Can You Read?

As I’m reading this article by Hedges, the first thing that comes to mind is that one third of America is not going to get his message. Of course his audience isn’t really for that one third; it’s the other two thirds, to scare them about what’s going on in America. My question is why isn’t he addressing the one third? He clearly stats the problem, and gives ample evidence to support it, but he doesn’t give anything on how to solve the problem.

Another thing I notice is that he complains about the vocabulary level of past presidential candidate, but his vocabulary isn’t that impressive. This could be because he doesn’t think his audience can handle a more advance vocabulary. And if this is the case, they why doesn’t he tell his audience to work on their own vocabulary? With the amount of time he spent researching this topic, you’d think he wanted to fix it.

I don’t think it does an good to give a problem without even the beginnings of a plan to fix it. With this problem I think the answer is in the schools. They spend too much time worrying about their test score stats; they need to focus on teaching the kids.

I think Hedges defines literacy as not only the ability to read and write, but to read and write at a semi-advanced level. It’s not good enough to be able to recognize the symbols on the page, but you have to be able to think about them critically, and use those same words in your every day speech.

The main difference between this article and the one by Carr is that this focuses on something that has already happened, and Carr is worried about the future. I think that makes this one more significant. Carr’s point may or may not (more towards the not) happen. Hedges’ issue is already here.