A Texas teacher went viral last week after crying in a video he posted on social media about how poorly his high school students were reading and writing.
Darius Williams, a teacher at Wheatley High School in Houston, said that on the first class of the second day of school he gave his seniors a simple task to read two paragraphs and write a sentence about what they read.
“I basically completed the sentence for them,” he said as he wiped his eyes. “These are 17- and 18-year-old kids, and they couldn’t fill in four words. Four words.”
“This is only day two,” he continued, “and I have seniors who simply cannot read and seniors who cannot write. They cannot write.”
We all should be crying.
Days before Williams’ social media sob fest, data was released showing that just half, 50.3 percent, of all New York City students in grades 3 through 8 were reading at grade level — a drop from about 56% the year before.
Scores for the youngest students, third graders, in particular, dropped 14 points, with just 44% scoring proficient in the subject.
“These results raise important questions and deserve careful, rigorous analysis so we can ensure we’re measuring what students are learning,” Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said in a statement.
One of the more alarming outcomes of the current reading crisis is that, outside the educational community, there isn’t more alarm.
The same outrage we exhibit when gasoline prices soar above $4 a gallon we should display when reading scores tumble.
Instead, we accept the decline in reading proficiency as just another lost skill, like penmanship or the ability to read a map.
But we have been able to evolve without those skills, thrive even. Who needs a folded map with Google Maps on our smartphones?
It’s only a matter of time before a kid looks at a library book the same way their parents would look at a Rolodex.
Still, nothing sufficient has come along to replace actual reading.
And nothing ever will.
When people ask me what they can do to improve their writing skills, I give the same answer every time: Read.
Reading informs. Reading enlightens. Reading entertains.
Reading inspires.
Yet reading is slowly being replaced by TikTok videos.
“Books and newspapers are increasingly giving way to social media content as the habit of reading fades,” screamed a headline the other day from The Times of London. “This isn’t just dumbing down, it’s a threat to democracy.”
The story that followed mentioned a study that examined the leisure habits of nearly a quarter of a million Americans. The study found that the number who spent time reading on a typical day, including newspapers, magazines and audiobooks, fell by 40 percent between 2003 and 2023.
It’s not just third graders we should be worried about.
Before we beat up on teachers like Darius Williams, the chancellor and various departments of education, we have to admit and accept that there is plenty of blame to go around.
Some of it starts with the social media substitutes and the smartphones that feel comfortable in our hands the way books used to feel.
Another culprit is artificial intelligence, which is slowly robbing us of our ability to think and reason.
Someday, some great author will write a prescient thriller about the destruction of the printed page and the decline of the written word and the effect they had on the downfall of civilization and democracy.
It would be a good book. Too bad no one will be able to read it by then.