Strange. Even though I had distractions such as television and video games, I was a voracious reader as a child. Neither of my parents or any of my relatives, really, were readers and did little to encourage me to do so. Am I a miracle child, then? There is little difference in distractions between now and then. The video games look better, the television shows are more inane, and the internet has gotten a lot faster. Expecting our youth to read books, even the classics, should not be a matter of attempting the impossible.
Yep, that makes you an outlier. Congratulations, it's good that you are, but it doesn't change the fact that the average, or even above average, child in America does not behave in such way.
Or would have, with aid from their teachers and parents. Do schools no longer encourage children to read? I remember several programs throughout my years in elementary school that were meant to reward reading and more than a few occasions of having to choose a book from the library to write a report on. I assume these things still exist, but I could be wrong. (I also remember book fairs and mandatory time spent in the library each week.) That said, I won't argue against genre in favor of classics or classics in favor of genre. Both will enhance a reader's vocabulary (especially fantasy, which sometimes has a habit of relying on a thesaurus) and relay ideas.
The last reading promotion I experienced was in... elementary school. It was called SSR, Sustained Silent Reading, and it was a half hour (or so) that we spent each day reading whatever book we brought to class with us. We were also supposed to read another 20 or 30 minutes at home, but people who didn't were not penalized in any way. By middle school, that was all gone. We had a book report a year or so, and that was about it.
So no, schools really don't encourage reading all that much. Most reading is done from textbooks that have excerpts of larger stories in them, but it's hard to truly gain an interest for reading from a chapter or passage of a larger works. It makes the characters transient, and unrelated to the reader. Not to mention that the classes go extremely slowly, so less than 10 excerpts are usually read in a year, from a book that probably contains 50 or more.
Holy shit, really? What the hell kind of schools are people running these days? When I was in middle school, I was not only encouraged to read genre, but also write genre. But you know, while they encouraged I continue reading what I enjoyed, they also made an effort to recommend the classics. They also expected me to read and attempt to understand the books, classic or not, that they assigned in class.
I don't normally pry... But when did you go to school? Because I'm 20, so I was in middle school not all that long ago... and I can tell you with absolute certainty, school is not like that now. Other than those anthology textbooks I mentioned above, very, very little reading is done in school. In high school, we read To Kill a Mockingbird, Macbeth, a bit of Hamlet and a bit of Romeo and Juliet, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And half of those were in the English AP class I took during the last year, so this in no way similar to what the average student would have read, which would be even less. And that's in high school. In middle school aside from those few book reports, there were no actual books that we read at all!
Have schools really changed so much that children are no longer encouraged to read? Are children above the elementary school level discouraged from partaking in genre by condescending teachers and librarians, the same people who took my love of reading, even if only genre, and saw it as something to nourish and develop? Maybe. I find it hard to believe, but you never know these days.
No doubt there are some good teachers and good librarians, and good parents that are properly nurturing to their children's budding love for reading... But they are in the minority. It's a sad fact, but it is fact. The problem was never teachers discouraging reading, but them simply... not caring one way or the other. Teachers in my experience have never been people to come to with problems or for conversations... They just taught, and gave homework, and there the interaction with them ended. The only teachers that I've ever talked to as people were the teachers of AP classes in 11th and 12th grade, but that was more like talking to a wiser peer than to a teacher.
And I'm by no means opposed to reading classics, or think that genre fiction is superior to classics. I think that people should be steered toward them, because they are important and valuable. But I also think that genre fiction has an important role to play in building a person's love for reading, and that there is nothing shameful or inherently bad about it.
"It's a strange world. Let's keep it that way."
Aren't the Tolkien comparisons getting a little...old?
09/12/2011 09:51:39 PM
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The comparison bothers me, but not because Tolkien isn't relevant.
09/12/2011 10:05:22 PM
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Only when shit works are being compared to him
09/12/2011 10:22:26 PM
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Larry,
10/12/2011 01:13:18 AM
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Snide dismissal that will be passed off as for his own entertainment.
10/12/2011 04:55:43 AM
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Well-deserved condescension.
11/12/2011 03:54:27 AM
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You're sure about that?
11/12/2011 04:20:26 AM
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Re: You're sure about that?
11/12/2011 05:25:08 AM
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Re: You're sure about that?
11/12/2011 06:03:02 AM
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i think you shouldn't judge a whole world's school programs on your school
11/12/2011 06:42:30 AM
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I'm 24.
11/12/2011 03:49:06 PM
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If you're arguing that children should be able to read genre fiction, fine.
11/12/2011 08:52:27 PM
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Well, I suppose it depends on the type of genre being read
11/12/2011 09:36:16 PM
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How often do you hear the challenging writers mentioned at this site?
12/12/2011 02:03:05 PM
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Only when you, me, and a couple others write reviews
12/12/2011 04:21:14 PM
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Oh, it was the same as it always is
12/12/2011 05:23:56 PM
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Much of the actual "Classics", that is, Greek and Latin originals, kids would eat up.
