they have to spend their time teaching the life skills that parents should be teaching at home?  When I send my daughter to school, I will expect her to learn academics not how to tie her shoes and proper etiquette.  Those are life skills I will have taught her at home.

We can not continue to place education low on the totem pole of priorities, hire less than the very best, count on our educators to raise our children, and then expect to be a literate society.  Instead we need to designate more funds to educational institutions, hire the very best teachers, and parents need to teach children to tie their shoes.  I have expressed my opinions on the failures of the educational system to numerous of my friends and family.  They all ask me why I don’t become a teacher.  My answer is simple.  Our children deserve the very best.  They deserve teachers who are intelligent, but also teachers whose hearts are in the profession.  Too many of our educators do not have the fire to teach.  They may have had the flame at one time, but their flame has blown out.  I have never possessed this flame, so it is in the best interest of children that I stay out of the classroom. 

While I feel education plays an important role in the illiteracy of America, technology has added to the problem not the solution.  In the days before television, one of the methods people entertained themselves was through reading.  Books were expensive.  Most people owned few books; they were content to reread the same book over and over.  My own grandmother has read the book Christy by Christine Marshall at least once a year since she purchased it in the 1970’s. 

After the invention of the television, came inventions offering other forms of entertainment to include machines that allowed people to watch movies or play arcade games in the comfort of their home.  Over time reading has become a past time that many do not participate in.  On 9 December 2007, The Standard Examiner published an editorial titled “Make America Literate Again.”  This article states while the NEA does not go so far as to say that television is to blame for the decrease in test scores, it does find, “On average, Americans ages15 to 24 spend almost two hours a day watching TV, and only seven minutes of their daily leisure time on reading.”

Our youth are spending a great deal of their leisure time watching TV, but they are also spending a significant portion of their day on cell phones texting and on the computer instant-messaging friends.  All this time spent texting and instant messaging has brought on a type of short-hand language that leaves most English teachers cringing as if their students are scrapping fingernails down the chalkboard.  Instead of taking the time to type out, “How are you doing?”  Those using text or instant message short-hand will type, “How R U?”  When did that become proper use of our English language? 

The inability to read and write past the bare essentials is a dilemma this country will soon have to face head on like a knight slaying a fiery dragon.  We can not continue down the path we are on and expect to maintain this country’s greatness.  Thomas Hargrove wrote an article titled, “Fewer Ph.D.s in the U.S.”  In his article Hargrove writes, “The number of Americans earning doctoral degrees has declined in recent years.”  Where are we headed as a country if we have fewer citizens with doctorates?  Now is the time to turn this situation around.  Government needs to spend more money on education so that schools can hire the cream of the crop to educate tomorrow’s leaders.  Teachers need to go into the profession of education for the right reasons; they should aspire to light the flames of desire for learning in our youth.  Parents need to take an active role in the education and parenting of their children.  School is not an extension of childcare; schools are institutions of learning.  Lastly while technology is a marvelous thing, like chocolate, it is best served in moderation.

To Speak or Not to Speak

21 September 2009

To Speak or Not to Speak

            In his essay, “Aria:  Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood,” Richard Rodriguez makes a compelling argument against bilingual education.  Bilingual education was introduced in the late 1960’s by Hispanic-American social activists.  This program, which was later endorsed by a congressional vote, allows non-English speaking children to use their native tongue as the language of school.  This program fails in today’s society because schools can not employ enough educators who speak one or more of the numerous languages used by today’s immigrants.  Globalization is the reality of our current society.  It is an injustice to discourage children from learning the global language of English.  One intended purpose of bilingual education is maintaining the intimacy between parent and child.  Supporters of this program fail to see that language is not the sole ingredient in family cohesiveness.  Education using the public language of English helps immigrants assimilate to their new country.

            Bilingual education was born of a time and in a place where most of the foreign students were of Spanish descent.  At that time, this program might have been feasible if you had bilingual teachers.  In order for bilingual education to work today, school districts would need an arsenal of multilingual teachers.  It is impractical for a school district to employ enough teachers that speak any or all the languages used by today’s immigrants.  How many teachers, or average citizens, know two languages let alone three or more?  The lack of multilingual teachers is enough reason to render bilingual education impossible. 

            Technology and economic trade is forcing countries to work together.  This makes it necessary for one language to stand out as the common language used in business.  English is that language.  The only way to prepare our children for success in this globalized world is to teach them the global language of English.

            Maintaining the intimacy between the foreign parent and the Americanized child is one of the intended purposes of bilingual education.  Language is vital to family cohesiveness; the ability to communicate is important.  However, it is not vital that a child’s education be in the native tongue of the family to maintain intimacy.  I grew up in a bilingual home.  My step-father is Micronesian.  He spoke English in addition to his native tongue to my half-brothers.  While my step-father wanted his sons to know and appreciate their Micronesian heritage, he also understood the importance of speaking English.    Robert Rodriguez states in his essay, “Intimacy is not trapped within words.”  Family intimacy comes from shared histories.  It is the memories made and shared that create intimate family bonds, not the language we speak.

As an immigrant to this country, my step-father quickly learned English to assimilate to his new country.  I vehemently feel that if an immigrant wants to better his or her life by moving to America, then he or she ought to learn the English language.  In the early twentieth century, my Swedish ancestors had to learn the English language when they homesteaded in Washington.  It was necessary for them to learn English in order to assimilate and succeed in their new country.  Rodriguez best sums it up when he writes; “Supporters of bilingual education today imply that students like me miss a great deal by not being taught in their family’s language…What I needed to learn in school was that I had the right—and the obligation—to speak the public language of los gringos.”

Not only is bilingual education impractical in today’s America, it is an injustice to these young children as they try to navigate their new country.  There are not enough multilingual teachers to ensure the program’s success.  Even if there were enough multilingual teachers, it is important for us to acknowledge that family intimacy is not formed on language alone, but rather shared memories.  Most importantly, we are doing an injustice to these children by discouraging them from learning in English, the language of globalization.