Harry Potter

[Dave Monroe]

Well, okay, I'll bite, finally have to chime in here ...

Terrance wrote:

> The figure for literacy should be a good reader, not the snob

Indeed.  And, while I think that, if it's "good"--i.e., critical, to my
mind--readers ye be a-wantin', it's "good"--"challenging,"
perhaps?--lit'rachure they ought a be a-readin', I still would empasize the
how over the what, how one is reading, the many ways in which one is able to
read, over what one reads.  Or even thinks, speaks, writes, acts critically
about.  Forgot to snip the snipe at teevee here, but, apparently, some
big-time edumacator or another back in the seventies had suggested that
children should be taught, should be given experienec in, critical television
watching, that is, in unpacking, deconstructing, whatever, all those messages
coming in under the horizon.  Ceratinly not abad thing, given how much TV
most kids are going to see, maybe even watch, no matter what.  But, of
course, the idea was laughed out on a rail: "teach children to watch TV? Ho
ho ho ...".  God forbid they'd be able to identify, problematize, resist,
even, say, the commericialization, sexism, racism, ageism, you name it, which
serves as the background noise of daily live these days ... but onward:

> Can we prevent the next generation of readers from adopting
> our habits? Our middlebrow tastes in contemporary popular
> fiction? Our lowbrow tastes for potboilers? Our consumer
> consenting tastes in the pop fiction of the day? Should we?
> Will this make them snobbish readers? Or will this make some
> illiterate?

No, no, no, no, no, possibly, possibly, and why risk it?  Why not let kids
read what they are interested in, even within, I don't know, "reasonable"
bounds?

> "My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately
> and all the time, with my eyes hanging out."
>                         ---Dylan Thomas

... well, those dangling eyestalks aside, I'd wholeheartedly agree.  Sure,
not every kid, not most kids, is/are going to be all that motivated, but it
is going to be a whole lot easier to get a kid to read, to think, "well,"
critically, if you let her/him pursue her/his own interests.  And a good
critical reading of yr "middlebrow" "pop" "potboilers" might just be what
these kids today need most of all, well, except for equally critical viwings
of that demon television and equally critical listenings to that demon
rock'n'roll and maybe a properly fitted pair of jeans (these kids today,
they're wearing too big a pants, and too small a shirts ...).  Which is not
to say DON'T slip 'em the Shakespeare or the Beethoven or the PBS or ... but
it might welll be more challenging, more effective, and more interesting for
kids--for people--to have to scrutinize that which they might otherwise
accept at afce value, or let slide uncommented upon entirely ...