School choice may be part of the solution. Reading definitely is
May 22, 2023
My husband recently taught a class in a local high school on spy thriller writing. If you haven’t felt old lately, you’re about to. No one in the class had watched Homeland, which was basically as current as I Love Lucy. No one had heard of the spycraft master John Le Carré (RIP) or read modern thriller writers like Brad Thor. But here’s the kicker: When my husband asked if anyone had read a book — any book — in the last year, only one or two hands went up. And this was at a well-to-do local high school; other schools likely fare worse.
What does it mean for kids’ attention spans, ability to learn, ability to engage in the world around them in all its beauty, pain and complexity, if they are not reading books? And lest adults feel off the hook, nearly a quarter of American adults report not reading a book in any format in the past 12 months either, according to Pew Research.
