“Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.”
A woke educational system politicizes everything, it also produces functional illiterates who only know how to be outraged at the things they’re told to be outraged at. (This is often mislabeled as teaching ‘critical thinking’.)
The consequences of replacing Shakespeare with Amanda Gorman are more than just wokeness, but a student body that even in Ivy League schools can’t read.
Literally. Can’t read a book.
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.
Why are those students even there would be a question. But the answer is pretty obvious. Quite a few of those students are there for reasons other than merit. But beyond that they’re the products of public school systems that pursue every possible gimmick and fad except actually teaching basic skills.
This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.
“My jaw dropped,” Dames told me. The anecdote helped explain the change he was seeing in his students: It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading. It’s that they don’t know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.
Why read books when you can go with teacher to a protest rally instead?
Twenty years ago, Dames’s classes had no problem engaging in sophisticated discussions of Pride and Prejudice one week and Crime and Punishment the next. Now his students tell him up front that the reading load feels impossible. It’s not just the frenetic pace; they struggle to attend to small details while keeping track of the overall plot.
And they also need their “mental health days”. And their “self-care”. And why should they be expected to do anything anyway?
Private schools, which produce a disproportionate share of elite college students, seem to have been slower to shift away from reading complete volumes—leading to what Dames describes as a disconcerting reading-skills gap among incoming freshmen.
If only we paid public school teachers like NBA players…
In the face of this, the educational system is doing what it always does, lowering its standards.
Faced with this predicament, many college professors feel they have no choice but to assign less reading and lower their expectations. Victoria Kahn, who has taught literature at UC Berkeley since 1997, used to assign 200 pages each week. Now she assigns less than half of that. “I don’t do the whole Iliad. I assign books of The Iliad. I hope that some of them will read the whole thing,” Kahn told me. “It’s not like I can say, ‘Okay, over the next three weeks, I expect you to read The Iliad,’ because they’re not going to do it.”
Andrew Delbanco, a longtime American-studies professor at Columbia, now teaches a seminar on short works of American prose instead of a survey course on literature. The Melville segment used to include Moby-Dick; now his students make do with Billy Budd, Benito Cereno, and “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” There are some benefits—short works allow more time to focus on “the intricacies and subtleties of language,” Delbanco told me—and he has made peace with the change. “One has to adjust to the times,” he said.
Indeed.
And with some more adjustments, the curriculum will be reduced to toxic masculinity, studies, the 1619 Project and How to Support Hamas.
The public school system is a radioactive mess that does nothing but eat endless money and fund Democrat organizers while radicalizing and tainting young minds.
College today is mostly worthless.
Policy should follow those realities. We need schools, we do not need a public school system. And at this point widespread use of college should be reserved for specialties, not for a liberal arts that is dying off anyway.
Steve Deplorable says
“A woke educational system politicizes everything, it also produces functional illiterates who only know how to be outraged at the things they’re told to be outraged at. ”
Indeed. This is a direct result of the “work” of communist “educator” Paulo Freire, who is idolized in the state education racket. It’s called “critical pedagogy” and is an epidemic. (I first encountered it at UCLA when I was considering a graduate degree in education). James Lindsay speaks on the subject in detail.
somehistory says
And when they ‘graduate’ and get a job…writing for some *news* org…words are misused, misspelled, wrong tense, run-on sentences; incorrect punctuation, because if they can’t read, they don’t really learn to write.
Accept is rarely written because they *hear* except and write that. And *supposed* becomes ‘suppose.’
It’s teeth-griding time if one selects something these non-readers have written.
They are wasting their time…which cannot be brought back.
Mike says
I like President Trump, and hope he gets re-elected, but he has made some bad spelling mistakes.
For example, “wether” instead of “whether” (the former is a type of ram), “unpresidented” instead of “unprecedented”, and “covfefe” instead of something or other.
However, he is more of a business and construction guy instead of a liberal arts guy, so it’s not so bad for him.
