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EP: 151 Literacy Crisis Pt. 2 · Humanity Unplugged Podcast

0:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello guys, how you guys doing?
0:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, hello, hello to all.
0:14
[SPEAKER_01]: One come to come all, sit down and come on in the door.
0:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Take off your shoes, relax your feet.
0:21
[SPEAKER_01]: This is humanity unplug podcast and I am your host.
0:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Jumane McCremmon and we are glad to have you in the building one more time.
0:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a beautiful day outside.
0:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We had some great weather the past few days and I'm glad that I have the privilege and the blessing on the man upstairs to give me an opportunity to enjoy it.
0:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know for some of you guys this is the season where we are able to enjoy
0:56
[SPEAKER_01]: our family, our weather, the outside, nature, outdoors, just doing different things, activities with your loved ones or just taking the time for self and letting the mind relax and enjoy what's out there for you.
1:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It turns out activities all over.
1:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Depending on where you at, if you're in the city, New York, you know you have the summer jams, the summer concerts, the summer.
1:33
[SPEAKER_01]: rallies outside in the park where you're able to enjoy the different festivities and activities throughout the city, if you're in the big city.
1:45
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're in the suburbs, do you do have different things, art galleries, things like that you can go out to along with live concert live music,
1:57
[SPEAKER_01]: college games, university games, baseball games, softball, kids, playgrounds and things are such that you can entertain yourself in your family, along with in case you get visitors coming in, you can have nice places to go with them as well.
2:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Same thing, excuse me, if you were in the city.
2:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I like to first as we continue on.
2:27
[SPEAKER_01]: uh, I like the first given honor to everyone that tunes in, whether accidentally or um, everyday dedication to the channel into the page of Humanity Unplug Podcast.
2:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I've continued to tell you that we're going to be doing things and keep moving things forward.
2:48
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what we do, and I want you to know nothing stops, nothing changes, no matter what goes on, we will keep pushing the envelope, keep moving forward.
3:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Given you good information about what's going on in your everyday world,
3:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether you know or not, things have not changed with economy, our president, things are still the way they are, and that's okay, because through all civil lighting, there is hope, and we gotta keep pushing forward, things are getting better, it just takes time.
3:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad that we had different things to try to keep our mind sane.
3:33
[SPEAKER_01]: doing tough times.
3:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Sports is a distraction, but also it's a form of entertainment to take your mind off of life realities.
3:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be rigged, it could not be rigged, who cares, but it's an entertainment that keeps you.
3:54
[SPEAKER_01]: refocused on other things that might can relax your stress level and it's very important that you relax your stress level.
4:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully everyone is going to the doctor again the checkups when it's hot people but introduced themselves to exercises and more eating healthy habits
4:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And such, and that is a great thing to do and also a great way to keep yourself active and looking great.
4:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I can thank all our sponsors, people who take the time to talk about us.
4:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And in a positive or negative way, it doesn't bother me at all.
4:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We thank you.
4:44
[SPEAKER_01]: all over.
4:44
[SPEAKER_01]: We all over Russia, all over Africa, all over you guys are really supporting us online.
4:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And we continue to thank you.
4:54
[SPEAKER_01]: We'd like you guys to check in on our social media platform on our YouTube channel.
5:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been real flaky for some reason.
5:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to keep repeating episodes.
5:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I've done all I can do to try to fix it.
5:09
[SPEAKER_01]: to re-adjust it to stop having the schedule the same stuff and matter how much I delete it it comes back.
5:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had it now with a particular podcast program but I'm going to have to delete that again.
5:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I had two different ones and now I'm going to try Riverside.
5:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And to see if Riverside can give me what I need, what I have this thing just keep backing up.
5:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I might have to change the page.
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, but it just keep giving me things.
5:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want it to do on our YouTube channel.
5:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But please follow us on YouTube, follow us on Instagram, all social media platforms.
5:46
[SPEAKER_01]: We are there to give you guys good information and consistency.
5:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Today's episode is 151 Literacy Crisis Part 2 and I want you guys to understand this is a problem.
5:58
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a major major major problem that our kids are in high school, in junior high school, in elementary school, and they cannot read.
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: They cannot function, they cannot do anything, because they're focusing on social media and distractions,
6:13
[SPEAKER_01]: from when they're a kid has grown up and started to fester as not to get into the teenage and young adult years and then when they go into the young adult of getting out of high school they're unable to comprehend and keep up with today's economy because they cannot provide for themselves or their families.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: This is an issue that we have continued to see over time and it's gotten worse.
