Posted on 04/18/2016 3:18:12 PM PDT by daisy12
University students are increasingly unable to read a whole book as they simply don’t have the concentration spans required, nor are they able to understand complex, nuanced arguments, academics have said.
Lecturers at leading British universities are having to actively encourage students to read beyond the set texts, and have noticed that students are increasingly unwilling to read whole texts. They say they believe internet culture is to blame, as young people nowadays are used to receiving arguments in the form of 800-1000 word articles. Anything beyond that, they say, is now proving too challenging.
“Incoming undergraduates have had their attention habits fashioned in a totally different world than that of those who are teaching them,” Tamson Pietsch, fellow in history at the University of Sydney told Times Higher Education (THE).
“This can lead to a clash of expectations and also of abilities on both sides of the equation. In many ways, incoming students absorb information quickly, they understand the power of images, and are adept at moving between different types of sources and platforms. They are perhaps less used to concentrating for long periods of time and working through the nuances of an argument developed over the course of many pages.”
Jenny Pickerill, professor in environmental geography at the University of Sheffield, said of full length books: “students struggle with them, saying the language or concepts are too hard.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
The colleges end up with students who cannot think. The ones who are lucky are the ones whose parents made sure their children were in schools where their children were challenged correctly. They are the ones who succeed throughout school and college.
When I was in college I took a course on environmental geography and the professor was a hard core conservative who was pro-oil and coal. He made hippie heads explode every lecture.
I assigned “The Oregon Trail” by Francis Parkman to some of my students. They asked me if they could just play the game and write a report about that instead.....
“nor are they able to understand complex, nuanced arguments”
Ha. Where have I seen this happening?
I advised my daughter not to apply at a state-run university. She is better off going to a technical or private college.
got a batch of boxes from mom after she sold the house last month.
my ex from 25 years ago used to write me two long love letters a day lol.
now you text a few words, trade sex for a beer, and go to your women’s lib meeting.
“... And there was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn’t just for fags and neither was writing. People wrote books and movies, movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!”
-President Not Sure (Idiocracy)
I read “War and Peace” at 13 or 14...
Must have been my white privilege...
You sound just like my kids. They have had a love of reading since early on.
This is Bull-—These kids had no probem reading Harry Potter and understanding the complex plots of the same. Its more Lazy than inability to do the reading. wait til our enemies knock out the Electrical Grid or Internet—reading will be popular again.
Ah, you, too. I trust including the Appendices.
Its really not an issue. If we need someone smart, that’s why we have H1b. And for US college grads, that’s why we have Starbucks.
Books have white pages.
Books are racist.
Before the internet?
In the current academic condition, the best education is 4 years in the Navy and a set of Harvard Classics well read.
I was just having fun with you.
When I was in 6th grade, we had a battery of tests. They determined I was reading at the sophomore in HS level.
I remember as a kid, my parents bought me a hardbound book collection. about 16 books IIRC, that had 2 stories each.
Had them read by 4th grade.
I loved reading.
Still do.
Reading is more than just comprehending words. Its thinking, imagining...mental exercise.
Todays kids are mentally weak, undisciplined, lazy.
Yeah, and black ink.
The black ink is in the minority, and is a slave to the printer.
I read those How & Why science books at a very young age.
As a little kid, kid’s books didn’t do much for me. I was dreaded by the librarian for some reason.
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