Kids These Days

written by Kelly Rouse and Erin Norton

ach year it seems the up-coming generations keep

getting dumber. Or so we keep being told. Kids
these days rely so much on their technology that
they become disinterested in most anything else, including books and other traditional forms of literacy. Some
call this a literacy crisis. The conversation concerning
this crisis continues to circle around adolescents and
young adults and their attachment and uses of new
media. This conversation has drawn many responses
from academics, teachers, linguists, writers, students
and more. Myatt, a leadership myth buster and writer
for Forbes magazine, discusses the difference between
education and literacy today versus when the founding
fathers penned this nations documentation over 200
years ago. He says that back then literacy rates were
better than they are today, that colonists
had more extensive vocabularies, higher
levels of literacy, and a better mastery over
a wider variety of subjects (Myatt). He says
that our leaders and young people today
are educated but not literate, earning degrees but that
they are lacking rich intellect. Bauerlein makes a parallel
point saying that our generation thinks it is important to
be smart but that they rarely read books or newspapers
(Bauerlein). Myatt, and I think Bauerlein would agree,
argues for a classical form of education, saying that we
are learning from pre-digested texts and that we are
ignoring the tools of learning that have been commonly
accepted for thousands of years. Myatt states that:

is outdated. Reading original sources is too difficult, so

we read predigested textbooks. We spend more time in
front of our televisions than frequenting our local libraries. Weve believed that the easier way is the better way.
Its difficult to put in the hard work of reading a great
work of literature, when we spend our time writing in
140 characters, (Myatt).


He argues that our current form of education is
not making the cut, that we are missing out on a higher
form of literacy and leadership. He makes the argument
that we should be pulling out and digesting the information ourselves, reading books that are considered literature, and doing research the traditional way: in the
library. He claims we have rejected the successful model
of education
in favor of
entertainment and
job training.
Bauerlein makes a similar argument when he argues
that we have a, brazen disregard of books and reading,
(Bauerlein). He argues that wed rather be using other
simplified ways to do research and study, creating simplified minds and creative processes.

Myatt ignores a key element: the way literacy is
used has changed. While I would agree that today we
might not be able to digest the same literacies in the
same way colonists did, we are not using the same literacy practices. Myatt is judging our literacy by the literacy
practices of the 1800s, where if he were to judge colo-

...the way literacy is

used has changed.

Memorizing historical events and multiplication tables

nists on their ability to cope with the literacy practices

of today, Im sure he would come to the same resolution.
Neither group is equipped for the other groups literacy
practices.

The literacy practices of the 1800s have evolved
and have changed into where we are and what we know
today. Because of that, the way we view literacy, what
is relevant, and
how to practice it
has also changed.
We really arent
experiencing two
separate things
or looking at two
separate technologies, but instead
a continuation of
the same technologies that have
advanced throughout the years.
For example, we
still read today,
however it varies
greatly from how the colonists read as the material and
the medium are drastically different. As society changes
so does the way we practice literacy.

Myatt also argues that we have rejected classical
education in favor of entertainment and job training,
(Myatt). I feel as though Myatt is disregarding two
points: 1) that there is so much information and areas of
study that one cant possibly dabble in them all 2) that
with the advent of certain literacy practices and changes in industry, job training might be the most effective
way to learn these specialized tasks. Over the last 200
years, there have been many discoveries, so much so that
we have developed many fields of study in order for an
individual to be able to concentrate their studies in their
specific field of choice. I feel that this system was developed because there grew to be more information than
one individual could rightly understand from a general
education standpoint. So while we may receive a general
education up through high school and then move into a
more specialized field, doesnt mean that our literacy is
declining or that we are less intelligent because our fields
of study arent as varied as they once were. In regards to
these specialized fields of study, they are still somewhat
generalized. As we move from college into the job field,

there are still specifics of the company we go to work for

that we will not have learned from our time at college.
Different companies do things in different ways and so
job training is a major part of learning how to fit into
that company and learn its literacy practices.

Myatt disregards the fact that literacy practices
have changed and therefore so must the way we view
literacy. If we were
still practicing
literacy the way
the colonists did,
than I can see
the validity of his
comparison. However, many things
have changed, and
so I feel that there
is no real literacy
crisis, that we are
practicing literacy as the culture
deems relevant
and appropriate.
photo from: www.flash-screen.com
However, I do
think we need to be vigilant, making sure that we are
not forgetting precious lessons from our past and that we
are in fact bettering ourselves and generations to come
through our uses of technology.

Similarly Salmonowicz, researcher and former
high school teacher in the Chicago area, agrees that the
quality of education is declining and that kids might
not be understanding the material. But he argues it is
because of their behavioral issues, not because they dont
want to learn but because they cant (Salmonowicz).
There are many factors that play a role in how kids
respond to literacy in our educational system. We need
to be vigilant in responding to these different factors and
helping kids learn.

