Friday, February 5, 2010
Friday reading
Online activity sometimes gives
a different kind of reading, sort
of like reading magazines. I'm
thinking deeply after reading many
articles spurred on a discussion from
Charlotte Mason's Vol 2, Parents
and Children. We had watched
Frontline: Digital Nation
on PBS this past week. It is worth
seeing ( 90 minutes) and discussing.
CM was evaluating current educational
methods in the section we read. That
made me think WHAT is going on today.
How is multitasking changing the brain
and learning? How is technology changing
our lives as well as our educational system?
So in reading my literature class' current
book: The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott
( Third Crusade) , it is a slow reading
because he is detailed and he uses
language that is rich. One of my students
said " I find myself passing a paragraph
too quickly for understanding and going
back to reread it." YEAH. Has the computer's
quick pace made us jump from paragraphs
to paragraphs and skim over the richness
of language, place and heritage?
click on his name to see where he lived!
I want to go there. I want my students
to long to go there.
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4 comments:
Ah, the richness of language...your post was very interesting. Yes, we are losing the ability to dwell in the language, slowly, to savor and ingest it and pay attention to it. Way too much skimming across the surface these days. Perhaps our whole society and culture is "skating on ice"....don't you find it ironic that in this information age when there is so very much available to us we don't know how to mine it? And the treasures stay hidden and lost, at our fingertips.
Sigh.
Teachers like you are what will help this internet gen to hold on to the values in deepness and richness in our literature ... and lives...
Yep, multitasking is a big monster. I've gotten to the place of training myself to AVOID that pit. Lots was getting done, but poorly.
Your post is right on target...as to reading the classics, I remember when I first read Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Ubervilles'. Had to slow way down (and as a re-read, it's not even a strain now!).
You go girl.
I've had the great pleasure of visiting Abbotsford on the English-Scottish border. Some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen. His home is very romantic, dark, and lovely. I especially loved his library. I remember thinking, "I could write something worthwhile in here." I remember, too, the peacocks sitting on the garden walls with their lovely tail feathers draping over the old stones. It was a visit I'll never forget. Thanks for reviving the memory.
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