Pickels, Doddles, and Webkinz R awsum

[allniter]

"Reading is stupid! If we want to learn anything then we watch TV. That's what it's for, it's a like a moving picture book."

Well what sort of education did you expect from future porn stars?

[Jester]

It's sad to think that this generation may possibly be in charge of our generation when we are old and demented and unable to care for ourselves. . .

At this point I would like to quote the brilliance of Messrs Daltrey, Townshend, Entwistle, and Moon:

"Hope I die before I get old!"

As John Mayer sings, "One day our generation is going to rule the population".

I weep for the future.

Despite my comments above, I am amused by this. This horror at the younger generation and weeping for the speaker's generation has been going on for, oh, say, about five thousand years. Trust me when I say that not all of the future generation's members are going to be like the girls in the OP. We had shallow idiots like that when I was in school, as did my parents, their parents, and so on and so forth. And I guarantee you that in 20 years, members of the girls in the OP's generation will be observing similar shallow idiotic behavior in the as-yet-to-be-born generation, and will weep for their future.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Seshat]

I would just become so engrossed in the book I was reading when had a few moments of break time that I wouldn't notice the teacher had begun teaching again.

I did that, too.

My mother tells me that when I was in first grade, my teacher would let me go to the (school) library every so often and pick out some books to read while she taught the rest of the class 'C-A-T' and 'D-O-G'. I'd then sit very nicely just outside the classroom in the hallway, where she could watch me through the window, and read my books.

Early in the year, one day Mrs Miller wanted to get me back inside. "Would you like to come inside now, (Seshat)?"
And I very politely said "No, thank you, Mrs Miller."

As Mrs Miller said to my mother "Well, I did ask!"



And there's another tale.

One day I didn't arrive home from school on time. This apparently happened occasionally, and Mum would call the school and someone would check the library for me and send me home. (They quickly learned to do a sweep of the library about ten minutes after school finished, and tell me to check my books out and go home.)

Anyway, this particular day, they'd checked the library and not seen me. Mum called. They checked again. No sign of me. Mum drove through the streets along my path home, the teachers left at school looked for me. Not panic yet, but concern.

Where did they find me? In a nook in the library, oblivious to the world outside my book.

[Princess-Snake]

My sister is one of those people who thinks reading is stupid. She also thinks that I'm weird because I love to read. I refuse to put a book down unless I'm done with it or someone rips it out of my hands. I swear, if her teachers didn't make her read, she'd be one of those people who think that MTV holds all the answers to life's questions.

[Catwoman2965]

Wow, that is scary. Growing up, we had ONE television, and my father ruled it. This was before cable, so we got a total of about 7 channels. i was allowed to watch Sesame Street, The Electric Co, and the once a year holiday specials - oh yeah, and my Saturday night treat was The Price is Right, followed by Emergency (yes, i'm showing my age).

But, i loved to read - i can remember begging my dad to take me to the library - he is the same way, god forbid you leave a book you're reading lying around..he'll pick it up and start reading! The only bad thing is i don't have time to read anymore. We used to have these things called SRAs in school; it was a reading skills and comprehension activity, and i would always finish ahead of everyone, so my 6th grade teacher would let me go to the library every day, while the rest of the class finished up.

Kind of related; had a funny siting yesterday; visiting the parents, and went to the outlets with mom. Mom is in a wheelchair, but that certainly doesn't stop her. While going around, we almost bumped into a kid who was walking down the sidewalk, with his nose buried in a book! He noticed us at the last minute, said sorry, and moved out of the way. my mom just laughed, and i said well, at least he's reading! Saw him later, standing outside a store, still with his nose in the book!

[Emmeileia]

Are you serious that someone actually asked who Hitler is? What'd she do? Sleep through History class for her entire life?

Not that uncommon sadly. I one had a girl ask what a swaztika was (okay, I can see not knowing, maybe...) and it devolved into me having to explain WWII to a 16 year old.

The amount of crap I get for reading is astounding. My family mocks my vocabulary when I use a word they don't know, and my mom gives me crap for 'wasting my money' on books.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I'm proud to say my child loves books. She's got a LOT of them, and she would sit in your lap and have you read to her all night if you let her. She pulls me down and says "sit!" then runs to get a book, hands it to me, says "book!" then sits in my lap and starts turning pages.

I am SO happy about that. I hope she never outgrows it.

