the Atlantic: The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books

[Anonymous]

I have younger kids (elementary age) and this conversation is interesting to me because of what I see at our elementary and among families (all upper middle class families with well educated parents -- many working in academic or policy fields where deep reading is a part of the job).

We often feel out of step with others at the school. I often feel like we are the only family that does not allow our kids to do unlimited iReady app use at home for instance. I'm not even comfortable with how much the school uses iReady in class but we definitely aren't going to hand our kids tablets at home for hours of iReady on top of that. When I talk to other parents about it they don't get my concern at all. They like the apps because they can track progress and because it engages kids better than books or paper and pencil. But that's specifically what I don't like about it -- yes it's easier to get a kid to engage with reading comp or math when it's delivered by little characters on a screen with little dopamine rewards for every right answer and each "level achieved." But I worry about what happens when kids are asked to do these things without that interface. So we barely do any iReady at home and instead we encourage reading of all kinds (including on a kindle sometimes but also magazines and lots and lots of physical books) and we supplement math with Singapore math books at home. I think other families think we're weird luddites whose kids will fall behind. Both our kids had to get special training from the school on tablet use in order to take assessments because the school won't offer them by hand and our kids don't get enough tablet time at home to know how to use them by the time they got to K.

I have no idea if this will result in my kids being able to read better than others when they get to college. I'm largely doing this because of my own personal attitudes about screens and knowledge acquisition. But I'd be really sad if my kids got to high school or college and lacked the patience or ability to sit down and read an entire book and then discuss it intelligently. To me that's a fundamental academic skill. It's what most of my career is based on (I'm a lawyer turned subject matter expert). Reading and discussing books is a key component of my marriage and family life.

Anyway -- following with interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to FCPS in the 90s and we had lots of assigned books in high school, but I have to say, I don’t think I ever really fully grasped what I was reading. I’ve always thought it’s kind of odd that we expect teenagers with almost no life experience to understand themes in literature written by adults for adults.

Nevertheless, despite my lack of understanding and over dependence on Cliff’s Notes, I got a 5 on my AP English test and never took another English class again. Many years later, as an adult, I discovered a love of reading, revisited many of the novels I read in high school, and finally understood what they were all about! Now I have teenagers who both love to read, but honestly, I’m not too sure they’re really getting it either.

PP from NYC area here. I agree. I've reread some of the books I remember being dragged through in school and I find them wonderful today. I've seen some "if you like this, try that" on social media that recommend new books based on old classics. I wonder if that might be a better way to engage younger readers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid goes to a well regarded MCPS HS and read two books for English total last year. She says they mostly just read excerpts, like the article says. Makes my head explode.

And yes, I encourage her to read on her own but she has no love for it, despite my nightly reading to her from infancy until mid-elementary school.

That's bizarre to me. My kid is in MCPS Middle School and has read two books in English (non-accelerated-every kid takes the same one) the first month of school. Plus AP English would have a curriculum that clearly involves many books, although I guess kids could always do the Cliff Notes summaries if they really wanted to...

[Anonymous]

Recently saw a list of the greatest writers of all-time; only Shakespeare beat out Cliff (and it was close).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dcs go to a good public high school in the south. Ds has not had to read a book since middle school. Dd has had one book to read for AP English Lit so far, that's it.

WHAT!!
OMG

At our MCPS HS DC reads typically 2 books a quarter for honors english. They read more when they were in 4th grade CES, a book a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really surprising when it is the overwhelming view of parents on this board that the humanities are a complete waste of time, and everyone needs to be studying CS to make maximum $$ in tech or finance.

Meanwhile some of the very best minds in actual computer science - not software engineering or cowboy coding or being an elite "hacker," but the people who invented the very concepts that drive computing - will tell you the liberal arts are critical to their thinking.

Although it tends to be philosophy and logic vs reading fiction.

Einstein loved the great thinkers, but you don’t read about him extolling the virtues of literature authors.

No, that's not at all what I was thinking of, actually (although formal logic is HUGE for quickly grasping boolean logic and I do love the synergy between philosophy and computing).

It's hard to find a single short article by Richard P. Gabriel, but he has a whole book on the relationship between Writer's Workshops and coding that's now available online because it's out of print - https://dreamsongs.com/Files/WritersWorkshop.pdf

Plus:

http://bwl-website.s3-website.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/10-SPEGuestEditorial/WebPage.html
https://paulgraham.com/hp.html

We wouldn't have software design patterns if the guys behind that hadn't read the architecture book A Pattern Language (like Gabriel, above).

Anyone who doesn't realize that computer science works best embedded in the liberal arts just hasn't bothered with the history of the discipline - probably because they don't know enough about the value of the liberal arts to care about history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really surprising when it is the overwhelming view of parents on this board that the humanities are a complete waste of time, and everyone needs to be studying CS to make maximum $$ in tech or finance.

