WEBVTT NOTE 8. The First Truly Literate Generation 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.000 1. 2 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:07.720 The first truly literate generation Remember those silly days in the 1990s when 3 00:00:07.720 --> 00:00:12.760 Clinton, Gore and their friends cobbled together our money to put computers in every classroom 4 00:00:12.760 --> 00:00:15.400 and community centre? 5 00:00:15.400 --> 00:00:20.080 The hope was that the computer would at last do what the government has so far been unable 6 00:00:20.080 --> 00:00:26.640 to do after a century of work – make every child literate and high-minded. 7 00:00:26.640 --> 00:00:32.800 It turned out that most of the new computers gathered dust and became obsolete. 8 00:00:32.800 --> 00:00:38.120 The Web was dull and uneventful in those days, but no longer. 9 00:00:38.120 --> 00:00:42.280 It turns out that there was a kernel of truth in the Clinton view – computers can be a 10 00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:44.800 wonderful tool for learning. 11 00:00:44.800 --> 00:00:49.400 What looks like time-wasting provides important technical training, a vehicle for healthy 12 00:00:49.400 --> 00:00:55.280 socializing, access to a vast world of information from all ages, and crucial practice for literary 13 00:00:55.280 --> 00:01:00.800 Expression that will pay lifelong returns – no, it won't turn a pig's ear into 14 00:01:00.800 --> 00:01:06.520 a silk purse, but it can give a kid an extra boost in many ways. 15 00:01:06.520 --> 00:01:12.800 Hey, wow, my son just won the World Cup on his video game! 16 00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:16.840 Consider the major one – writing ability. 17 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:21.200 For practicing writing, getting feedback from peers and just for the joy of composition, 18 00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:26.400 Blogs and forums and even Facebook updates are wonderful opportunities for kids – though 19 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:32.820 close in it, kid boutiques are probably a more fruitful and safer venue. 20 00:01:32.820 --> 00:01:37.260 Such venues are a great way for kids to meet other kids who share their interests, expand 21 00:01:37.260 --> 00:01:42.160 geographical knowledge, gain broad cultural awareness and gain technical web experience 22 00:01:42.160 --> 00:01:46.940 in writing, coding, working with images and much more. 23 00:01:46.940 --> 00:01:53.000 Large venues get kids past the technophobia that has crippled so many adult careers. 24 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:57.360 They provide an outlet for creativity, and they give kids what they need most – an 25 00:01:57.360 --> 00:02:02.960 opportunity and excuse to write every day. 26 00:02:02.960 --> 00:02:07.100 Now I know that we're supposed to bemoan the loss of the quill, pen and parchment. 27 00:02:07.100 --> 00:02:11.840 We're supposed to weep because people no longer ache over long letters and put wax 28 00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:14.140 seals on their missives. 29 00:02:14.140 --> 00:02:23.540 I know how bad punctuation and crazy neologisms – LOL, BRB, TTYL – are corrupting English. 30 00:02:23.540 --> 00:02:28.540 But punctuation and abbreviations are small technical problems compared with the major 31 00:02:28.540 --> 00:02:36.020 issue that plagues bad writing – pomposity, jargon, preachiness, and prose that is stilted 32 00:02:36.020 --> 00:02:38.960 and labored. 33 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:43.140 These are all the results of inexperience and a lack of direction, and blogging goes 34 00:02:43.140 --> 00:02:46.980 Proves a long way toward addressing both problems. 35 00:02:46.980 --> 00:02:50.700 What is true of blogs is also true of email, messaging and texting. 36 00:02:50.700 --> 00:02:54.540 Don't tell me that these are too informal. 37 00:02:54.540 --> 00:02:58.220 Informal is far better than prose strewn with words that the writer himself can't deploy 38 00:02:58.220 --> 00:03:04.560 with competence – repeating words like important fifty times, as in, at this stage in my narrative 39 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:09.180 I find that it is important to note the important distinction between what is important here 40 00:03:09.180 --> 00:03:11.620 and what is not. 41 00:03:11.620 --> 00:03:15.120 Ask any English teacher from any age – the first articles they get from students are 42 00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:17.700 riddled with these problems. 43 00:03:17.700 --> 00:03:22.740 The writer tries to sound smart, but just ends up sounding puffed up and absurd. 44 00:03:22.740 --> 00:03:26.780 They have nothing to say, as if they composed the piece while forgetting that the main point 45 00:03:26.780 --> 00:03:29.820 of writing is to communicate. 46 00:03:29.820 --> 00:03:32.420 This is not only a problem in our time. 47 00:03:32.420 --> 00:03:37.440 Mark Twain famously satirized the 19th century approach to teaching writing in Tom Sawyer 48 00:03:37.440 --> 00:03:42.880 in his reporting of a schoolgirl's composition examination. 49 00:03:42.880 --> 00:03:47.520 A prevalent feature in these compositions was a nursed and petted melancholy. 50 00:03:47.520 --> 00:03:51.140 Another was a wasteful and opulent gush of fine language. 51 00:03:51.140 --> 00:03:55.720 Another was a tendency to lug in by the ears particularly prized words and phrases until 52 00:03:55.720 --> 00:03:58.520 they were worn entirely out. 53 00:03:58.520 --> 00:04:04.320 And a peculiarity that conspicuously marked and marred them was the inveterate and intolerable 54 00:04:04.320 --> 00:04:10.240 Sermon that wagged its crippled tail at the end of each and every one of them. 55 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:15.440 And so Twain gives an example, from the first girl who read her composition. 56 00:04:15.440 --> 00:04:20.820 In the common walks of life, with what delightful emotions does the youthful mind look forward 57 00:04:20.820 --> 00:04:25.420 to some anticipated scene of festivity? 