[ShinyGreenApple]

Oh wait...just about every book is being adapted into a movie these days so I guess that takes care of the problem. But then I even doubt most of these kids even know that a lot of the movies they watch were books first which is very sad indeed. (Grant it, I do enjoy some of these book to movie translations but not without a bit of grousing on my part and most often the book is always better)

Sadly, I have heard kids and teens alike say things along the lines of:

"Hey, you know those Lord of the Rings movies? They made books of them!" Usually followed by a comment about how the books are way too long to read. I've heard similar things about Potter.

Speaking of which, I was in an Arby's the other day and this little kid not more than ten came and sat down at a table, plopped down a copy of Deathly Hallows, and he was lost to the rest of the world It was rather refreshing, actually.

My younger brother also used to be one of those 'reading is stupid/hard' kids, but he's currently in the process of reading the HP series cover to cover , has also borrowed my copy of LotR, and no longer thinks that reading is for geeks.

[air914]

I think it's all the text messaging and stuff like that killing everyone's spelling skills. I'm always amazed at how badly people spell. For me, that was always the easiest thing. I dunno why - math was horribly hard though. But when everyone shortens words to "u r sweet" and "thnx" and "btw" - no wonder people can't figure out how to spell - they never really do it.

These girls sound like the ones that drove me nuts in school - especially middle school. The principle of my middle school actually told my mother that I was "too mature" for middle school (I was always frustrated by the complete immature nature of my classmates). Since when is being mature a bad thing??

I am glad Harry Potter came around and is at least getting SOME kids to read more... heck they are long books, so if you can get a kid to read them, great. It at least seems to have grabbed a lot of kids' attention. I just don't understand "reading is dumb" though - um aren't they technically reading when they're doing all their stupid text messaging, reading on the Internet, reading magazines -no wait the magazines are just pictures, nevermind that one......

[Shabo]

When I was growing up, my parents had to take all my books away because I was reading too much. Twice. I wouldn't do any of my chores, and if I was ever sent to clean my room? Well, I would find a good book, open it... and an hour later, mom would be yelling at me to stop reading, lol. I was definitely guilty of nearly walking into people and things because I would have my nose buried in the pages of any book. It didn't even matter what book it was. My favorite time of every school day was reading. I would often read far ahead into books because I was faster than my classmates, and once I started reading, I couldn't stop.

Now, I'm not as bad. I do still read as much as I can, but I have very limited time to do so. I hate when people say that reading is stupid, but that's their opinion, and I just think about all the good stuff they are missing out on. One will never expand their horizon if they don't read. Movies just don't fill that void, unless they are intellectual independent films, but then those same people who think reading is stupid say that those movies are stupid. Yeah, using your brain for cognitive thought is dumb!

[ShinyGreenApple]

I think it's all the text messaging and stuff like that killing everyone's spelling skills. I'm always amazed at how badly people spell. For me, that was always the easiest thing. I dunno why - math was horribly hard though. But when everyone shortens words to "u r sweet" and "thnx" and "btw" - no wonder people can't figure out how to spell - they never really do it.

Forgive me if this is slightly OT, but I'm one of those people that dabbles around with reading and writing fanfiction, and it's appalling to see that people are actually using this way of 'spelling' in their stories! And then of course they get dozens of reviews saying things like "Omg dis iz grate pleese right more!" It's enough to make you want to go and live in a hole, it is.

[protege]

Wow, that is scary. Growing up, we had ONE television, and my father ruled it. This was before cable, so we got a total of about 7 channels. i was allowed to watch Sesame Street, The Electric Co, and the once a year holiday specials - oh yeah, and my Saturday night treat was The Price is Right, followed by Emergency (yes, i'm showing my age).

You're not the only one. When I was growing up, we were one of the few families that had 2 TVs. One was a Heathkit that my father built...the other was an old B&W RCA set. Since we didn't get cable until the mid-1980s, there weren't many channels. I too watched Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Sesame Street, Electric Co. and other similar shows...as well as cartoons, and of course Dukes of Hazzard.

When I wasn't watching TV, I was probably building things with Legos. I'm not sure why, but most of the other toys were um, boring. I preferred to create things...usually sprawling cities, and various vehicles. I've always been good with my hands, it seems.

However, one thing I did constantly was read. I have a huge library of books and other printed materials....many of which that deal with my various hobbies. And yes, people did give me shit because I "read too much." I guess they were jealous that I taught *myself* to read, or because I was broadening my mind and learning new things. I simply refuse to stop--the day I do that, I'll be 6 feet under

Some of it is because I like to build things. However, before I start any type of project, I want a lot of materials on hand. For example, with my long-term (and still ongoing!) MG restoration, I've probably read every MG book I can find. My feeling is, if I know why the factory did some things, I'll have a better understanding of the car. Also, if I know what can go wrong, I can fix it...or possibly *improve* it. In fact, I've literally worn out an original shop manual. The binding simply fell apart from being used all the time!

