1.
The first truly literate generation Remember those silly days in the 1990s when
Clinton, Gore and their friends cobbled together our money to put computers in every classroom
and community centre?
The hope was that the computer would at last do what the government has so far been unable
to do after a century of work – make every child literate and high-minded.
It turned out that most of the new computers gathered dust and became obsolete.
The Web was dull and uneventful in those days, but no longer.
It turns out that there was a kernel of truth in the Clinton view – computers can be a
wonderful tool for learning.
What looks like time-wasting provides important technical training, a vehicle for healthy
socializing, access to a vast world of information from all ages, and crucial practice for literary
Expression that will pay lifelong returns – no, it won't turn a pig's ear into
a silk purse, but it can give a kid an extra boost in many ways.
Hey, wow, my son just won the World Cup on his video game!
Consider the major one – writing ability.
For practicing writing, getting feedback from peers and just for the joy of composition,
Blogs and forums and even Facebook updates are wonderful opportunities for kids – though
close in it, kid boutiques are probably a more fruitful and safer venue.
Such venues are a great way for kids to meet other kids who share their interests, expand
geographical knowledge, gain broad cultural awareness and gain technical web experience
in writing, coding, working with images and much more.
Large venues get kids past the technophobia that has crippled so many adult careers.
They provide an outlet for creativity, and they give kids what they need most – an
opportunity and excuse to write every day.
Now I know that we're supposed to bemoan the loss of the quill, pen and parchment.
We're supposed to weep because people no longer ache over long letters and put wax
seals on their missives.
I know how bad punctuation and crazy neologisms – LOL, BRB, TTYL – are corrupting English.
But punctuation and abbreviations are small technical problems compared with the major
issue that plagues bad writing – pomposity, jargon, preachiness, and prose that is stilted
and labored.
These are all the results of inexperience and a lack of direction, and blogging goes
Proves a long way toward addressing both problems.
What is true of blogs is also true of email, messaging and texting.
Don't tell me that these are too informal.
Informal is far better than prose strewn with words that the writer himself can't deploy
with competence – repeating words like important fifty times, as in, at this stage in my narrative
I find that it is important to note the important distinction between what is important here
and what is not.
Ask any English teacher from any age – the first articles they get from students are
riddled with these problems.
The writer tries to sound smart, but just ends up sounding puffed up and absurd.
They have nothing to say, as if they composed the piece while forgetting that the main point
of writing is to communicate.
This is not only a problem in our time.
Mark Twain famously satirized the 19th century approach to teaching writing in Tom Sawyer
in his reporting of a schoolgirl's composition examination.
A prevalent feature in these compositions was a nursed and petted melancholy.
Another was a wasteful and opulent gush of fine language.
Another was a tendency to lug in by the ears particularly prized words and phrases until
they were worn entirely out.
And a peculiarity that conspicuously marked and marred them was the inveterate and intolerable
Sermon that wagged its crippled tail at the end of each and every one of them.
And so Twain gives an example, from the first girl who read her composition.
In the common walks of life, with what delightful emotions does the youthful mind look forward
to some anticipated scene of festivity?
Imagination is busy sketching rose-tinted pictures of joy.
In Fancy the voluptuous votary of fashion sees herself amid the festive throng, the observed
of all observers.
Her graceful form arrayed in snowy robes is whirling through the mazes of the joyous dance.
Her eye is the brightest, her step is the lightest in the gay assembly.
In such delicious fancies time quickly glides by, and the welcome hour arrives for her entrance
into the Elysian World, of which she has had such bright dreams.
How fairy-like does everything appear to her enchanted vision?
Each new scene is more charming than the last, but after a while she finds that beneath this
goodly exterior all is vanity.
To be sure, a high school student who wrote this well today would be considered a genius,
But it's still insufferable – it's artificial, affected, puffed up and vacuous.
Why do students write this way?
They don't have an audience, they don't have anything to say, and they haven't written
enough to acquire real skill.
Let's take the last point first.
The acquisition of expertise in any field is the product of relentless repetition.
The World Series in baseball, for example, is the culmination of tens of thousands of
of Batting Sessions and Casual Games of Catch in the Backyard and Practice Field.
But somehow we tend to forget this with writing and composition.
The main experience kids have with it is through a string of high-pressure performances – term
papers for class.
Digital communication is different – it is something you write every day.
You fire off answers in a flash, you keep them short.
You write and write and write, and you get your point across.
Basically you just do it and do it again and again, and you get better and better at it.
Writing becomes part of life, not a phony baloney exercise you affect to please an authority
figure.
And yes, digital communication overcomes the something-to-say problem too.
The purpose is to make a point of some sort, even if it is, my little brother is driving
me crazy!
That is far more substantive than, imagination is busy sketching rose-tinted pictures of
joy.
Finally, digital communication provides an audience.
Knowing who is going to read what you are writing makes all the difference.
A major cause of writer's block is fear of what people you don't know will think
of what you say.
Kids need to know for whom they are writing in order to affect the correct voice.
The audience for email is listed right up top in the TO bar.
The following happens all the time when people submit pieces to Mises.org.
Someone will send an incoherent piece, and I'll write back, what are you trying to say?
They will then write back with a crystal clear response, which forms the basis of a new draft.
The writer had an audience in mind, and it made all the difference.
Try this at home.
Ask your child to write a report on some topic – insist that it be five pages.
If the kid is typical, he will labor for days and turn in PAP.
Give that same kid a Gmail account and ask him to drop you an email about what he knows
about lizards, and you might find five pages arriving in less than an hour.
This is a wonderful and underappreciated medium – it should be exploited by all parents
and educators.
Apart from killing literacy, email is producing the first fully literate society in many eons
– perhaps ever.
Never before has it been so necessary that every person in the whole of the population
be capable of writing well.
For the first time in history, people are practicing the craft on a daily basis, even
from the youngest ages – the sooner they begin, the better.
One last word on this topic – do not let kids type using an incorrect method.
Download TypingPal for $20, and your kid will be typing well in a matter of weeks, without
having to endure the horrors of typing class, which is another subject entirely.