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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is 100% a public school problem. Private schools still require reading full books.

I guess you didn’t read the article.

The author herself said it is an increasingly private school issue as well as she attended a prep school where she had to read exactly one book all year.

Honestly, I don’t think 98% of the comments on this thread reflect reading more than the headline to this thread.

Perhaps, but as someone who moved her kids from public to private because of education quality, whether a private requires extensive reading is something that is easily determined. Also, requiring reading is becoming an admissions marketing point now, because private schools know people leave public for this reason.

My kid is at a private school in the SF Bay area. They read 4 full novels a year in 11th grade. (2 novels in 9th, 3 in 10th)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Test prep. Read a short passage find the main idea. Move onto the next skill. Meanwhile, they've never read a whole book about anything. I totally understand why this is happening. Since there's no homework these days, I assign it. My kid is always reading a book for homework, and we're always discussing it.

But that just sounds like a run of the mill 4.0 GPA/grade grabber who we are repeatedly told can't get into, e.g. Columbia.

I mean, my 8th grader is not a big reader and she read a non-fiction psychiatry book over just a few days this summer and we discussed it. Pretty sure she would be capable of discussing Pride and prejudice and Crime and punishment within a couple of weeks. I read these books in HS. They are interesting and not that hard to read.

Those books aren't interesting at all. I mean, Crime & Punishment? Are you now going to tell me War & Peace is interesting too?

Perhaps if we let a kid read a non-fiction psychiatry book instead of Pride and Prejudice or whatever, then things would be better.

But, if you want to read Crime & Punishment, then go for it.

I read War and Peace for fun because I had never read it in school. It was a slog in places, but I loved it. Tolstoy is cheeky.

My kids read for fun. Were also fortunate to have some teachers in MCPS that assigned full books and analyzed in depth. Their penchant for reading definitely helped them stand out with their teachers. Both in STEM magnets. But, they also conveyed this in their apps, which I would think is part of what attracted T15 schools to them. Neither applied to Columbia though.

Exactly, I love Tolstoy and I also read it for fun one summer. There are some dated parts about gender relations specifically, but as a full novel it's magnificent. Even with all the tangents (ie. Battle of Waterloo) it was such a meaningful read.

[Anonymous]

War and Peace is a blast. There's something in it for everyone -- military battles and strategy, romance, religion, philosophy, 4D-chess-level social machinations, mysteries of freemasonry, a secret abortion, big thoughts on free will ("one man" vs. flow of history), how to interpret the various colors found in poopy diapers, etc.

I've read it once in English for a class (I was a Russian Language and Literature major) and once in Russian for the fun of it (mostly while commuting on the DC Metro) (luckily for me there were footnote Russian translations for all the dialog in French).

Funny thing about it is that Tolstoy set out to write about the 1825 uprising, traced the origins of that to the War of 1812, and after 1000 or so pages never actually got to writing about the 1825 business.

Do I win a pechen'e?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:War and Peace is a blast. There's something in it for everyone -- military battles and strategy, romance, religion, philosophy, 4D-chess-level social machinations, mysteries of freemasonry, a secret abortion, big thoughts on free will ("one man" vs. flow of history), how to interpret the various colors found in poopy diapers, etc.

I've read it once in English for a class (I was a Russian Language and Literature major) and once in Russian for the fun of it (mostly while commuting on the DC Metro) (luckily for me there were footnote Russian translations for all the dialog in French).

Funny thing about it is that Tolstoy set out to write about the 1825 uprising, traced the origins of that to the War of 1812, and after 1000 or so pages never actually got to writing about the 1825 business.

Do I win a pechen'e?

I’m impressed—I was also a Russian language major and the longest book I ever read was master and margarita.

[Anonymous]

PP. Despite its length, W&P is much easier than M&M. Tolstoy uses fairly simple vocabulary and sentence structure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids are in MCPS. They do definitely read at least a few full books on English class. I wish it was more — it seems like it’s one full book per quarter plus then poems and short stories built around that. This quarter my 10tj grader is reading Circe. Last year he read Life of Pi as the last book but I can’t remember what else. I think they are decent books but I do wish they were reading more like 6-8 books a year and mixing in some older ones — maybe 1 19th century and a couple 20th century. It does seem like there is a preference for stuff that came out in the 21st century.

I think the colleges are getting what they asked for. They want kids that have endless extracurriculars, travel teams, competitive clubs that do regional/national competitions, kids that do tons of volunteer work or internships. Exactly when do they think kids are gojng to have time to just read novels? I read tons of novels growing up because my only extracurriculars were a couple clubs that met occasionally and did 1-2 events a year.

PP makes a great point about kids not having time for reading.

They don't have time because their parents make them do all of these ridiculous activities. Your kid can get into a ton of schools without all of that bit parents are so nervous that they just do what everyone else does. If I tell you my kid only did a once a month activity and worked in the summer and got in everywhere, people will say that's a lie. It isn't but you've all bought into the lie that your kid won't get in anywhere without all of these activities. Why are you so insecure?

it depends on where "everywhere" is

[Anonymous]

Agree that club sports and other time-consuming but mindless extracurriculars are what's pushing out actual college prep activities like reading & analyzing multiple difficult several hundred page novels and more deriving of mathematical proofs and immersive academic activities like independent studies.

Our current grind culture (team sports and checking off all these boxes) is crushing imagination and critical thinking to dust.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree that club sports and other time-consuming but mindless extracurriculars are what's pushing out actual college prep activities like reading & analyzing multiple difficult several hundred page novels and more deriving of mathematical proofs and immersive academic activities like independent studies.

