Literacy For the Modern Child

“…there is a common concern about the popular culture of the day from sensationalist newspapers

in the 1880s to movies in the 1930s, television in the 1970s, and video games and text messaging today.”

-Bronwyn T. Williams

No matter what generation it is, there will always be complaints about the youngest generation. Whether these complaints be about newspaper articles, movies, risque television, or the video games and texting of the modern age, people will always find something that they feel the need to complain about. When we look back on previous generations, we see that they must have had it all figured out. We look at them and completely disregard the problems they had with their youth. Why are their problems seemingly nonexistent while our problems must be the worst thing to hit planet earth? These problems are right in our faces! We can’t go back in time to compare to how previous generations felt about things, but we can take a better look at our generation and focus on the good things about it rather than what we think is terrible.

Why do video games have to be such a terrible thing? Why are text messages destroying our youth? The honest answer here is that video games aren’t bad for our children. No, I wouldn’t recommend you let your 6 year old who just beat a Winnie the Pooh game to start playing Grand Theft Auto. You need to be smart about your decisions. What makes texting so bad? Are kids really writing how they text in their academic writing? For some reason, adults tend to think that texting is just going to destroy everything that is good and sacred about writing. Why would it? Children don’t use “lol” and “lmao” in their papers. They are aware of where these literacy behaviors are appropriate and where they would be detrimental. If anything, texting is improving the newest generations critical thinking skills!

We seem to think that there is only one clear-cut way to learn. What is it, you ask? Well it is terribly boring and it will leave you never wanting to learn another thing in your life, that’s for sure! Teachers, politicians, and any leader-figures all seem to push that learning has to be structured the same way for every child in the same environment. That seems brilliant, right? Every child is the same, right? I’m the same person as the reader of this blog, right? Wrong! We are all different so naturally we would all learn differently as well. There is no reason that school shouldn’t have a structure to build off of, but when we say that it needs to be structured exactly the same for every child is just ridiculous. We can’t learn that way! Some kids are going to feel like things are way too difficult and other children are going to skate by in school and not learn a thing. Children need to be challenged and they need to feel that the effort they put in is going to be worth it in the end.

We have multiple (and often unlimited) lives in video games. If we get to hit the redo button to try and do something better because we want to, not because someone is forcing us to, why would that seem like a bad thing to apply in school? Sure, people need to learn from their mistakes, but I think that what we really need to do is evaluate what we have going on in the teaching world, and try and adapt it to the modern generation. We need to challenge these children and make sure that when they put in effort, the reward is correlated to that and they get a proper reward because of it. If you put in effort and all you do is fail, that isn’t going to make you want to continue, is it? So we need to figure out ways to push people to their limits and challenge them! Let us redefine what literacy is and apply it to everyone!