Reactionary

From the New York Times:

Some reading experts say that urging kids to read fiction in general might be a misplaced goal. “If you look at what most people need to read for their occupation, it’s zero narrative,” said Michael L. Kamil, a professor of education at Stanford University. “I don’t want to deny that you should be reading stories and literature. But we’ve overemphasized it,” he said. Instead, children need to learn to read for information, Mr. Kamil said, something they can practice while reading on the Internet, for example.

Great. Please, let’s continue fostering a society where people have the vocabulary of a board game and the attention span of a house fly. Please let’s, Professor Kamil. There aren’t enough ignorant Neanderthals amongst us. Let’s make more.

I won’t go into literature’s merits since if you get it, it’s much too obvious and hereby redundant for me to say so, and if you don’t get it, you wouldn’t understand it anyway.

July 15th, 2007 | Category: News, Rant |  Print |  Send it | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL