Cat Marin
Mr. Lowenberg
Creative Writing
25 March 2019
The Fallacies of the Pedagogy
The sound of the clock ticking pounds against student's eardrums as they attempt to regain their focus and read the new book their sophomore Honors English teacher assigned to their class-The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. The teacher goes on and on about how it is an, “American classic,” and a, “coming of age story,” about a boy named, Holden Caulfield. This central character is a cynical boy who goes around criticizing the superficiality of the world. Students immediately form a hatred towards Holden due to his overuse of the word, ‘phony,’ and his constant whining about what upsets him, which was ultimately everything. They start to dread going to English class and doing their reading assignments having to read about this boy’s first-world problems, which lead to a great deal of procrastination on their part. They fall into a loop where they tell themselves in class that they will read this at home later, and then telling themselves that they will read this chapter at school tomorrow. To make a long story short, they get stuck on reading chapter three for about a week, until they have no choice but to sit down and read five chapters in one night because they are going to be tested on chapters 1-8 the following day. They feel like each chapter is its own mini novel, taking forever to finish. They end up simply sparknoting the book and writing a mediocre essay on it based on last night’s recollection of summaries.
In an article by editor of the New York Times Book Review, Pamela Paul, titled, “Let Children Get Bored Again”, she exposes the social commentary on Generation Z, as she explains that “Teachers spend more time concocting ways to “engage” students through visuals and “interactive learning” tailored to their Candy Crush attention spans. Kids won’t listen to long lectures, goes the argument, so it’s on us [the teachers] to serve up learning in easier-to-swallow portions”. However, it has nothing to do with the attention spans of the generation, but the attention spans of humans as a whole. Humans all have a prefrontal and a parietal cortex which are responsible for attention spans and concentration. Also, there are articles written on news outlets such as the Atlantic titled “Millenials are Out-reading Older Generations,” supported with statistics and surveys that explain how “Some 88 percent of Americans younger than 30 said they read a book in the past year compared with 79 percent of those older than 30” and how “People under 30—those who use Internet-connected technologies the most—were also more likely than older adults to say that there is "a lot of useful, important information that is not available on the internet." So how does the criticism against the younger generations surface?
There is a common stigma assigned from the older generations against the younger generations, labeling them as the generation that does not read or is too dependent on their technology. Published articles on news outlets such as the New York Times titled, “Why It Matters That Teens Are Reading Less,” explain and further support the misconception how teens are not reading longform articles or novels that explore deep themes and require critical thinking and reflection. However, these news outlets and statistics fail to consider an issue that continues in the education system, which is the forced nature of the reading material presented to students, which then breeds an unwillingness for students to take their own personal time to read books.This is concerning considering the vast benefits that reading presents. Reading is vital for the development of mindfulness, stamina, and patience, which will yield to emotional intelligence.
The curriculum of the American education system is based on students learning information often times by simply memorizing it long enough to regurgitate it back on an exam or an essay due to the disproportion of an extensive curriculum and a short school year. Students are no longer reading in order to retain information, but rather to get a novice understanding of it that will allow them to improve grades which will ultimately dictate if they are meeting expectations or not. This leads to the forced feeling that was mentioned earlier and traumatizes students into thinking that reading is something that is supposed to be fast-paced and anxiety-provoking, when in reality reading is an intimate act that provides relaxation and insight when read at a leisurely pace.
The solution? A change in the dogma of education. Instead of trying to teach students an enormous amount of information in a short amount of time, which only causes anxiety for both the educators and the students, it is essential that education providers focus on getting students involved with the text and information and enjoy reading without the thought of an upcoming test in the back of their minds. There are various types of learning styles, which the curriculum does not cater to, which leads to particular students being labeled as ‘lazy’ and ‘unmotivated” by older generations, when in truth, they are not able to learn and thrive in the environment they are placed into. Misinformation allows for an inefficient structure to flourish. Instead of wasting the time and energy by slapping red herrings onto groups of students, why not use it to fix the issues of the education system?