Meanwhile some of the very best minds in actual computer science - not software engineering or cowboy coding or being an elite "hacker," but the people who invented the very concepts that drive computing - will tell you the liberal arts are critical to their thinking.

Although it tends to be philosophy and logic vs reading fiction.

Einstein loved the great thinkers, but you don’t read about him extolling the virtues of literature authors.

No, that's not at all what I was thinking of, actually (although formal logic is HUGE for quickly grasping boolean logic and I do love the synergy between philosophy and computing).

It's hard to find a single short article by Richard P. Gabriel, but he has a whole book on the relationship between Writer's Workshops and coding that's now available online because it's out of print - https://dreamsongs.com/Files/WritersWorkshop.pdf

Plus:

http://bwl-website.s3-website.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/10-SPEGuestEditorial/WebPage.html
https://paulgraham.com/hp.html

We wouldn't have software design patterns if the guys behind that hadn't read the architecture book A Pattern Language (like Gabriel, above).

Anyone who doesn't realize that computer science works best embedded in the liberal arts just hasn't bothered with the history of the discipline - probably because they don't know enough about the value of the liberal arts to care about history.

Who are your referring when you talk about the best minds in computer science? Are you going back to Babbage or are we talking about modern computer science?

Liberal arts is much, much more than literature. Literature is a fairly small component.

Architecture books of course aren’t literature either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. Aren't admissions more competitive than ever? Aren't these the superhuman students who aced the hardest classes, scored extremely highly on SATs, had very time-consuming ECs....? We are told nobody has a chance at these schools, and yet, those who are actually there, can't read a book? How is this possible.

People are running around checking boxes to get into these schools. If “reading complex books cover to cover” is not one of those boxes, they don’t check it.

Much to their disservice in the long run.

Not so sure really. I mean things change over time. Maybe schools need to evolve too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really surprising when it is the overwhelming view of parents on this board that the humanities are a complete waste of time, and everyone needs to be studying CS to make maximum $$ in tech or finance.

Meanwhile some of the very best minds in actual computer science - not software engineering or cowboy coding or being an elite "hacker," but the people who invented the very concepts that drive computing - will tell you the liberal arts are critical to their thinking.

Although it tends to be philosophy and logic vs reading fiction.

Einstein loved the great thinkers, but you don’t read about him extolling the virtues of literature authors.

No, that's not at all what I was thinking of, actually (although formal logic is HUGE for quickly grasping boolean logic and I do love the synergy between philosophy and computing).

It's hard to find a single short article by Richard P. Gabriel, but he has a whole book on the relationship between Writer's Workshops and coding that's now available online because it's out of print - https://dreamsongs.com/Files/WritersWorkshop.pdf

Plus:

http://bwl-website.s3-website.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/10-SPEGuestEditorial/WebPage.html
https://paulgraham.com/hp.html

We wouldn't have software design patterns if the guys behind that hadn't read the architecture book A Pattern Language (like Gabriel, above).

Anyone who doesn't realize that computer science works best embedded in the liberal arts just hasn't bothered with the history of the discipline - probably because they don't know enough about the value of the liberal arts to care about history.

Who are your referring when you talk about the best minds in computer science? Are you going back to Babbage or are we talking about modern computer science?

Liberal arts is much, much more than literature. Literature is a fairly small component.

Architecture books of course aren’t literature either.

More recent - 70s to 90s or so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really surprising when it is the overwhelming view of parents on this board that the humanities are a complete waste of time, and everyone needs to be studying CS to make maximum $$ in tech or finance.

Meanwhile some of the very best minds in actual computer science - not software engineering or cowboy coding or being an elite "hacker," but the people who invented the very concepts that drive computing - will tell you the liberal arts are critical to their thinking.

Although it tends to be philosophy and logic vs reading fiction.

Einstein loved the great thinkers, but you don’t read about him extolling the virtues of literature authors.

No, that's not at all what I was thinking of, actually (although formal logic is HUGE for quickly grasping boolean logic and I do love the synergy between philosophy and computing).

It's hard to find a single short article by Richard P. Gabriel, but he has a whole book on the relationship between Writer's Workshops and coding that's now available online because it's out of print - https://dreamsongs.com/Files/WritersWorkshop.pdf

Plus:

http://bwl-website.s3-website.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/10-SPEGuestEditorial/WebPage.html
https://paulgraham.com/hp.html

We wouldn't have software design patterns if the guys behind that hadn't read the architecture book A Pattern Language (like Gabriel, above).

Anyone who doesn't realize that computer science works best embedded in the liberal arts just hasn't bothered with the history of the discipline - probably because they don't know enough about the value of the liberal arts to care about history.

Who are your referring when you talk about the best minds in computer science? Are you going back to Babbage or are we talking about modern computer science?

Liberal arts is much, much more than literature. Literature is a fairly small component.

Architecture books of course aren’t literature either.

More recent - 70s to 90s or so.