Our current grind culture (team sports and checking off all these boxes) is crushing imagination and critical thinking to dust.

💯
My kid would love to read more, but she has to volunteer and do a school club and show leadership and uniqueness and originality and prep for SAT and get a 4.0 and blah blah blah blah

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

Students at elite universities such as Columbia are showing up to campus unable to read books. They've only read excerpts their entire school career. Many also struggle to write effectively. In response, many Columbia teachers have to water down the curriculum.

No surprise, it is one of the reasons Gen Z can’t keep a job. Sure they have punched all the right tickets to get into top schools who have dumbed down the education and passed them off to employers with high GPAs by just giving out As. Clearly Columbia and all of the other “prestigious” schools could not have admitted anyone who wasn’t the best of the best.

Get back to teaching core subjects in K-12, have kids do homework, go back to a grading scale where C is average. Bust the teachers unions and bring discipline back to the classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids are in MCPS. They do definitely read at least a few full books on English class. I wish it was more — it seems like it’s one full book per quarter plus then poems and short stories built around that. This quarter my 10tj grader is reading Circe. Last year he read Life of Pi as the last book but I can’t remember what else. I think they are decent books but I do wish they were reading more like 6-8 books a year and mixing in some older ones — maybe 1 19th century and a couple 20th century. It does seem like there is a preference for stuff that came out in the 21st century.

I think the colleges are getting what they asked for. They want kids that have endless extracurriculars, travel teams, competitive clubs that do regional/national competitions, kids that do tons of volunteer work or internships. Exactly when do they think kids are gojng to have time to just read novels? I read tons of novels growing up because my only extracurriculars were a couple clubs that met occasionally and did 1-2 events a year.

PP makes a great point about kids not having time for reading.

They don't have time because their parents make them do all of these ridiculous activities. Your kid can get into a ton of schools without all of that bit parents are so nervous that they just do what everyone else does. If I tell you my kid only did a once a month activity and worked in the summer and got in everywhere, people will say that's a lie. It isn't but you've all bought into the lie that your kid won't get in anywhere without all of these activities. Why are you so insecure?

What's was the once a month activity? Private school? Where is "everywhere"? How many of the 10 commonapp EC slots did they leave blank?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP. Despite its length, W&P is much easier than M&M. Tolstoy uses fairly simple vocabulary and sentence structure.

M&M?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

Students at elite universities such as Columbia are showing up to campus unable to read books. They've only read excerpts their entire school career. Many also struggle to write effectively. In response, many Columbia teachers have to water down the curriculum.

No surprise, it is one of the reasons Gen Z can’t keep a job. Sure they have punched all the right tickets to get into top schools who have dumbed down the education and passed them off to employers with high GPAs by just giving out As. Clearly Columbia and all of the other “prestigious” schools could not have admitted anyone who wasn’t the best of the best.

Get back to teaching core subjects in K-12, have kids do homework, go back to a grading scale where C is average. Bust the teachers unions and bring discipline back to the classroom.

Unions are what attract the best teachers. Go look at states like Arizona where there are no unions. Low pay won’t attract teachers. They are hiring warm bodies left and right there since the pay is so low.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

Students at elite universities such as Columbia are showing up to campus unable to read books. They've only read excerpts their entire school career. Many also struggle to write effectively. In response, many Columbia teachers have to water down the curriculum.

No surprise, it is one of the reasons Gen Z can’t keep a job. Sure they have punched all the right tickets to get into top schools who have dumbed down the education and passed them off to employers with high GPAs by just giving out As. Clearly Columbia and all of the other “prestigious” schools could not have admitted anyone who wasn’t the best of the best.

Get back to teaching core subjects in K-12, have kids do homework, go back to a grading scale where C is average. Bust the teachers unions and bring discipline back to the classroom.

How is it that the unemployment rate is 4.1% yet GenZ can’t keep a job? GenZ is 27% of the workforce…so clearly a large %age seem to keep a job.

No to mention nearly 60% of 18 year olds don’t ever go to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP. Despite its length, W&P is much easier than M&M. Tolstoy uses fairly simple vocabulary and sentence structure.

M&M?

PP. The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov, which was mentioned by the poster I responded to. M&M is a key work of 20th century Russian literature and quite a read. It's a weird, fantastical piece about the devil visiting Moscow in the 1930s and wreaking havoc (with an entire subplot about Jesus and Pontius Pilate). The whole thing is a study on Stalinist repression and Soviet corruption.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

Students at elite universities such as Columbia are showing up to campus unable to read books. They've only read excerpts their entire school career. Many also struggle to write effectively. In response, many Columbia teachers have to water down the curriculum.

No surprise, it is one of the reasons Gen Z can’t keep a job. Sure they have punched all the right tickets to get into top schools who have dumbed down the education and passed them off to employers with high GPAs by just giving out As. Clearly Columbia and all of the other “prestigious” schools could not have admitted anyone who wasn’t the best of the best.

Get back to teaching core subjects in K-12, have kids do homework, go back to a grading scale where C is average. Bust the teachers unions and bring discipline back to the classroom.

How is it that the unemployment rate is 4.1% yet GenZ can’t keep a job? GenZ is 27% of the workforce…so clearly a large %age seem to keep a job.

No to mention nearly 60% of 18 year olds don’t ever go to college.

Bad parenting by their Gen X parents is part of it, but mostly due to America’s failing educational system - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bosses-firing-gen-z-grads-111719818.html