Most of the left-leaning, non-Muslim students who are chanting “From the river to the sea” don’t even know what river and what sea they’re chanting about.
somehistory says
that’s true. Mr. Trump is not trying to tell people what to think about what they think by writing for one of the major news orgs…or even a small news org.
He has proven that he can make money and support a family. These ones coming to be adults…in age, anyway….are not going to be able to do that effectively.
They’ll be more like the palestinians who forever need money from everyone else.
PRCS USN (ret) says
Mike says
Oct 3, 2024 at 6:17 pm
“he has made some bad spelling mistakes”
I don’t know if he posts “on the fly” or in some instances if another person creates the post.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Companies that hired based on DEI are reversing those policies, removing those long term DEI goals and more freely firing their BIPOC people whose main criteria of being hired was unrelated to their job requirements. Parents will sooner or later have to dump these Ivy League & other major institutions, and go for community colleges & so on. I also hope that President Trump, if he gets re-elected, restricts F1 visas to just STEM subjects, or just blacklists the same countries that he had on the Travel Ban, plus some.
somehistory says
I’s good to know that some companies are waking up. Having to do any kind of transaction with those who are less educated than their diplomas claim, can be irritating and frustrating.
And agree….the list of ‘banned’ could be much longer. Many are not interested in learning any more than where they can find the best ‘targets.’
FYI says
Free Educational advice
Think for yourself
Critical thinking is essential
Wisdom and knowledge are different things
Best way to learn languages?Go to the country of your choice and start speaking the language{Grammar can come later}
Develop a syllabus for yourself;i have always studied Philosophy on my own
Montessori method:Good for children..allow them to work out things..
somehistory says
Yes, wisdom is the correct application of knowledge. Many young children have learned the hard way that fire is hot. That knowledge, used wisely, means not getting burned.
FYI says
I learned quite a lot from Sesame Street:Big Bird,Bert and Ernie,Cookie monster…thanks guys!
.
And then i had to be dragged away to kindergarten..!
“Big Bird!…cookie monster! .. help..!”
“one of these things is not like the other”:a musical compare and contrast technique that i have found useful in many areas like..Set Theory…..comparative religions,linguistics..faultfinding Electrical circuits{“impedance mismatch”};just replace the word [things}
There is knowlege AND wisdom.
There are actually two ways of learning..
A,Knowledge based learning….thirst for knowledge
B.Wisdom based learning{Lots of different areas..}..thirst for wisdom
Ideally it is/Should be {A AND B} and not {A OR B}:but wisdom seems to be missing today
“who are the people in your neighborhood….they’re the people that you meet when you;re walking down the street,they’re the people that you meet each dayyyyyyy”
Still there in the mind!
Emilie Green says
Delbanco told me—and he has made peace with the change. “One has to adjust to the times,” he said.
—-
“Times have changed. It’s not like the old days when we could do anything we want. A refusal is not the act of a friend. Don Corleone had all the judges and the politicians in New York, and he must share them. He must let us draw the water from the well. Certainly, he can present a bill for such services. After all, we are not Communists!”
Rarely says
School is not the end of anything but just the beginning of education. It is up to the school system to provide students with the tools they need to advance their education as well as the basic knowledge they will require to become useful members of society.
When the education fails in providing those basics, it fails.
“Critical thinking”, as I understand it (or misunderstand it) is being able to rationally analyze a situation and/or problem in order to deal with it. BUT if the person does not have the facts he/she cannot possibly analyze the situation. For example, how can one have even a rudimentary understanding of today’s world without a basic knowledge of 20th-21st Century history? Ask any 25 yr old “when was World war ll and the answer is as likely to be “you mean there were TWO of them” as anything else.
When the education system fails to provide the basics it creates a generation of ignoramuses who are barely able to tie their shoe laces without help.
To “critically think” one must be informed–the more informed the better. If one can’t read with some level of understanding or is too lazy to do so the information he/she is likely to accept as true is that which comes from the loudest shouter.