58 00:04:25.420 --> 00:04:29.800 Imagination is busy sketching rose-tinted pictures of joy. 59 00:04:29.800 --> 00:04:36.160 In Fancy the voluptuous votary of fashion sees herself amid the festive throng, the observed 60 00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:38.240 of all observers. 61 00:04:38.240 --> 00:04:44.800 Her graceful form arrayed in snowy robes is whirling through the mazes of the joyous dance. 62 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:50.440 Her eye is the brightest, her step is the lightest in the gay assembly. 63 00:04:50.440 --> 00:04:56.460 In such delicious fancies time quickly glides by, and the welcome hour arrives for her entrance 64 00:04:56.460 --> 00:05:01.840 into the Elysian World, of which she has had such bright dreams. 65 00:05:01.840 --> 00:05:06.000 How fairy-like does everything appear to her enchanted vision? 66 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:12.900 Each new scene is more charming than the last, but after a while she finds that beneath this 67 00:05:12.900 --> 00:05:17.980 goodly exterior all is vanity. 68 00:05:17.980 --> 00:05:23.040 To be sure, a high school student who wrote this well today would be considered a genius, 69 00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:30.440 But it's still insufferable – it's artificial, affected, puffed up and vacuous. 70 00:05:30.440 --> 00:05:32.240 Why do students write this way? 71 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:35.780 They don't have an audience, they don't have anything to say, and they haven't written 72 00:05:35.780 --> 00:05:38.520 enough to acquire real skill. 73 00:05:38.520 --> 00:05:42.320 Let's take the last point first. 74 00:05:42.320 --> 00:05:48.620 The acquisition of expertise in any field is the product of relentless repetition. 75 00:05:48.620 --> 00:05:52.240 The World Series in baseball, for example, is the culmination of tens of thousands of 76 00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:57.480 of Batting Sessions and Casual Games of Catch in the Backyard and Practice Field. 77 00:05:57.480 --> 00:06:01.780 But somehow we tend to forget this with writing and composition. 78 00:06:01.780 --> 00:06:07.140 The main experience kids have with it is through a string of high-pressure performances – term 79 00:06:07.140 --> 00:06:09.980 papers for class. 80 00:06:09.980 --> 00:06:13.820 Digital communication is different – it is something you write every day. 81 00:06:13.820 --> 00:06:17.080 You fire off answers in a flash, you keep them short. 82 00:06:17.080 --> 00:06:21.380 You write and write and write, and you get your point across. 83 00:06:21.380 --> 00:06:26.620 Basically you just do it and do it again and again, and you get better and better at it. 84 00:06:26.620 --> 00:06:32.180 Writing becomes part of life, not a phony baloney exercise you affect to please an authority 85 00:06:32.180 --> 00:06:34.060 figure. 86 00:06:34.060 --> 00:06:40.140 And yes, digital communication overcomes the something-to-say problem too. 87 00:06:40.140 --> 00:06:44.300 The purpose is to make a point of some sort, even if it is, my little brother is driving 88 00:06:44.300 --> 00:06:46.800 me crazy! 89 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:52.600 That is far more substantive than, imagination is busy sketching rose-tinted pictures of 90 00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:54.200 joy. 91 00:06:54.200 --> 00:06:59.140 Finally, digital communication provides an audience. 92 00:06:59.140 --> 00:07:03.020 Knowing who is going to read what you are writing makes all the difference. 93 00:07:03.020 --> 00:07:06.900 A major cause of writer's block is fear of what people you don't know will think 94 00:07:06.900 --> 00:07:09.400 of what you say. 95 00:07:09.400 --> 00:07:13.800 Kids need to know for whom they are writing in order to affect the correct voice. 96 00:07:13.800 --> 00:07:20.200 The audience for email is listed right up top in the TO bar. 97 00:07:20.200 --> 00:07:24.800 The following happens all the time when people submit pieces to Mises.org. 98 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:30.720 Someone will send an incoherent piece, and I'll write back, what are you trying to say? 99 00:07:30.720 --> 00:07:35.940 They will then write back with a crystal clear response, which forms the basis of a new draft. 100 00:07:35.940 --> 00:07:40.860 The writer had an audience in mind, and it made all the difference. 101 00:07:40.860 --> 00:07:42.220 Try this at home. 102 00:07:42.220 --> 00:07:47.700 Ask your child to write a report on some topic – insist that it be five pages. 103 00:07:47.700 --> 00:07:51.940 If the kid is typical, he will labor for days and turn in PAP. 104 00:07:51.940 --> 00:07:55.400 Give that same kid a Gmail account and ask him to drop you an email about what he knows 105 00:07:55.400 --> 00:08:01.420 about lizards, and you might find five pages arriving in less than an hour. 106 00:08:01.420 --> 00:08:07.300 This is a wonderful and underappreciated medium – it should be exploited by all parents 107 00:08:07.300 --> 00:08:09.740 and educators. 108 00:08:09.740 --> 00:08:14.940 Apart from killing literacy, email is producing the first fully literate society in many eons 109 00:08:14.940 --> 00:08:18.020 – perhaps ever. 110 00:08:18.020 --> 00:08:22.140 Never before has it been so necessary that every person in the whole of the population 111 00:08:22.140 --> 00:08:24.760 be capable of writing well. 112 00:08:24.760 --> 00:08:29.140 For the first time in history, people are practicing the craft on a daily basis, even 113 00:08:29.140 --> 00:08:34.700 from the youngest ages – the sooner they begin, the better. 114 00:08:34.700 --> 00:08:41.700 One last word on this topic – do not let kids type using an incorrect method. 115 00:08:41.700 --> 00:08:47.440 Download TypingPal for $20, and your kid will be typing well in a matter of weeks, without 116 00:08:47.440 --> 00:08:53.300 having to endure the horrors of typing class, which is another subject entirely.