12/12/2011 03:13:03 AM
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You're upfront and honest about it; he isn't. The difference matters to me. *NM*
11/12/2011 05:18:42 AM
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this is a bit off topic, but out of curiousity...
11/12/2011 06:28:35 AM
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I've discussed this dozens of times at this site. Perhaps you've missed all of the posts.
11/12/2011 08:57:44 PM
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mk I'll go look. I probably did miss it (or at least don't remember it!)
11/12/2011 09:08:02 PM
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I have a successful career that was inspired by the video games I played as a child. *NM*
11/12/2011 05:52:21 PM
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Now let's get all the people who just pissed their lives away with video games and see the %.
11/12/2011 08:58:42 PM
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The majority of players neither waste their lives nor make a career out of it.
11/12/2011 11:29:29 PM
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Yeah, sorry, I don't think you could say that with a straight face in real life. *NM*
12/12/2011 04:13:52 AM
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Then you have a closed mind on the subject. Ironic, considering your stance on edification. *NM*
12/12/2011 05:47:50 AM
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No, just with respect to you. *NM*
12/12/2011 02:00:15 PM
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Tom, you pulled the "Say that to my face!" line. You lost the right to talk about respect. *NM*
12/12/2011 03:20:15 PM
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Once again, I really don't care what you think. *NM*
12/12/2011 03:37:40 PM
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Did I imply that you did? My apologies. I'd hate to insinuate that you'd stoop that low. *NM*
12/12/2011 04:13:25 PM
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As well read as you seem to be, you think you'd be smart enough...
11/12/2011 06:20:06 PM
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I thought I have made it clear that I don't care if people don't like me here.
11/12/2011 08:44:58 PM
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Re: I thought I have made it clear that I don't care if people don't like me here.
12/12/2011 04:04:37 PM
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That statement has just confused me.
12/12/2011 04:06:53 PM
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Re: That statement has just confused me.
12/12/2011 04:14:27 PM
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I never learned Hittite. I had a book on pre-order for a long time but never ended up getting it.
12/12/2011 05:41:03 PM
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What you have made clear, I think, is the fact that you deal in generalizations and stereotypes.
12/12/2011 10:12:12 PM
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There's an unintentional irony in what you say, alas
13/12/2011 12:44:26 AM
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Tom, Dick, or Larry...you may use your true first name, but you're still an anonymous entity to most
13/12/2011 04:49:35 AM
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With such comeback skills, you must have ruled the playgrounds as a kid, no?
13/12/2011 05:21:42 AM
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There are no special snowflakes, are there?
11/12/2011 09:39:21 PM
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There are many way of widening one's horizons and broadening one's mind.
11/12/2011 10:08:24 PM
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What I don't like-
12/12/2011 04:28:55 AM
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Why don't you name something, then?
12/12/2011 04:40:29 AM
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Sure.
13/12/2011 07:30:56 AM
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Mentioning Ender's Game pretty much shot your argument in the foot.
13/12/2011 02:02:59 PM
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You dismiss the entire video game medium because many games lack value.
13/12/2011 03:59:11 PM
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You're like the McDonald's paid advocate trying to say Big Macs are actually healthy.
13/12/2011 05:46:37 PM
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I'll leave it up to others to define as they wish against their self-conceptions of me
10/12/2011 10:52:54 AM
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that's alright. I really have no desire to stroke your twit-ego. *NM*
10/12/2011 04:36:56 PM
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Considering the firestorm I appear to have touched off, that may be best.
12/12/2011 12:57:49 PM
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I know, John
12/12/2011 04:27:04 PM
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Re: I know, John
12/12/2011 05:06:26 PM
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As I've said in the past, I'd be scared if anyone agreed with me anywhere approaching 100%
12/12/2011 06:33:52 PM
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Re: As I've said in the past, I'd be scared if anyone agreed with me anywhere approaching 100%
12/12/2011 07:13:37 PM
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Blurbs are not generally very original in their comparisons - would kind of defeat their purpose.
09/12/2011 10:42:17 PM
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Maybe if so much of the genre weren't crap derivative works it wouldn't be so common. *NM*
11/12/2011 03:44:24 AM
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To be fair, a lot of it isn't.
11/12/2011 04:06:07 AM
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I suspect that if it really isn't derivative it's not being compared to Tolkien in the first place.
11/12/2011 04:18:57 AM
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That's true.
11/12/2011 11:08:01 AM
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But see, that's where things start to get referred back to Tolkien.
12/12/2011 04:30:12 AM
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The Tolkien fanaticism gets old. And yes, for me it is unreadable.
11/12/2011 11:37:53 PM
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No, because the movies are very contemporary and relevant, thus he will remain so for quite a while.
12/12/2011 03:14:53 AM
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Disagree all you want, but LotR is still the touchstone when it comes to works of fantasy.
12/12/2011 03:48:20 AM
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