Do educational practices such as tests make students become reductionist readers? Does it irritate you if the stories you read have morals or are moralizing? What is fiction for if not for teaching us to live better or improving our academic abilities? If it’s just for fun, why teach it in school? (Be sure to click on “continue reading” for the full article.)
I’m quite confused after reading this article. Maybe it’s caused due some ideas included in it with which I do not agree at all. In my opinion, reading, in general, has a big potential. It develops our mind, creativity and imagination as well. As Ann and Jeff have mentioned, they can’t understand why students are bothered by silly stories and even by finding the ideas in them. I think that this is a very reserved opinion, since is based on one example of tiger cubs. Let’s have a look at the base of reading. We’re reading books, articles or blogs, because we want to extend our thinking. Each book should have some “fortune,” either moral or educational. However, it’s only up to us, what message we will receive from reading a book.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, it’s normal that children are reading “simple or even silly” stories and have to find the main idea in it. This can be considered as their training for future reading. Since these stories are not complicated, they have a certain idea or message. However, book of “higher quality” do not have only one concrete conclusion. As I’ve already mentioned, it’s up to a reader, how he will understand a certain book. And thus children need to learn what is relevant and what is not. They’ll know what they should pay more attention to and so will be able to find lots of secret ideas in books, which they’ll read later on.
In my opinion, texts with morals are really important for our society. If texts would be only “dead letters” including only certain facts, numbers or data, readers couldn’t achieve such huge realization from a book. The development of society does not only depend on technical improvement, but also on the development of human thinking. Due to this, moralizing texts are important. We do not have to accept all ideas mentioned in a text, even we can completely disagree with all moral issues, but we are forced to think about them. We’re considering our opinions and attitudes. I think, it does not matter whether fiction has morals or romans have, it’s positive for both of them.
Good readers are considered to be well educated as well. I agree with this statement. Someone who has read lots of books, articles or essays has definitely developed his critical thinking and thus has huge knowledge as well. These people are able to lead very interesting discussion, because they’re not reserved, but are able to consider other opinions. They can see the problem from more sides and this is very important nowadays.
The fact that morals should not be in books, especially not in fiction, but they should be like sermons, is really interesting to me. I think that the reason why morals are in books is that humans need something interesting to read in order to understand and think about them. If there’s a nice plot, with some nice characters and some really bad characters, it’s interesting to us and thus we’re considering the acts and so the morals as well. Reading is just a tool for thinking about different situations and characters. Since people can’t hear each other (the perfect example is the play Waiting for Godot written by Samuel Beckett), we need to use some other tools to understand a certain idea, opinion and attitude. Reading is perfect. We concentrate on it and thus we can understand. If morals were written without a story or something interesting, less people would pay attention to it, since they would consider it to be boring. Our minds are not developed enough to understand the idea or morals or attitude without colorful, amazing plot. However, I can’t say this is valid for everybody. Some people are able to think about principles even without a long story. Maybe in the future, there’ll be only books without morals, because we will be able to hear each other and understand our life situations.
At the start, I would like to say that above all, I hate wasting time. There were only a few exceptions where I could lay on my back daydreaming aimlessly, but even then I was angry at myself. I found out that the best activity for not wasting time, regardless the time and place, is reading. One can do it everywhere, and it requires nothing more but a single book. You can read while travelling, while walking (it is fairly dangerous though), or while waiting for something or someone. Particularly interesting thing about the books is that unless they are really either horrible, or of a great value.
ReplyDeleteBy this time, one may have already guessed I am in an agreement with the author’s opinion. It is true that nowadays, there is a huge appeal on the standardized tests, and I have not yet decided whether I like it. In my opinion though, what Jeff Nichols and Ann Stone talk about is incomparable to standardized testing. They went even further as to assert the tests to do a “double disservice.” I think that to consider any literature “mediocre” requires a huge amount of self-confidence. Secondly, I have been taught that there is no such thing as a stupid question, only a stupid answer (which, I agree, is questionable itself, but serves our purpose). I cannot find a bad thing about questioning a content of a book. If, “to read for pleasure” means reading the words arranged in sentences, I have never done it. I believe that each book have a need for deeper understanding. In order to really read a book we have to look beyond what we see.
I will allow myself a little detour from the article. I have read the article on which this article is a response (the link to it is at the bottom of the article). After reading it, I felt rather ambivalent because I found out I agree with both of the articles, where it seems they should be on the other sides of an argument. I think Miller’s main idea was that stories do not have to carry a knowledge (scientific, historic, etc.), and still be awesome and useful as well. Jeff’s and Ann’s main idea, I believe, was that reading should not be restrained to finding answers to multiple-choice questions. These two opinions are in no way contradicting themselves. In fact, it seems that Miller had read the couple’s article only halfway, while what she wrote in the last paragraph: “Ultimately, all of these attitudes — and the standardized tests that Stone and Nichols complain about — boil down to the belief that reading can only be the means to an end, whether that end is moral betterment or worldly success (two classic Puritan preoccupations).” is in a contrast (meaning that both excerpts carry the same idea, but Miller is accusing the couple of something, I believe is false, and these two excerpts should show that they are in agreement rather than in disagreement) with couple’s: “By turning the experience of reading into something that is to be quantified, both in the way it is taught and the way it is tested, our son’s curriculum ensures that children will learn to regard reading as a chore and not as one of life’s great pleasures. Worse, it can become an instrument of competition.” I admit I am very confused. The main thing I wanted to prove is that Miller did not understand the couple and thought of a conflict when there is none, while both articles talk almost about the same. To show exactly what makes me puzzled would take far more time than anyone would be willing to sacrifice, but I hope I have made myself a bit clear about what I think. I would be pleased to engage in further discussion would someone want.