With the help of that book, I took most of the car apart in short order--it was reduced to a rolling shell in a few days. Then there's the time my father was having problems with the brakes. He'd jacked the car up, removed the brake parts, but couldn't remember how to put it all back together. Since I'd been reading up on things, it was a simple matter of putting the drums (less the internals--I didn't want them to seize before I sent the car out) back on, followed by the wheels, and then lowering the car to the ground. If I hadn't done a little reading, the car would probably be still sitting in the garage

[Sofar]

I think it's all the text messaging and stuff like that killing everyone's spelling skills. I'm always amazed at how badly people spell. For me, that was always the easiest thing. I dunno why - math was horribly hard though. But when everyone shortens words to "u r sweet" and "thnx" and "btw" - no wonder people can't figure out how to spell - they never really do it.

I refuse to type like that, even when composing missives on my telephone. If you send me a missive you can wait ninety seconds for the response, you don't need it in fifteen seconds. Here's a thing I've noticed, on the little telephone keypads you used to hit the one key to get puncuation, you'd hit it once to get a period, twice for a comma, thrice for an apostrophe, four times for a question mark and five times for an exclamation point. When I got my new telephone it had been changed, though. It's now once for a question mark, twice for an at sign, thrice for an ampersand, four times for a period, and five times for an apostrophe. They think we're going to be using at signs and ampersands more often than apostrophes, and they're probably right.

[Catwoman2965]

You're not the only one. When I was growing up, we were one of the few families that had 2 TVs. One was a Heathkit that my father built...the other was an old B&W RCA set. Since we didn't get cable until the mid-1980s, there weren't many channels. I too watched Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Sesame Street, Electric Co. and other similar shows...as well as cartoons, and of course Dukes of Hazzard.

Oh yeah, how could i forget about Mr. Roger's Neighborhood? hahahahaha

I remember my first apt, and when I got a second tv to put in the bedroom - wow, that was a luxery to me! Now its just second nature, but I still don't watch that much, and mostly what I refer to as the "geek channels" - History, Biography, National Geographic, etc.

My mom used to yell at me too; same thing as you Shabo, she'd send me up to clean my room, or clean the bathroom, i'd start organizing the bookcase, pick up a book, and that was it. It could take me all day to clean my room, when it really should have only taken an hour or two!

As far as people who DON'T read, or even follow current events - I wonder how they get through life. I've found friends I knew growing up who DIDN'T read, but watched tv, have no clue what's going on in the world. This is slightly OT, but I was amazed it was so scary. Even people who do read can be clueless!

I have a friend, former neighbor, who I get along with, but I swear she lives under a rock. I flew to visit the folks, and was going to check my bag, as I had a large bottle of sunscreen in it, so couldn't carry it on. Fine, no problem, except when I got to the airport Sat, it was a zoo! storms the night before had canceled many flights, so I had a choice, wait in line to check my bag, and miss my flight, or chuck the sunscreen and buy a new bottle. Guess which i did?

So i'm telling her this story, and she had NO CLUE about all the restrictions of the last year re: flying, and carrying on liquids, how they have to be 3oz or less, and in a quart ziplock bag. She said, why can't you carry that stuff on? I told her, and said it was on the news, in the papers, she said, oh, i don't watch the news or read the paper.

She's 45 years old, BTW - pretty darn scary. Then again, she is the same person who thinks that fruits and veggies contains bran, but that's a whole other story!

[Elf]

I think I've had my nose in a book since I was born. *laughs* They used to catch me in the library climbing the shelves to get to books I hadn't read yet. I'm happy to say I've got a nice little library of my own, all of which I've read. I hope that my kids (when and if they arrive) will feel the same way. I'm also glad to see that the HP books have inspired a lot more readers. With any luck they'll keep on reading and branching out.

Though along the lines of the Hitler comment I have to share this. One of my best friends called to tell me about this right after it happened. He'd gone to see Titanic just after it opened and after the movie was over and everyone was leaving he overheard something a young woman said to her boyfriend.

"Isn't it scary to think that something like that could actually happen?"

He told me he was beating his head on the theater wall for about 5 minutes to try to shake off that one.