Salmonowicz states that low literacy skill contributes to the cause of troubled kids. Kids dropping
out of school, and/or acting up in class, could be because
they dont understand or cannot read the material. He
says the main cause of problems in most schools is attendance, behavior, and dropout rate. The schools are using
these things as excuses as to why the kids arent doing
well on the annual state tests but Salmonowicz argues
that these things are symptoms of illiteracy not causes.
Salmonowicz states:

While serving as director of the reading development

team at a turnaround high school in Chicago last year,
I found that 60 percent of students were reading on or
below a sixth-grade level. Just over 20 percent of our
students were reading on or below a fourth-grade level,
and half of them were freshmenpresumably because
most struggling readers in the upper grades had dropped
out of school already, (Salmonowicz)

In this quote, Salmonowicz states that he observed high school freshman students in a Chicago
school and based on his research he found that 80 percent of the students had a reading level of a sixth grade
level and below. He points out that kids are not going to
want to come to school and struggle through the lessons and books for hours on end. They wont speak up
because they are embarrassed and afraid that their peers
and teachers will find out that they struggle with literacy.
Their misbehavior is a way to take attention off of their
struggles with literacy and put more focus on something
else. The main problem that is occurring is that we are
finding out about this illiteracy too late. Salmonowicz
mentions that it is an ongoing issue that starts in lower
elementary grades. The grades will gradually go down
year after year and by the time that these kids become
freshman in
high school,
they are so far
behind that it is
hard for them
to catch up. He
concludes that
we need to start
dealing with
these problems
at the very beginning, during their elementary years, so
that we can avoid struggles with literacy in the future.

I find that I have experienced what Myatt and
Bauerlein would consider a classical education, filled
with traditional books, penmanship sheets, and times
tables. Ive memorized historic facts and regurgitated
them for exams. However, as the world around me
changed, so did the way I had to learn. New literacy
practices and new technologies demanded that I learn
and experience them in a different way. Trial and error
replaced repetition and methods. Because of the nature
of interacting with the new technology, this new style

of learning worked well. I was able to learn and develop

a rich experience with a new medium, discovering and
learning through the use of new media. For example,
reading a story on a Kindle was a different experience for
me than reading a paper book, I would not equate the
two, however, reading on a Kindle was still a meaningful
literary experience for me.

Classroom experinces can also be alienating
experiences. As a kid in the classroom myself, I have
seen kids shrink into the background because they are
ashamed of not knowing or understanding the material
or they acted out to take the focus off of the fact that
they couldnt participate. Just as Salmonowicz aruged,
I think that keeping a critical eye on our educational
system is a good thing and that we need to be looking at
other possibilities for why kids arent succeeding besides
blaming them for not trying.

Literacy is changing and will continue to change.
It is an ever-evolving facet of our culture that will never
remain fixed. As new media evolves, communication
changes, culture blends, and other factors of our lives
ebb and flow - so will literacy. Literacy will change to
fit our needs; we will learn what we need to survive, to
be active participants in our contexts, and to be functional members of our surroundings. However, it seems
unrealistically optimistic to think that everyone is ever
going to agree on what
literacy is and how
exactly we need to be
teaching it to younger
generations. Were all
individuals who learn
differently, experience
things differently, and
think differently, as
many variations as that
amounts to be, thats how many possible definitions
of literacy there could be. However, there is a sort of
naturally agreed-upon criteria, as literacy is necessary to
communicate, these communications are most generally conveyed through reading and writing but can be
implemented through multiple mediums and platforms.
Literacy, most generally defined as the ability to read
and write, may more accurately be stated as the ability to
communicate a message through the appropriate means
and context. Elements such as audience, medium, culture, and relationships come into consideration, making
literacy a more complicated topic than just reading and

Literacy is changing and

will continue to change. It
is an ever-evolving facet of
our culture that will never
remain fixed.

writing. It doesnt have to be standard English to be literacy, doesnt have to be from a book to be literacy, but I
believe the communication does have to be context-specific and appropriate, accurately conveying the message
to the intended audience.

Works Cited

1. Bauerlein, Mark. The Dumbest GenerationHow

The Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans And Jeopardizes Our Future. Leadership and Management in
Engineering 9.2 (2009): 100. Print.
2. Myatt, Mike. The Un-Education of a Nation: Where

We Went Wrong. Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 3 July

2012. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. <http://www.forbes.com/
sites/mikemyatt/2012/07/03/the-un-education-of-a-nation-where-we-went-wrong/>.
3. Salmonowicz, Michael. Why literacy is at the heart
of the problems that plague our lowest-performing
public schools. Start with a Story. N.p., 25 Jan. 2010.
Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://startwithastory.wordpress.
com/2010/01/26/why-literacy-is-at-the-heart-of-theproblems-that-plague-our-lowest-performing-publicschools/>.