Really makes you think
Really makes you think
change "that didn't interest them" into "in a non-interesting manner" and I'll agree.
also go back there
People that don't like to read usually read at a low level. They don't read because it's too hard.
its cliche but first impressions do matter, more so in media saturation
>forcibly introduce reading to young people in a way that leads many to associate it with drudgery, obligations, work etc
>be surprised when they don't want to do it in their free time
Progress? It is true that, today, at least in all highly organised countries, nearly everybody can read and write. But what of that? To be able to read and write is an advantage--and a considerable one. But it is not a virtue. It is a tool and a weapon; a means to an end; a very useful thing, no doubt; but not an end in itself... to what end, is it generally used today? It is used for convenience or for entertainment, by those who read; for some advertisement, or some objectionable propaganda--for money-making or power-grabbing-- by those who write... Generally, today, the man or woman whom compulsory education has made "literate" users writing to communicate personal matters to absent friends and relatives, to fill out forms--one of the international occupations of the modern civilised humanity--or to commit to memory little useful, but otherwise trifling things such as someone's address or telephone number, of the date of some appointment with the hairdresser or the dentist, of the list of clean clothes due from the laundry. He or she reads "to pass time" because, outside the hours of dreary work, mere thinking is no longer intense and interesting enough to serve that purpose... The higher the general level of literacy, the easier it is, for a government in control of the daily press, of the wireless, and of the publishing business--these almost irresistible modern means of action upon the mind-- to keep the masses and the "intelligentsia" under its thumb, without them even suspecting it.
- Savitri Devi
In my advanced placement English class we were assigned Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Only two people read it: me and this fucking weed-dealing mexican weaboo who started drawing a pretty solid manga adaptation of it. We actually really liked the book and had a brief, odd friendship as a result.
I think there’s some truth in that. Having students pick books from a large list might be a better solution.
It's also likely that OP is a goddamn faggot.
>English teacher made us read books we weren’t interested in
>realise now that those books were actually awesome
Wish I didn’t waste my time playing snake 2 during class
People dont read because they're retarded
Meanwhile ours made us read shit tier novels like handmaids tale and perks of being a wallflower
>It’s likely that many people have oppositional defiance disorder and would hate whatever book they were handed simply because someone else chose it for them in their high-school English class.
Do you know the difference between students who excel and fail? The ones who excel force themselves to read, force themselves to play an instrument, force themselves to do study mathematics. Forced learning works once the student himself becomes obsessed with learning, obsessed with reading.
We were assigned to read Beloved and no one in the class did. Why the fuck would I want to read Beloved when I am 17?
It's likely that many people don't like to read because when someone was trying to teach them a love of reading they were busy being a self-centered shithead and now as an adult want to blame someone else for their own asshattery.
It is true. And I do believe it is by design. Even intelligent people don't like reading...so it's not a matter of people being too dumb for it.
Even to this day reading can often feel like a chore, yet I have a natural inclination toward intellectual pursuits, and I sometimes find myself avoiding it like I avoided homework at school. Yet every time I do sit down and read I enjoy it. I believe this avoidance was drilled into me at school.
Standardized testing shows that our vocabularies are worsening. So much so that it's quite difficult to read a text even 100 years old, never mind Shakespeare. And even if we had the vocabulary, because we are so unread, we lack the base of knowledge necessary to read them. This is what makes many Russian novels difficult because you have to build up your knowledge base of the 18th century world. Tolstoy wrote in Russian, for Russians of his time and assumes the reader knows certain things. What the hell is a Troika?
Yeah I can believe it.
I read Camus and the greeks just because i wanted to but hated steinbeck and the fucker who wrote tale of 2 cities.
only one English teacher made me like the books he assigned in highschool.
>force
>obsessed
imagine if Moby Dick was required reading, that would be the ultimate filter
>tfw sent down in to the pleb pits in my senior year for filter week
>we all chatted amongst eachother with no instructor and it was really quite nice
One of my schools had a thing where you had to read a bunch of books but you could choose whichever book you could read (as long as it's on some assigned list) and then take a test on them to increase your grade.
Made reading fun.
Once I switched to the public school system of reading a shit book for a month (when they could be completed between a week to two weeks), it really drained me from reading stuff I actually cared about and I quit reading for two years before picking it up for my own enjoyment again.
I remember doing that in elementary school. There was a folder we would keep our test things, and when I was turning mine in there was a paper I didn't do. It was my name in girly hand writing, and so obviously not mine any adult would be able to tell the difference. I was such a chad (climbing steadily until I peaked in 8th grade) back then I didn't even wonder who did it.
Also one year I waited super damn long to do my report and picked a book worth a shit ton of points Great Expectations and tried to read it over a week. I didn't finish it but still passed the test. That south park episode is really how I believe that book ended. With Miss Havisham using a machine that will put her in Estella's body.
>when they could be completed between a week to two weeks
That was always my biggest problem. We would read an interesting book but we would either a) interrupt the prose to write down some inane detail in our notes, b) have to stop the book because we had to start an assignment about it or c) run out of time.
I was no speed reader but we would do some gay popcorn reading thing that no one wanted to do so I would just read ahead because I could get a page or two in edgewise while Carlos the retarded spic struggled on the 3 sentence paragraph he was assigned.
Why are most people such insufferable cunts who can't accept that their school life is past and just go on with their life.
>mfw i was educated in germany
>read Faust 1 & 2 in 9th class
That reminds me of when we read the Metamorphosis my sophomore year of high school; I loved it but I was literally the only person in the class to read it.
I still think it's pretty dumb that they would assign the Metamorphosis to lazy 15 year olds, though.
i hated those mandatory typing lessons and that fucking gay mavis beacon shit and yet here i am sitting on my computer every single day
I honestly doubt that. I think it's probably just because most people are fairly busy with work, families, etc. and books aren't really a quick thrill for the most part; they require time and dedication to pay off, and most people are short of the former.
Thanks for taking the time to comment, Yaldabaoth.