6:36
[SPEAKER_01]: People have reached it out different times and try to talk about it and we like to
6:44
[SPEAKER_01]: For doing their diligence, doing their research, giving us great information, you guys can take with you on and try to push and change a narrative in our society, in our communities, on our kids learning how to read, knowing that it is more important to pick up a book, to pick up a video game.
7:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not that important that you can't take a day.
7:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Our out of a 24 hour day and read a book,
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We are so custom and new generation of people of given our kids video games or social media platforms to talk, to shake their booty, to look fancy there.
7:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's hot, one attention, it is disgusting.
7:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is causing our kids to do the due diligence, to be educated, fine, great careers, and provide for their family.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Anytime you tell a child to go get a career, they run away from that responsibility.
7:41
[SPEAKER_01]: a lot of times because it comes from the upbringing.
7:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It comes from the structure that was given or not given when they were a kid.
7:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is the problem.
7:51
[SPEAKER_01]: We hold on to these problems long enough when they are they become defested into a sore, a cancerous entity in the body that I make sure think you cannot do it or you don't wanna do it because you think the uphill battle is so tough.
8:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not.
8:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not so hard, you could become, you can become whatever you want to become if you put the hard work into it.
8:18
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't say it's going to happen overnight, but I'm going to live in witness that if you put the time in, you can accomplish all your dreams and goals.
8:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone has a different satisfaction, level or a level of where they feel accomplished or a level where they just feel like they're good, wherever they're at in life.
8:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people are good being a fireman, some people are good being a post office, the delivery man, a postman, mailman, some are good being a cop, some are good being a correction officer.
8:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone is good to do what they want to do is great to have different skills and trade sets.
8:55
[SPEAKER_01]: in our economy, in our community.
8:58
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what builds up our economy.
8:59
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what builds up our community.
9:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But you must know how to read.
9:07
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't know how to read, you can't operate a train, you can't do anything.
9:11
[SPEAKER_01]: We need fire, we need elevated conductors.
9:16
[SPEAKER_01]: We need train conductors.
9:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We need electricians.
9:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We need plumbers.
9:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We need brick layers.
9:22
[SPEAKER_01]: We need,
9:24
[SPEAKER_01]: programmers, we need electronic specialists.
9:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We need people to be able to comprehend and stressful environments.
9:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So therefore, you need to know how to read the problem with our society and the problem with our community and the problem with our government and the problem with our president and a lot of other people that follow.
9:49
[SPEAKER_01]: is they want to cut off the funding that allow us to keep pushing kids in that direction.
9:59
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the problem.
10:03
[SPEAKER_01]: We're building more prisons not enough libraries.
10:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We're building more prisons not enough trade schools.
10:18
[SPEAKER_01]: to give kids more, opportunity to go to college or trade school to get some type of education that I helped them.
10:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We built in more prisons, but we not helping third, fourth, second, first grade programs that help dedicate the kids to go back into the books.
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: These programs are running extinct, extinct, and our parents are being distracted,
10:43
[SPEAKER_01]: on folks and on teaching their children because they're tired, they're overworked, they're underpaid, and it's stressful in their house.
10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're pushing and promoting single parents.
10:54
[SPEAKER_01]: We're pushing and promoting same sex marriages.
10:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We're pushing and promoting a child don't have to wear a panty and wear a man and wear a dress to school.
11:05
[SPEAKER_01]: These things might not be hurtful, but it's a distraction.
11:13
[SPEAKER_01]: see a child's attention span is different than a young adults or adult attention span.
11:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you distract them at one time when they're younger, sometimes they never come back.
11:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Can not a curiosity that they get from being distracted grows and not they want to go further out and do more things because they're curious.
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that man holding that man hand?
11:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that woman holding that woman hand?
11:43
[SPEAKER_01]: That's their prerogative.
11:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have nothing against it.
11:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But that brings on a curiosity that grows and distracts them for what they should be focusing on.
11:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know I know I know.
11:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always distractions, but we watch it on TV alone.
12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We watched different things distract our children from what they need to be focused on.
12:06
[SPEAKER_01]: When the last time you seen a commercial, they had pick up a book.
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Reading is fundamental.
12:16
[SPEAKER_01]: practice math.
12:17
[SPEAKER_01]: When the last time we had a child on 13 back in the day, come on TV, where they just shut down the TV, and the kid got an hour of just learning something that's productive, that will help them him or her and her life later on.
12:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Those programs are gone.
