0068: No #revolution without reading comprehension, only slaughter
#critical #education #literacy
Reading comprehension has successfully been reduced to a segment of the tested curriculum that simply involves pulling facts from a passage to answer a question. It may reach slightly further and ask that a reader make a mild inference about the passage, but the answer is neatly provided in a multiple choice form. Reading comprehension equals or should equal critical thought. By reducing it to a mere tested segment of the “reading process” the prescribers of such practice have systematically crippled a generation or so of democratic thinkers.
Reading comprehension requires not only the understanding of the words read in a text, but also an understanding of the context of the experience out of which the text was born. Comprehension connects dots and experiences. It is multidimensional. A reader connects situations and analyzes vast fields of information to build understanding of words and more important the worlds in which they live.
If one is incapable of analyzing texts, situations, and contexts then they are helpless in a literate society. They are at the mercy of the media and those who they look to for guidance. They become victims without knowing it. People who are victims of our “sit and get” over-tested educational systems are controllable, they’re manageable, they’re taught to accept their oppression as a way of life. We must make sure, as teachers concerned with our own futures and those of our fellow human beings, that we do everything in our own power to give our pupils the tools they need to think critically and comprehend words and worlds alike. Information flows freely, but in that mix is a wolf among sheep. It we are producing sheep, then we are ourselves Judas Goats leading our herd to slaughter. We must create critical readers, producers, consumers, and distributers. We must produce our partners and successors.
