Re: The troubles

[twayburn@juno.com (Thomas L Wayburn)]

On Tue, 7 Oct 1997 12:04:49 -0700 Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca> writes:
> > Reading has fallen on hard times at least in quality if not in 
> quantity,
> > and getting students to work with a text in light of  competition 
> from TV,
> > computers, radio, and other printed media is no mean feat.
>
> I'm getting tired of this particular item of received knowledge. It 
> just
> isn't so that TV is responsible for the sorry tastes of our students. 
> We
> have many students who can appreciate a good book, good music, etc. 
> They
> should not all be categorized as vidiots. The quality of reading that 
> is
> available today surely can't be less than it was fifty years ago 
> because
> all the literature which existed then still exists! Samuel Clemens is
> dead, but Mark Twain still lives.
>
> I don't know how it happened, but we raised four Gegenbeispielen in 
> our
> home. I watch more TV than any other member of our family ever did, so
> TV was definitely available in our home. The only censoring we did was
> to forbid the children to watch game shows ("The Price is Right", 
> etc.),
> and they didn't. Evelyn and all four children were hooked on books 
> from
> the time they learned to read. I wish I could tell you how that 
> happened;
> I can't, but I'm glad it did.
>
> We've got to get over attributing our teaching problems to TV and 
> video
> games. More constructive approaches must be taken. In my view the
> quality of the students has, indeed, declined. To attribute this to 
> the
> causes mentioned is to commit the logical error of *post hoc ergo
> propter hoc*, the attribution of causality solely based upon the time
> order of two events. Lots more has changed in our society (and these
> students' social environments) than just TV. There was TV in my 
> parents'
> home since I turned twelve, back in 1947. This is not even a recent
> phenomenon. Moreover, finding the cause of our difficulties will not
> help alleviate them (unless by some miracle we can, by identifying 
> them,
> convince others in the society to attack these problems). I'm afraid 
> we
> must learn to teach them as we get them.
>
> Leigh
Hi Leigh,
 
 I don't think it's a fallacy this time.  I watched TV all day one day in
college and as the day disappeared I said, "That's it, no more."    In
1974, we acquired a 12" Sony Trinitron, I just watched a video tape of
Bill Evans, the great pianist, that someone in France sent me with French
subtitles.  I watched a couple of innings of Cleveland and New York last
night because we don't get to see Bernie Williams et al. much, but what
happens when the kid comes?   The intellectual level (except baseball) is
prebirth.   (No kid can learn baseball.  Half the major league players
don't understand the game very well.  That's a problem!)

  But, the news!!!  The shows!!!  The new crap such that the networks
don't pay entertainers anymore will definitely cause mental difficulties.
   And I haven't even gotten to the brainwashing.   Most Americans think
they live in the greatest country in the world with the best economic
system imaginable.   I hope that doesn't include you.   

  Hell yes, it's TV, and the monsters behind it including especially
those who are using it to consolidate their ownership of the world.  
American children, except for the geniuses whom ye have always with ye,
are brain dead.   I will never teach in a formal setting again.  That's
an oath, and I don't even take oaths.   

But, how can I save my own?


Regards / Tom

P.S. Sorry to be so down.

P.P.S. Survey:  How many of us have read all of Dickens, Hardy, Walter
Scott, Melville, Garcia Marquez, Borges, Hawthorne, Trollope, Proust,
Baudelaire, Camus, Kafka, Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, Miller, Durrell, Waugh,
Burroughs  (William not Edgar Rice), Shakespeare, Shaw, Marlowe,
Sophocles, Homer, Aristotle, Plato, Marx, Dewey, Peirce, Russell, for
starters.  WE are college professors.  No time for that intellectual
stuff.  If not us, who?