So, who exactly? Linus Torvalds loves reading about mathematics and other non-fiction. Vint Cerf loves reading science fiction which I imagine is fairly popular amongst the CS / STEM community...however, it would appear many on this thread believe it is trash.

Most of STEM is actually liberal arts...physics, math, CS (it's one of the most popular majors at SLACs these days)...but very little of liberal arts is literature.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really surprising when it is the overwhelming view of parents on this board that the humanities are a complete waste of time, and everyone needs to be studying CS to make maximum $$ in tech or finance.

Meanwhile some of the very best minds in actual computer science - not software engineering or cowboy coding or being an elite "hacker," but the people who invented the very concepts that drive computing - will tell you the liberal arts are critical to their thinking.

Although it tends to be philosophy and logic vs reading fiction.

Einstein loved the great thinkers, but you don’t read about him extolling the virtues of literature authors.

As someone who knows some of the great minds in computer science today personally, you could not be more wrong. Not only are they voracious readers, they are voracious readers of fiction. You obviously don’t know any of today’s leaders personally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have younger kids (elementary age) and this conversation is interesting to me because of what I see at our elementary and among families (all upper middle class families with well educated parents -- many working in academic or policy fields where deep reading is a part of the job).

We often feel out of step with others at the school. I often feel like we are the only family that does not allow our kids to do unlimited iReady app use at home for instance. I'm not even comfortable with how much the school uses iReady in class but we definitely aren't going to hand our kids tablets at home for hours of iReady on top of that. When I talk to other parents about it they don't get my concern at all. They like the apps because they can track progress and because it engages kids better than books or paper and pencil. But that's specifically what I don't like about it -- yes it's easier to get a kid to engage with reading comp or math when it's delivered by little characters on a screen with little dopamine rewards for every right answer and each "level achieved." But I worry about what happens when kids are asked to do these things without that interface. So we barely do any iReady at home and instead we encourage reading of all kinds (including on a kindle sometimes but also magazines and lots and lots of physical books) and we supplement math with Singapore math books at home. I think other families think we're weird luddites whose kids will fall behind. Both our kids had to get special training from the school on tablet use in order to take assessments because the school won't offer them by hand and our kids don't get enough tablet time at home to know how to use them by the time they got to K.

I have no idea if this will result in my kids being able to read better than others when they get to college. I'm largely doing this because of my own personal attitudes about screens and knowledge acquisition. But I'd be really sad if my kids got to high school or college and lacked the patience or ability to sit down and read an entire book and then discuss it intelligently. To me that's a fundamental academic skill. It's what most of my career is based on (I'm a lawyer turned subject matter expert). Reading and discussing books is a key component of my marriage and family life.

Anyway -- following with interest.

Reading for pleasure will be easier to keep going with girls than with boys after middle school years. That being said, tablet stupidity is something that is harming our kids. The only reason we got tablets was because our school required it, and it made me so mad. Our district finally completely banned cell phone use this year, so there is hope of some reversal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to FCPS in the 90s and we had lots of assigned books in high school, but I have to say, I don’t think I ever really fully grasped what I was reading. I’ve always thought it’s kind of odd that we expect teenagers with almost no life experience to understand themes in literature written by adults for adults.

Nevertheless, despite my lack of understanding and over dependence on Cliff’s Notes, I got a 5 on my AP English test and never took another English class again. Many years later, as an adult, I discovered a love of reading, revisited many of the novels I read in high school, and finally understood what they were all about! Now I have teenagers who both love to read, but honestly, I’m not too sure they’re really getting it either.

I am sure I didn’t grasp the deeper themes in the many books I read in high school. But that didn’t mean the effort wasn’t worth it. I doubt it is common for anyone who did not get the training required to read challenging books as a child to pick one up as an adult. At some point, kids need to learn how to do hard things, and how to pick up and get through a book that’s challenging. That is the skill set that is being lost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really surprising when it is the overwhelming view of parents on this board that the humanities are a complete waste of time, and everyone needs to be studying CS to make maximum $$ in tech or finance.

Meanwhile some of the very best minds in actual computer science - not software engineering or cowboy coding or being an elite "hacker," but the people who invented the very concepts that drive computing - will tell you the liberal arts are critical to their thinking.

Although it tends to be philosophy and logic vs reading fiction.

Einstein loved the great thinkers, but you don’t read about him extolling the virtues of literature authors.

As someone who knows some of the great minds in computer science today personally, you could not be more wrong. Not only are they voracious readers, they are voracious readers of fiction. You obviously don’t know any of today’s leaders personally.

OK...list some names.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What kind of crap schools do you send your kids to? Mine has had summer reading and math assignments since 3rd grade. They always had to take quizzes on their summer reading in the first week back at school. Starting in 6th grade, they also had essays to write for summer reading to be turned in the first week of school. These were their first grades.

My highly-rated local public middle school in a district where people move to for the schools (though I certainly don’t understand why now, having sent a child to it).