Should kids only be taught to read books?

[8wid]

Why can't the elements of internet, music, film, comic books, television, animation, and more be studied just as much as books before high school or college in American public schools? Why only books or written text and the others made to be though of as disruptive or mind-numbing? They can be taken seriously like others too? And I don't mean things like learning to type or music notation either. Think much deeper than that?

[Troy_Parker]

tl;dr

[Troy_Parker]

Kidding.

Yes, they should.

EDIT: Wait, ONLY books? No.

[Ultra Lantern]

They should learn how to use the internet.It's the wave of the future.

[SuperFerret]

As long as they're reading, it's good. It's the one thing I won't hold against the Harry Potter series.

[Ultimatehero]

Originally Posted by Troy_Parker

EDIT: Wait, ONLY books? No.

Seconded.

DESTROY MATH, SCIENCE & HISTORY -- NOT NEEDED!!!

[SuperFerret]

Math, science and history are usually taught in book form.

[Ponyboy]

Originally Posted by 8wid

Why can't the elements of internet, music, film, comic books, television, animation, and more be studied just as much as books before high school or college in American public schools? Why only books or written text and the others made to be though of as disruptive or mind-numbing? They can be taken seriously like others too? And I don't mean things like learning to type or music notation either. Think much deeper than that?

Evidently Jeff Smith's "Bone" is now in a lot of school and public libraries thanks to Scholastic.

I think the reason more TV, comics and animation aren't studied before high school and college is because they aren't fundamentals. Get the math, science, history and literature down... and then when kids have a firm grasp of basics, they can move into other areas that interest them.

[Teelie]

Books are not as important now because of digital text in the form of the internet mainly so no, they should not only read from books. The internet and related technology is ever more important than traditional books and that's what kids are more familar and comfortable with.

Their education should reflect their current reality not the history of how it used to be.

[Franklin Richards]

Watch this.

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:

[November Rain]

Personally i would say that firing up someone's imagination is one of the best things you can provide a child.

and the root of all this comes in the form of understanding the developing the neurons which sets this off.

personally i think the root of all creative is rooted in literature, so understanding how it works will ultimately spread into other forms of creative mediums.

that's in the same way, trying to get into animation without a basis in art is kinda pointless.

i think adapting to new technology is something that we may have had to learn but it will come so naturally to the younger generations, it's not like apple has to hold worldwide seminars on how to use its products.

[Teelie]

Children are already very imaginative. It doesn't take much to spark them but they do get bored easily and that has to be carefully handled or they'll go off and find something else to do which obviously means they won't be learning what you're trying to teach. Interactive classrooms are what they should be in, not dull, stuffy rooms where the teacher drones on and on. Kids need to interact and learn on their terms and their terms are modern technology.

[November Rain]

Originally Posted by Teelie

Children are already very imaginative. It doesn't take much to spark them but they do get bored easily and that has to be carefully handled or they'll go off and find something else to do which obviously means they won't be learning what you're trying to teach. Interactive classrooms are what they should be in, not dull, stuffy rooms where the teacher drones on and on. Kids need to interact and learn on their terms and their terms are modern technology.

children are far from imaginative, how many kids have you seen on brainstorming comittees??? or have written world renouned literature or art?. In general, they are pretty dumb and very simple thinking

and what you are speaking of is how the information is processed.

it doesn't matter if shakespeare is taught out of a book or in interactive 3d solie light holographic atmospheres. It's still fundamentally a script and understanding the way the literature conveys a story is all that is required.

how the information is assimulated is different to what information is assimulated.

[Paroxysm]

Yes they should only be taught to read books. Books are were it's at. What great american e-novels have been written since the creation of the internet? Exactly.

[Teelie]

Originally Posted by November Rain

children are far from imaginative, how many kids have you seen on brainstorming comittees??? or have written world renouned literature or art?. In general, they are pretty dumb and very simple thinking

and what you are speaking of is how the information is processed.

it doesn't matter if shakespeare is taught out of a book or in interactive 3d solie light holographic atmospheres. It's still fundamentally a script and understanding the way the literature conveys a story is all that is required.

how the information is assimulated is different to what information is assimulated.

Children unimaginative? Who has imaginary friends? Who dreams of going to the moon or becoming a superhero? Who are the ones that always find some way to entertain themselves with hardly anything at hand? Children. Calling children dumb and unimaginative is very inaccurate. It's outright ludicrous.

They aren't educated but they're children and lack of education doesn't mean dumb. Every last thing you listed is a direct result of learning and education but it doesn't mean they're dumb because they aren't yet capable of it. They have to be taught. Reading out of a book or being taught it orally or from a computer or through some kind of holographic virtual room, it doesn't matter as long as it's in a format they can comprehend and relate to.

[Spider-Nerd]

Kids should be taught to read period. It was embarrassing the reading skills that students had when I was in school. I'm still to this day thankful that my parents forced/encouraged me to read so much when I was growing up. Even at the 10th grade level, students would read and stutter so often. Even when I moved into the honors and AP classes I would see that many students had a tough time with even basic reading comprehension.

Unfortunately as students got older this became a problem that was only more difficult to solve. If your reading and writing skills aren't up to par by the time you're 18, you're going to have a very tough time improving them drastically enough to catch up even at the college level.

I swear, I would read papers written by undergraduate students and the grammatical errors made me wonder how these students were going to progress in their lives.