Mike says
I once read an article that commemorated the official end of World War 2 (when Japan formally surrendered to the United States), and the article pointed out that many modern young students on both the U.S. and Japan, were unaware that the U.S. and Japan had fought a war against each other.
Taffy says
So how did these college students get scores on the SATs, Achievement Tests and AP exams adequate for admission into Columbia and other high level universities? Methinks that the mainstream students are academic achievers, but the ones that make the news are total morons. Unfortunately it takes very few disrupters to ruin everybody’s education, especially when the University President fails to call the police to clear out the illegal protesters and restore order to the campus.
abu taleb says
The US has put more emphasize on some non science/engineering disciplin than countries like South Korea or Taiwan, so they start loosing to those countries in technology. Now, the US even doesn’t study well on non science/engineering discipline, focusing more on BS discipline like gender study, systemic racism etc while the cost for universities is skyrocketing high. So stupid.
Mike says
It’s like the parody video “Untisemity College” by an Israeli comedy group.
The gay student says, “I majored in post-colonial queer astrology!”
What the freakin’ heck is that? Does that even exist as an academic subject?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Maybe they can replace all college libraries w/ audiobooks, and on the written front, grow the global emoji list, so that there is no need for different writing scripts, be it Roman, Mandarin, Nastaliq, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Devanagiri, et al. Everybody can then use emojis to communicate, and transmit what passes for as thoughts
No Fear says
I am autistic. All literature metaphors are lies. All literature is lies. I have a degree in Mathematics. I once worked in a chemical research lab. Use science and facts to teach your kids, not literature or myth which will teach them nothing.
Taffy says
I am an engineer that excelled in mathematics, the sciences and other technical disciplines in high school and in college. I once thought that literature, music, and other liberal arts were a waste of time. I now know better. One has to be well-rounded to be complete. And at some point, one needs to read The Bible cover to cover, preferably with commentary from sages past. There is a lot of wisdom in that book (the greatest of literary works) as well as in other literary works of the great writers.
somehistory says
100% Even if one is not interested in becoming a Christian or learning anything about the history of the Jews, the Bible is chock full of advice on how to be successful at living.
And a person can travel the world in the reading of well-written books.
James Lincoln says
Yes, somehistory.
Non-Christians can find a lot of wisdom in the Bible – if they know where to look.
somehistory says
Thanks, James. for the reply
Mike says
No Fear: I agree with you that STEM subjects are very important. However, even Richard Dawkins has argued (in his book The God Delusion) that the Bible and other religious books need to be a part of our education, because they are major sources of literary culture in English and other languages.
He added, “The same principle applies to the deities and heroes of Greco-Roman mythology, and we learn about them without being asked to believe in them.”
He also wrote several pages of idioms, expressions and proverbs which come directly from Judeo-Christian scripture, and which are commonly used by virtually all educated speakers of English (and which undoubtedly have counterparts in French,Spanish, German, Russian and other great European languages and literatures).
PRCS USN (ret) says
+1
Yes, about them vs believe in them.
“The same principle applies to the deities and heroes of Greco-Roman mythology, and we learn <about them without being asked to believe in them.”
Naja says
I think values are being distorted. It seems like intentionally so. Everything we do, say, read and share all begins with our values. Our values used to come from our religious teachings. When the values of our religious teachings are abandoned, then where do our values come from?
Also. one must keep in mind that the values promoted by some religions, may not be good for all people. Moses spoke of freedom. Jesus spoke of Peace and Love.
Muhammad spoke of eliminating all that do not think as he said you should think.
Perhaps that is something we all must think about?
Rotten eye says
I think that reading load is way too high. If students have other courses they should not be required to use most of their time on one reading course. What other options are available if the goal is to stimulate discussion?
Troybeam says
To parents of these students that cannot read but led by a violent voice telling them lies, where were you when your children were learning to read…did you not pay attention that they cannot read, did you write their school papers? Shame on you for ignoring your job as parent (s). As for the college, shame on you for admitting these students for money and graduating them even though they cannot read the diploma.