With illiteracy at least there is the inability to read, but aliteracy is just shameful (for those who don’t know aliteracy is having the ability to read but choosing not to). As a writer and an avid devotee to all things literary, it simply astonishes me that people don’t like to read; however, it is understandable.
I honestly believe aliteracy starts in the classroom. Ironic, but true. Remember in elementary school when teacher forced you to read a cryptic, headache inducing Emily Dickinson poem, or in middle school when The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was chosen for you, or in high school when anything by James Joyce made you question whether English teachers were sadists?
In that example, two things are happening here: first, books are chosen for you; secondly, you are given a warped perception of what books are and what it means to be a reader.
The former is a problem easily remedied. You have to read books in school. Fact of life: There is no way around it–there are layers of philosophical depth in those tomes otherwise your teachers would be wasting their time. But, I think it’s necessary to encourage children to find books concerning their interests. The best way to spark a child’s interest is not to narrow their selection. Sure, promote the classics but give them modern, popular novels or magazines or even comic books. Literature is not just the highbrow works, but anything written is literary.
A few weeks ago in my Mass Media and Society class, we were assigned to visit a library or second-hand bookshop to peruse the shelves and bring back something interesting. And, it astonished me the number of non-readers who discovered rows of books that piqued their curiosity–all because they involved their hobbies and interests.
The second issue is a little more difficult to deal with because it involves stereotypes. From an early age, we are inculcated to believe that anything worth reading was written before the 20th century in archaic, superfluous diction dragging on for at least three-hundred pages, but could have been written in one-hundred. And, we are trained to think that unless we read under those parameters we’re wasting our time.
It is a tragic assumption by so many young people that reading is as valid a form of entertainment as watching TV or a movie. It’s okay to read a book just to burn a few hours, even if you want nothing other than to savor the language. Besides, not every novel reads like The Scarlet Letter.
Another facet of this problem is the one-dimensional image of what a reader is. Ask anyone and they’ll probably reply: a person (usually female) who’s shy or reclusive.
I say women because of their association with magazines and books, particularly the recent genre chick-lit–whose label I have a problem with due to the narrowing of books in the public imagination and the disservice it performs to female readers with one type of book. Because women are associated with books–ironic as they were forbidden to read for centuries–it creates a binary ideal: books are for girls, not boys.
Studies have shown that teenage girls have better linguistic and writing skills that their male counterparts; and the majority of readers, especially of fiction, are women. That masculinity and literature are antithetical, as if to be a guy who reads there must be something wrong with you, is just a juvenile belief; plus it genderizes the activity. We know how little boys act: if girls do it then they won’t.
Then there’s the stereotype of the socially awkward person in the corner who never talks and reads all day. Some of the most extroverted, effervescent people in the world love books. The activity is not relegated to the realm of quiet people–though they do tend to read more. This image promotes the idea among schoolchildren that to read is “uncool,” thus helping propagate aliteracy among youth.
I must admit that for the longest time, whenever someone asked if I liked reading I would say no–even though I’d been pleasure reading for years. I was affected by the notion that you had to read constantly in order to be considered a reader; plus, I’d been haunted by all the terrible books I had to read for English class up to that point.
Books are not something to loathe or shun. Considering the staggering illiteracy rates around the world, it’s a blessing in this country that we are granted this gift. So pick up a book every once in a while, or, to play with a catch phrase popularized by P. Diddy: Read or Die.