Get them reading, and get them reading young. Books, newspapers, magazines. Should they not be allowed to read comic books? Absolutely not. But their skills are only going to improve by reading the tough stuff. If your kid likes Batman, buy him a batman novel and get him to read it.

[Teelie]

Originally Posted by Paroxysm

Yes they should only be taught to read books. Books are were it's at. What great american e-novels have been written since the creation of the internet? Exactly.

Let's see. Books: been around centuries. Depending on your definition, well over a millennia. eBooks, been around at best 15 years. And eBooks can contain anything an existing paper book does now, and be updated to fix inaccuracies or modernize the text.

[Teelie]

Originally Posted by Spider-Nerd

Kids should be taught to read period. It was embarrassing the reading skills that students had when I was in school.

I know exactly what you mean. I was reading college level literature in my sophmore year of high school and it impressed my English teacher that anyone in her class was actually voluntarily reading. She didn't like me reading it during class but that's beside the point.

I mostly read pulp and sci-fi or fantasy (easy to pick up or drop as necessary) but I'm not above reading the true literary classics or modern either and I have a good deal of it in my collection. These days kids don't read like they should but trying to restrict them to one format is not the answer. I still read books in paper but I read eBooks as well and I think with today's technology reading should be applied to more than paper. I'll never stop reading a good old fashioned book but I won't deny the versatility and capability of electronic text either.

[November Rain]

Originally Posted by Teelie

Children unimaginative? Who has imaginary friends? Who dreams of going to the moon or becoming a superhero? Who are the ones that always find some way to entertain themselves with hardly anything at hand? Children. Calling children dumb and unimaginative is very inaccurate. It's outright ludicrous.

a child's imagination is directly related to the literature they are introduced to as they grow up. They are taught and encourages to be imaginative. they arent' naturally imaginative.

a child wouldn't know what a superhero was if not introduced to superhero stuff, and again, the notion of imaginary friends come from their exposure to similar types of media available out there where odinary individuals regularly associate themselves with extraordinary ones.

those aren't natural behavioural developments of kids but the influence of us as adults on them, especially in the west. Take a kid from the middle of the jungle with no form of literary fun or education and see if they are as imaginative as a child from over here. This is my point really that the form of books in us influences them and children aren't latently imagniative beings.

They aren't educated but they're children and lack of education doesn't mean dumb. Every last thing you listed is a direct result of learning and education but it doesn't mean they're dumb because they aren't yet capable of it. They have to be taught. Reading out of a book or being taught it orally or from a computer or through some kind of holographic virtual room, it doesn't matter as long as it's in a format they can comprehend and relate to.

and again, this thread isn't about educational techniques to engage children, its about understanding the basics of other forms.

i.e. musically how certain chords are used to imply mooding, the influence of tempo or beats per minute optimised for a dance track, the best pitch and decibel ranges to imply certain emotive responses.

or why certain musician have influenced their timeframes and future timeframes they operated in.

in a sense, that would be a music literature and language course, which as the thread starter said, is taught at a degree level but isn't introduced beforehand.

you are saying technology would make learning this easier, which is fine or dandy but it plays no part on WHEN it should be learnt (or if it should be learnt at all), which brings us back to square one of this dicussion.

[Spider-Nerd]

The major problem with reading is that kids are forced to read literature in school. Literature that nobody cares about. How the hell do you expect a 13 year old boy to care about roll of thunder hear my cry? When I was around 11 or 12 I read one of the Jason Bourne novels and was completely blown away by the fact that books could be interesting. Books could be like movies, tv, or comic books.

I have no problem having kids read the classics, but no kid is going ENJOY reading if they're forced to read things they find boring.

[SpideyInATree]

Oh goodness...children should DEFINITELY be pushed into reading at school. Television, comics, and just general entertainment they are going to do on their own time.

As Teelie pointed out...when I was in high school I'd be reading novels in my FREE TIME and the teachers were freaking out. Half the kids in my high school still read like they were in the 5th grade. It was sad. Reading is essential.

I think in today's society there should be an Internet class that introduces children on how to utilize the Internet for research, etc. However, we all know what they'll eventually use it for!

Should kids be taught to read books? ABSOLUTELY! However, kids shouldn't have it pounded into their skulls over and over again. Like George Carlin said in his stand up act, "Children should have 3 hours of mandatory daydreaming...".

[Paroxysm]

Originally Posted by Teelie

Let's see. Books: been around centuries. Depending on your definition, well over a millennia. eBooks, been around at best 15 years. And eBooks can contain anything an existing paper book does now, and be updated to fix inaccuracies or modernize the text.

That's great, but you still didn't answer my question. What are some classic works of literature published on the internet?

I don't care HOW kids read, it's the quality of what they read that important here.

[SuperFerret]

Originally Posted by Teelie

Let's see. Books: been around centuries. Depending on your definition, well over a millennia. eBooks, been around at best 15 years. And eBooks can contain anything an existing paper book does now, and be updated to fix inaccuracies or modernize the text.

And this is good how exactly?

[November Rain]

a clear sign of a child's imagination is that you can take a child with a massive natural iq and give them a simple task to perform and they will fail it because they lack the scope to think beyond what has been presented to them

in a sense, the mcguyver quality, which comes later on in life.

[Spider-Nerd]

Originally Posted by SuperFerret

And this is good how exactly?

We can remove text like "****** jim" so kids are shielded from historical context.