12:37
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no more sesame street like that that comes on TV to help the kids.
12:42
[SPEAKER_01]: They still have it here and there.
12:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not an abundancey, but now you got to log on to websites and log on the different things to get it when it was free once upon a time on your on your TV.
12:55
[SPEAKER_01]: See, I remember back in the day when four remotes came out.
12:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling my age, but I remember when remotes came out.
13:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember when we used to take our hand and turn the TV.
13:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember when we turned the TV with a knob, I know, come on somebody.
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And we turned the TV and knees with the channels, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.
13:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you wanted to see Sesame Street, everybody know 13.
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all you had.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: If you wanted to see something misquisite, you would wait to channel 9, come on, and you have Benny Hill come on, and he would have girls with big boobs up there, running around and trying to chase him, carbonette was cool, I know, I know, this is before, you know, way before, but as we go forward and we look into where we at now in life,
14:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me see as we come a big problem.
14:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So we got these things we're gonna talk about.
14:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna look into these two videos and then I'm gonna get it by your way.
14:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not gonna hold up your day but I will tell you that today and every day it's a day that you can teach your kids something new and I take the time to talk to them, take the time to sit down with them, eat dinner with them, talk crap with them, get it to know your child, get to talk to your child.
14:26
[SPEAKER_01]: They could be holding things.
14:27
[SPEAKER_01]: They could be harboring things that happened.
14:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Try to get that out there out there system.
14:32
[SPEAKER_01]: See what's going on.
14:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Try to be there for them.
14:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
14:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I got four kids.
14:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Out of four of my kids.
14:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Two of my kids talked to me.
14:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, my kids had a great life.
14:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But they mother brainwatched them into some ill thoughts and priorities that changed their life.
14:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, once everything got back where they found out the truth, and then knew what was what?
15:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, Dad wasn't no saint that he did short the ball a couple times, but my consistency.
15:09
[SPEAKER_01]: outweigh any shortcomings, kids will make their own decision who they want to rock with.
15:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Because kids, a lot of kids as they get older, they become opportunists, they become what you don't want them to become because of who they've been around for so long.
15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: If their mother was opportunists and they followed behind their mother, your kids will follow those traits, it's just that's what it is.
15:32
[SPEAKER_01]: They ain't got to like it, but that's what it is.
15:35
[SPEAKER_01]: They want everything for free or cheap or on your expense because that's what it is.
15:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a man or a woman, you have to understand, you're harboring your kids, you're not helping your kids, you're hurting your kids.
15:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So I understood as a young man when I asked God to give me sightbound sight to take care of my children and get them through that I'm going to be many of days I got to stand by myself.
16:03
[SPEAKER_01]: because right is right and wrong is wrong and they might not realize that now until they get older and realize they were wrong.
16:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And they can't get back that time that they lost in between.
16:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fine.
16:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But understand that if you do the best you can, you keep God first and keep God in your life.
16:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Here, work it out.
16:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my word for you today guys.
16:31
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, let's get into this video.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: God bless everyone, this is your main equipment.
16:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna give you our what you need.
16:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You ain't got a like it.
16:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You ain't got a like it.
16:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I'm saying?
16:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's what it is.
16:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Let her receive is here and is here to stay.
16:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless we change, here we go.
16:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Living through a literacy crisis or is this just a long standing failure?
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Dressed up as something new.
16:58
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to understand the American Literacy Crisis, you need to know three numbers.
17:02
[SPEAKER_00]: First up, 40%.
17:04
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the percentage of American fourth graders who cannot read it what's called a basic level.
17:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Every few years, students around the country think a test called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or the NAEP.
17:14
[SPEAKER_00]: This is also sometimes called the Nations Report Card, and it allows us to track educational progress throughout the country.
17:21
[SPEAKER_00]: reading sources have remained relatively stable since 1992 until 2019 when they started to decline.
17:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes that's reported as saying that 40% of students can't read, but that's not what those statistics mean.
17:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So now 40% of fourth graders can't read it what's considered a basic level, and only 31% can read it what's considered a proficient level.
17:40
[SPEAKER_00]: The NAAP also defines those terms and just because a kid can't read it, basic level doesn't mean that they can't read.
17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: But the literature crisis doesn't stop at elementary schools, and that brings us to our second
17:51
[SPEAKER_00]: 28%.
17:51
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the sure of US adults that are at the lowest level of literacy.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: In the last decade, that number has increased by nine points.
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to let this play and then I get back to it right quick, nothing serious.
18:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, we back here.
18:10
[SPEAKER_00]: As adults can't read, but it does mean that they are what's called functionally illiterate.
18:14
[SPEAKER_00]: This means that they lack literacy skills which would allow them to navigate the world and go about their day-to-day task.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And our final number is 21.
18:21
[SPEAKER_00]: That's Mississippi's ranking in fourth grade literacy as of 2022.
18:25
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2013, Mississippi was ranked 49th.
18:28
[SPEAKER_00]: They were basically at the bottom of the country's rankings and now they are well above the middle.
18:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That's because they saw the problem and they actually tried to solve it.
18:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So at the end of this video, we're going to talk about what Mississippi has done right.
18:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But first, we're going to take a slightly closer look at that NAAP data.
18:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Literacy scores have been declining since 2019.
18:48
[SPEAKER_00]: This might not be that surprising because something rather big happened in 2020, which caused a lot of school closures, and we've generally seen learning loss across the board.
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Absentism is also up post-COVID, which does complicate actually teaching kids how to read.
19:01
[SPEAKER_00]: One group of students hasn't seen a decline in their test scores, though.
19:04
[SPEAKER_00]: These are students who are already in the 90th percentile.
19:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So what we're seeing is a widening gap between those students who are reading quite well, and those students who are struggling to read it
19:13
[SPEAKER_00]: This tells us something important.
19:14
[SPEAKER_00]: If we want to improve American literacy, the biggest impact we can have is by focusing on those students who are struggling to read the most.
19:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's going to be important when we talk about Mississippi in a few minutes.
19:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But even those top-performing students, like the students who would go on to study at really great colleges and universities, are also struggling.
19:32
[SPEAKER_00]: At the University of Texas here in Austin, some professors told their school newspaper that they would be shortening reading assignments.
19:38
[SPEAKER_00]: and transitioning to assigning things like YouTube videos and audio books instead of physical books because students simply didn't have the patience for the reading assignments anymore.
19:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to know this is a great video.
19:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that not took up.
19:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to get the name of this video.
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But these guys just some great work.
19:55
[SPEAKER_01]: These two videos we're going to see today.
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome work on literacy and what needs to be done.
20:02
[SPEAKER_00]: One professor was told by a students that Shakespeare's Hamlet was too long to read.
20:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Hamlet is the longest Shakespeare play, but it is about 30,000 words.
20:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It's much shorter than the vast majority of novels out there.
20:14
[SPEAKER_00]: These professors cited things like the rise of video content, but also phone usage as leading to a decline in their students' reading abilities.
20:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But they've decided that they have to give in and change with the times that they can meet their students where they are.
20:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That same professor who was told that Hamlet was too long, he used to teach 10 plays per semester, he's now teaching six in his classes.
20:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So even college students at good schools are struggling to read, and many of them are going to become adults who hardly read at all.
20:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Many Americans simply don't read books, and I think about 10% of college graduates have read a book in the last year.
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't know how to read, and maybe that's because they haven't been taught how to be a good reader.
20:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, let's pause for a second and ask ourselves what it means to be a good reader.
20:57
[SPEAKER_00]: The psychologist Daniel Willingham has this book called The Reading Mind, and in this book he points out that reading is actually a fairly demanding task.
21:05
[SPEAKER_00]: First you have to be able to understand the words on the page, and that's usually what we mean when we say that we're teaching kids to read, but actually reading involves three additional levels of representation.
21:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to be able to extract ideas from sentences.
21:17
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to be able to then connect the idea across those sentences.
21:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you integrate this with an model in your mind that answers the question of what the text is about.
21:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And willing him notes that many readers fail at the second level.
21:30
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not able to point out obvious contradictions in a paragraph that they read.
21:34
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not reading at a level where you could even catch obvious contradictions, then you're going to struggle when you're reading sets of instructions or complicated forms.
21:43
[SPEAKER_00]: and really that contributes to what we call functional illiteracy before that's that illiteracy that makes it difficult for you to navigate your day-to-day life.
21:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Being able to connect ideas is actually a skill that you have to develop and I found that when I was teaching philosophy at some universities that skill was something that my college student still needed to develop.
22:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I found that the worst question I could possibly ask when I started
22:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a discussion of some text in the classroom was, what is this text about?
22:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Because most students could tell you what some of the sentences said, but they weren't able to form a picture of the cohesive whole.
22:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That meant that I had to guide them through interpreting the text.
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have to ask them questions like, what is the thesis of this article or this book or whatever was that we were reading?
22:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are the arguments and the evidence for that thesis?
22:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And then is there any irrelevant or unnecessary information in the text?
22:28
[SPEAKER_00]: This was a process that I would guide my students through so that they could learn how to read better, but there was another barrier that my students faced, which is that they lacked a lot of background knowledge which helped them make sense of a text.
22:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say you want to read a really big book like Warren Peace.
22:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Warren Peace is a historical novel.
22:45
[SPEAKER_00]: It is set in a particular time and place.
22:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need to know all of the historical details in order to make sense of Warren Peace.
22:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But having some idea of European history and maybe Francis connection, the Russia knowing who people like Napoleon or Louis XVI are, these are things that would be useful for you as you're reading.
23:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It would make reading more in peace a less demanding task.
23:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And I found that a lot of my students lack historical knowledge or just general world knowledge, which would make reading books easier.
23:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I think part of this has to do with the fact that at some point we started to emphasize critical thinking over memorization of facts.
23:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find this a lot in popular discussions of pedagogy.
23:21
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea is that you should teach students how to think rather than what to think.
23:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just want to tell you guys that this is a great article.
23:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, great video, great research and after this, I'm going to end the video for the podcast for today.
23:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to make this a part three because I'm not going to hit you out with two of them like this because it's so detailed and so heavy.
23:45
[SPEAKER_01]: We can stretch it to a three.
23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not long.
23:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's on another six minutes and we'll be out of here.
23:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just want you guys to know that it is so important for us to change the way our kids think and how they learn.
23:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very important.
24:00
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some truth to that, but I think there's a crucial error that's being made there, which is that actually learning about the world and learning facts about the world, goes hand in hand with learning how to think critically.
24:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it allows you to build a mental model of the world and you can see where new facts might fit in or where they actually contradict things that you should already know.
24:18
[SPEAKER_00]: critical thinking and memorization might actually go hand in hand and they help us to produce better readers.
24:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Now some experts do not want to call this a crisis.
24:28
[SPEAKER_00]: One researcher from Harvard University described American reading education as a very stable level of mediocrity.
24:35
[SPEAKER_00]: We've never done a great job, and things have been getting a little bit worse, but this isn't new, and it's certainly not unprecedented.
24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is a lot of fear mongering about this.
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you about the National Literacy Institute.
24:48
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've seen those headlines I mentioned about American literacy, there's a chance that you've seen statistics from this website.
24:54
[SPEAKER_00]: For instance, you might have heard that 21% of American adults are illiterate.
24:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But actually look at the website and I'll put a link down below as well.
25:01
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no explanation for that number about 21% of American adults being illiterate.
25:07
[SPEAKER_00]: No definition is also given of what they mean by illiterate.
25:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And the numbers you find on this website are painting a much worse picture than numbers that you find elsewhere.
25:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually emailed the National Literacy Institute to ask them where they got these numbers and if they could explain some of them to me.
25:21
[SPEAKER_00]: but I did not hear back.
25:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And if that changes between the time of recording and the time of posting, I will issue a correction.
25:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd be happy to do it.
25:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But some fact checkers reached out to the NLI in 2024, and they also never heard back.
25:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Those fact checkers concluded that the NLI was using an overly expansive definition of illiterate.
25:41
[SPEAKER_00]: They were also mis-describing the data that they were citing, and they were misleadingly describing their data as new.
25:48
[SPEAKER_00]: When in fact, this data does not come out on an annual basis.
25:52
[SPEAKER_00]: National Literacy Institute is just another name for the National Literacy Professional Development Consortium.
25:57
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a private company that sells professional development courses for teachers.
26:02
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing wrong with that.
26:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, teachers often need more professional development as they further their careers.
26:07
[SPEAKER_00]: But the fact that they call themselves the National Literacy Institute sometimes makes it seem like there are research center and it gives a lot of authority to the things that they put on their website.
26:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've noticed that people will cite this website uncritically.
26:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I've even seen other YouTubers cite this when they talk about American literacy.
26:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think those YouTubers were trying to mislead you.
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that they had the best intentions, but I think they got fooled.
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But seriously, look at the website again.
26:31
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no sources, there's no research methods, there's nothing like that.
26:35
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just bullet points and numbers.
26:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Where did the numbers come from?
26:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the website doesn't tell you.
26:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I think anyone honestly looking at this data would say that there is a real problem with literacy in America.
26:46
[SPEAKER_00]: But we have to be able to say that there's a problem without engaging in fear mongering or simply lying about it.
26:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Fear mongering might even give you the impression that this is a problem that can't be solved.
26:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not true.
26:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I mentioned before, some states have started to find solutions.
27:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is what I'm saying, man, if we take the time and go at it, real hard on our students, our kids, or reading the change come from home,
27:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And then putting your kids in the right environment, the right space where they can grow and understand it's okay, it's not a shame, it's not a bad look to have a book in your hand, man.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not uncool if you have a book in your hand.
27:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it is.
27:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we need to make reading cool again, make reading more acceptable in our community and in our environment when our kids.
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they wouldn't think it's not cool.
27:42
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the thing.
27:43
[SPEAKER_01]: They want these videos that you see on MTV, don't have books at it.
27:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's promoting sex.
27:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's promoting drinking, fast cars and girls and boys.
27:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're promoting reading.
27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where the problem goes.
28:01
[SPEAKER_00]: like Mississippi.
28:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Between 2013 and 2022, Mississippi students dramatically improved their reading scores.
28:07
[SPEAKER_00]: This was a period where most states saw a decline.
28:10
[SPEAKER_00]: This was such a dramatic improvement that some commentators started calling this the Mississippi miracle.
28:15
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not a miracle, it's just good policy.
28:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Because one researcher from the University of Toronto found that this improvement was linked to the Literacy-based Promotion Act, or the LBPA.
28:26
[SPEAKER_00]: The Mississippi
28:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine being able to build one second guys gotta hear what they did in Mississippi of this
28:41
[SPEAKER_00]: This is good.
28:41
[SPEAKER_00]: To full-day pre-K programs, it focused education on phonics and the science and reading, so it actually changed how we were teaching students how to read.
28:49
[SPEAKER_00]: It invested in professional development for teachers because they would need more training.
28:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It identified struggling readers and then targeted them for specific interventions.
28:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So if a student was falling behind, they got additional help when it came to reading.
29:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, some struggling third-grade hers were held back for a year so that they would have more time to build their reading skills.
29:08
[SPEAKER_00]: The simple description though is that the LBPA took literacy seriously.
29:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It gave teachers the training they needed.
29:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It focused on struggling readers.
29:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And it gave kids time to learn how to read properly.
29:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So the LBPA had a very strong impact on those students at the bottom.
29:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It helped bring a lot of students from that below-basic category to basic.
29:26
[SPEAKER_00]: and also students from basic to proficient.
29:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It had almost no impact on students who were already proficient, maybe moving them to the advanced category.
29:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's to be expected given the kind of interventions that were in the bill.
29:38
[SPEAKER_00]: What Mississippi demonstrated is that the decline in American literacy isn't inevitable.
29:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We can solve this problem, and it actually only costs Mississippi $15 million.
29:46
[SPEAKER_00]: That sounds like a really big number, but the state's budget is 7.6 billion, so we are talking about fractions here.
29:54
[SPEAKER_00]: This doesn't solve every problem.
29:55
[SPEAKER_00]: There are still adults in the United States who are functionally illiterate.
29:59
[SPEAKER_00]: There are plenty of adults who can read, but simply choose not to.
30:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And we still need to figure out what to do about college students who can't keep up with assigned reading anymore.
30:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But Mississippi's success shows that the literacy crisis can be mitigated.
30:18
[SPEAKER_01]: guys that's it for today and what I like from this video and I want you guys to get from this video I want you to understand that this man talked about different ways that we can improve our kids reading what caused the reading decline
30:40
[SPEAKER_01]: and it doesn't help every age, you got to attack every specific age bracket that has a reading problem.
30:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So this might work for young kids, it might work for kids still in school, what about the functioning literacy, the people that can't read in their grown, this happens and they're out there
31:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is an issue we got to address as a whole, not just in one section.
31:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to start at the beginning so you can change the overall later, but you got to attack the middle to change the later, because the middle then missed the beginning already, whatever behind.
31:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you got to get the older so that way they can keep breeding and try to pass and
31:35
[SPEAKER_01]: success rate and have the rate of reading.
31:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a lot of things that got to happen, but we got to work together as a unit.
31:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, your main equipment.
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully you found this podcast 151 very educational.
31:51
[SPEAKER_01]: and you can help yourself and help others by just picking up a book and telling them they need to pick up a book and read.
31:58
[SPEAKER_01]: More often, read of chapter a day.
32:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's start off small, think big, protect yourself at all times.
32:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, your name, McCrimon, until we see you tomorrow, peace.