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Originally Posted by xg4bx
i'm just curious if anyone has any opinions as to why reading is considered the domain of nerds and squares.
i'm of the mind that schools themselves teach a hatred of reading through their use of ponderously outdated materials. i don't care how classic it is, what modern 15 year olds would be thrilled by shakespeare? in my high school honors english class i was subjected to barbara kingsolver and the thrilling adventures of Pigs in Heaven. no we couldn't have anything cool like Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Johnny Got His Gun or anything interesting, we got Macbeth and Raisin in the Sun instead.
i understand that shakespeare is "the guy" but tossing kids without much novel reading experience headfirst into King Lear is akin to tossing someone who doesn't have 2+2 down into a calculus course.
if i wasn't already a heavy book reader going into school i would have left with an utter hatred of the art form.
i'm not saying that schools have to go nuts and bring in harry potter or twilight but i do think that something with even an iota of contemporary mores and language would do wonders towards getting kids into reading.
but thats just my theory.
any other ideas as to why reading isn't considered fun or "cool"?
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I think you have an excellent point about education. Like you, I was forced to read some utterly eye-gougingly boring material in school. Watership Down was the bane of my existence in high school. I was a bit more able to get into Shakespeare, just because I'd always read, but it wasn't what I
wanted to read at that age.
But as to your general point, I think it depends who you're asking.
There are plenty of intelligent people who aren't "readers," per se. And I do think readers have a habit of discounting people who don't read as a hobby as being less intelligent.
I know plenty of "non-readers" who are of average or above intelligence, and none of them think reading is uncool.
The only people who make it past the age of 10 and think reading is "uncool" are people who intentionally place themselves in a "stupid" social group. Think street culture and macho men. It's a form of anti-intellectualism, and I don't see it present in the average well-adjusted adult.
So, in short, I don't think reading is considered to be "uncool" to most adults, whether they read or not.
As far as children? It's associated with introversion, I suppose. That's a generalization, and there's nothing wrong with introversion, but some children have a habit of being cruel towards anything even slightly different. Children can also be cruel towards other kids who have glasses, braces, poofy hair, are one inch taller or shorter than normal, or have a name. Any name. And god help you if you have an unusual name.
So I hardly think it useful to single out reading as an example of what kids pick on. Kids pick on everything.