It's Valentine's Day, so I thought I'd write a post about love.
There is a commercial on TV for Sylvan Learning Center, or something similar, in which worried mothers look at their teenagers in despair as the teenagers play soccer and listen to music. The voiceover says, in ominous tones, of course, "Does your son not gets his kicks out of algebra? Does your daughter prefer rocking out to writing an essay?" Then the tone of voice changes and sunnily suggests that your child will develop a lifelong love of learning at Sylvan (or wherever).
PBS runs countless commercials--I mean public service announcements--claiming that its programming turns children into lifetime lovers of reading. It even demonstrates things you can do to make your child book-loving for life.
Enough, I say!
Love is an emotion. It is not an assessment of capability or competence. Loving books does not make you better than someone who loves basketball. Loving learning does not make you better than--well, actually, I don't even know what it means to love learning. I like to absorb interesting facts and master enjoyable skills as much as the next person, but I wouldn't describe the experience as anything akin to my feelings for the people I love.
I am afraid that it is chic to claim a love of books as a shorthand for "I'm a good person." Claiming that one's child loves to read is shorthand for "this is pretty much the best child ever." And claiming that one or one's child likes to read books we all know are dead boring is the coup de grace.
Now, before you think I've jumped off the deep end or point out that I've said a bazillion times how much Victor enjoys books, let me say that my objection is not to reading or to people who enjoy reading. Heck--I like to read! I have even pretended to like books that I thought were boring. (I promise that's behind me.) I just don't think it's a moral failing or indicative of deep inferiority if a person does not like to read.
I propose that we excise the idea of loving to read as a social goal. Instead, we should focus on building competent readers. You don't have to love reading to be a good reader. Good: can read material (novel, newspaper article, white paper, bank statement, contract, play, scriptures, court case) and understand what it means, as shown by an understanding of chronology, cause and effect, plot, instructions, analysis, obligations, and other functional measures. I think it is far more useful to society to have competent readers than book-loving readers, because love does not beget competence (see the entire world of amateur athletics).
Finally, if it is somehow important to society that people "value" reading in a non-economic way, I believe a competent reader is more likely to truly enjoy a good book because he or she will be able to understand it.
So to the moms in the Sylvan commercial, I say, let your son play soccer and maybe he'll be more willing to do his algebra. What person wouldn't rather kick a ball than solve for x? And don't be dismayed that your daughter prefers music to writing essays. The whole opera industry revolves around this premise.
2 comments:
I'm pretty sure that we need to use different words in place of 'love'. I don't know if it has always been this way or if it's just the recent laziness of our language skills, but I feel like 'love' is used for so many VERY different emotions and feelings.
I'd like those public service announcements better if you were the actress in them!! Are you practicing??
I both agree and disagree with you Cyndie. You've made some good points and probably love is the wrong word. Yet I do think teaching kids to enjoy reading is a worthwhile goal. There are programs out there that do an okay job teaching kids reading skills and helping them become competent/gain skills but the programs are so boring that few kids develop a desire to read. I hope that kids I teach gain both a desire to read and competency at reading. And realistically, the more you enjoy something the more likely you are to practice it. The more you practice, the more likely you are to become competent. Not that I think PBS or Sylvan or whatever (or myself, even) have all the answers. But one of the things I like about the reading process I was trained in is that it does make reading engaging.
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