Where's the substance?

There is an article in today's (August 31, 2009) New York Times, The Future of Reading A New Assignment: Pick Books Yourself. The more attention paid to literacy and the love of reading, the better. However, it is easy to see why people become frustrated with the quality of journalism today. When you ask, What is the point of the article, what is new that is being reported, where is the data to support the reportage, is the information in the article and it's argument consistent with either the author's point or their premise, etc.? there is little to answer those pertinent questions and much confusion.

As quickly becomes apparent in reading the article, despite the headline, the story is not about the Future of Reading. It is actually about the balance between free reading in schools versus assigned reading. Both approaches have been around forever under one name or another. That is not news.

As the article acknowledges in passing, these approaches actually serve two different, though not incompatible goals. Free Reading is associated with creating a habit and love of reading. Assigned Reading is associated with establishing a common cultural base (and the capacity for critical reading). Two different goals. In an ideal world, you would spend plenty of time on both. In the real world (where you are always constrained by the number of hours available with the children) you can set one goal (and therefore approach) to the exclusion of the other or you can allocate some time to each approach.

So the article is not reporting any new approach. They substantially gloss over the fact that each approach serves a different end. There are no numbers in the article to suggest that one approach is superseding the other in school systems, merely anecdotal reportage that some systems are moving one way, some the other and most haven't changed.

And just to be clear, I think it is marvelous that the teachers reported on are striving to find ways to be more effective. My issue is not with their efforts or the techniques they are using, but with the reportage.

It almost feels as if this article were a deliberate set-up to generate heated discussion in the culture wars with some ruing the banishment of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and the promulgation of shallow, indulgent, popular contemporary books while others take the opposite view, celebrating the freedom of reading and self-expression. I suspect that the reality is that both parties would agree that we want children to love reading and that they ought to have some modicum of a shared culture.

The real question, which the article neither poses nor attempts to answer, is How do we inculcate a love of reading in our children and provide them a common culture all the while constrained by time, budgets, widely divergent home environments, and competing school system goals (oh yeah, physical health through athletics, cultural pursuits, mathematical facility, social studies, standardized tests, etc.)

So the article is an interesting reminder that there is an unresolved issue of how we might achieve this and it does give a couple of anecdotal stories about schools/teachers trying each approach. And that's about it. Call me a curmudgeon, but surely they could have done better than that.