News item: One of our local middle school libraries is offering students access to MP3 players so they can listen to audiobooks. And dedication to universal literacy takes one step closer to the grave.
And I'm sure that will be a comfort to me when I'm reading their job application written in text-message-speech. "Meh BFF Jill sez iz a gud werker." An audiobook isn't a book. It's a movie without pictures. I like movies, and I like audiobooks, but watching and listening is not reading.
now now. I read, read, read - can never read enough but I did listen to very interesting audio book yesterday. I bought it for Dad for christmas - he had a stroke about 20 years ago and can't concentrate on a book - it was australian - people telling their stories of surviving bushfires.
i agree with you, Pax - i can see, a few hundred years from now, when we're in a post-post-apocalypic world - we'll have scribes back and only the few educated will be able to read!
I agree with you 100%. Letting kids listen to audio books instead of reading is like letting them use calculators instead of learning pencil and paper math (one of my major peeves when I taught school). I didn't have a problem with my science students using calculators (then it's a tool to get the job done more efficiently), but in my math classes they were strictly forbidden. Not a popular stance to take in most modern schools, though the tide is starting to show some signs of shifting back in my direction. Let's cross our fingers and hope the MP3 fad doesn't catch on.
I bought it for Dad for christmas - he had a stroke about 20 years ago and can't concentrate on a book - it was australian - people telling their stories of surviving bushfires.
I like audiobooks, too. I particularly like them as a way to pass the time while I'm on the road. Music gets old after a while, and talk radio just annoys me (or infuriates me, depending on the show). I'm just saying that providing it as an alternative to reading in schools is pontentially detrimental to literacy in the long run.
A good friend of mine is retiring soon from a long career as a college professor and academic author. He is moving to a different city into a smaller home. He cannot donate his vast personal library to the university where he works because, as he said, "The librarian hates book." Apparently the library wants to go all digital.
Three things they say come not back to men nor women--the spoken word, the past life and the neglected opportunity. - Will Dearth, Dear Brutus by J M Barrie
Comments
And I'm sure that will be a comfort to me when I'm reading their job application written in text-message-speech. "Meh BFF Jill sez iz a gud werker." An audiobook isn't a book. It's a movie without pictures. I like movies, and I like audiobooks, but watching and listening is not reading.
I bought it for Dad for christmas - he had a stroke about 20 years ago and can't concentrate on a book - it was australian - people telling their stories of surviving bushfires.
I like audiobooks, too. I particularly like them as a way to pass the time while I'm on the road. Music gets old after a while, and talk radio just annoys me (or infuriates me, depending on the show). I'm just saying that providing it as an alternative to reading in schools is pontentially detrimental to literacy in the long run.