To gain admittance to college in the 17th century, students had to be able to read and translate various Latin authors on sight. 100 years ago, students were required to have read various classical works before being admitted.
Today, however, many American students are being admitted to colleges without ever having read a book from start to finish. They are part of a cohort of students known as “book virgins.”
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has pointed out this phenomenon in their recent report titled “Beach Books: 2014-2016. What Do Colleges and Universities Want Students to Read Outside Class?” The report offers a detailed assessment of the books that colleges across America recommend to their students before they begin classes in the fall.
The reading level of these books is oftentimes very low, meant to cater to the group of students who are “book virgins”:
“The desire to appeal to incoming students who have rarely if ever read an adult book on their own… lead selection committees to choose low-grade ‘accessible’ works that are presumed to appeal to ‘book virgins’ who will flee actual college-level reading… [S]uch ‘book virgins’ have to be wooed with simple, unchallenging works.”
And how many “book virgins” are there among entering college freshmen? According to NAS’ David Randall—who drew upon NEA and Pew statistics—about 4 million, which represents about 20% of the entering freshmen class. Sadly, these students have discovered that they can receive adequate, and even good, grades in high school without ever reading a page of assigned texts.
For many students today, it’s considered an embarrassment not to have lost one’s virginity before going to college.
Would that more were embarrassed about being “book virgins.”
Read more at: http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/many-college-students-are-book-virgins © IntellectualTakeout.org
I was, and still am, a voracious reader, consuming about 3 books a week. From the time I was very young I enjoyed reading.
My teachers noticed this and often would lend me books from their own personal library or recommend something for me to read.
This opened me up to an amazing array of literature I would have otherwise probably never have read, and certainly wouldn’t have been assigned.
I find it sad in the extreme that these children have never read a single book cover to cover. They are, for all intents and purposes, functionally illiterate.
They lack a depth of vocabulary, grammar, and expression that reading gives. This also explains the lack of ability to spell or form an original thought.
The expression “the book was better” applies every time for me when seeing a movie “based” upon a novel I have read. I am often asked why by friends.
It’s simple. Reading the story both forces and allows the reader to imagine the author’s intent, as well as pick up on more ambiguous things such as morality, human interaction, and consequences.
Reading the Lord of the Rings is vastly a different experience than watching the films, as wonderful as they were.
I think this also is the reason these children are so easily led down whatever the path-du-jour is. Most of them don’t even know what du jour means. The irony is chilling really.
I can tell you that the race of these book virgins has a lot to do with their Affirmative Ignorance.
Beat me to it, RHS. I was just going to suggest we call them black kids instead of the stupid term book virgins. Of course daniel latteir puts up a pretty white girl in his picture.
As a librarian at a very diverse community college I can assure you that reading skill levels and underexposure to literature has nothing to do with skin tone.
Reading is FUNdaMENTAL.
I read above class rating before I ever attended school. I think I was supposed to learn to read in first grade – instead, I learned to read with public library books as a pre-schooler. As I grew, I always liked books that were “tougher” than I was supposed to be able to read. I got some mild (and not-so-mild) criticism and ridicule from my “peers” for my vocabulary and speech all through elementary and junior high.
I was home (a thirty-acre farm) and bored in the summer between eighth and ninth grade. Out of sheer boredom I picked up my brother’s microbiology textbook and read most of it. A few parts were tough, but I got the main ideas as I went along. One section was on “lysis of phage bacteria” where a bacteria injects its DNA into a host cell, its DNA goes straight to the nucleus of the host cell and forces the cell to produce more copies of the bacteria’s DNA. Once all the host cell’s resources are consumed and converted, the cell membrane ruptures and releases the invader’s DNA to go infect more host cells.
The next fall I went to take the ACT test. In the natural science section was a set of questions on reading and understanding a scientific article. It was – “lysis of phage”, and not only the same material but the EXACT SAME TEXTBOOK SECTION I had read that summer. I skimmed it just enough to make sure it was exactly the same, tore through the questions and used the time saved to re-examine the rest of the questions in the section. I got a 36/36 on natural sciences on my ACT!
Reading has all kinds of benefits, and reading harder materials sharpens the mind. I feel sorry for anyone who cannot read and appreciate the classics – Marcus Aurelius had views that shaped some of mine, and Dante’s Inferno taught me more about politicians than any modern political science course could or would. And politicians really haven’t changed all that much in several hundred years! I just wish our modern politicians like Hillary and Schumer could get Dante’s punishments ….
I would hazard a bet they are not sex virgins. At least for the majority anyway.
I propose rewarding students who read books with sex. See how easy that was?
Does Captain Underpants count?
Tra-la-trump!
Morans. Captain Underpants is under the control of two grade-school-kids. His signature fight yell is Tra-la-la. His dopple’s fight yell is La-la-tra. Somebody had the idea to call Trump, President Underpants perhaps implying that he is under the control of school kids. That was what I was referring to when I commented above. Besides, I was joking with Iska who obviously can appreciate the joke. Dickheads.
I befoul myself in the milk of thy joke.
Ed, I like you. I just want to say, now that you are in the sights of LLPOH, you have my sympathy.
Do not deceive yourself, you are going down. You may survive, I don’t know yet.
As fleabags said, getting shot at is a wild high. But LLPOH won’t just sharp shoot you, he will strafe your ass.
I befoul myself in the milk of thy execution.
I thank my teachers at the Frank Antonidies School in West Long Branch, New Jersey for opening a door to me that only reading could have provided. It started with two tools called Phonics and and SRA………I love to read and always have. As the television failed society I gladly picked up my latest book….turned on some classical music and read the hours away…..
” …….. [S]uch ‘book virgins’ have to be wooed with simple, unchallenging works.”
[img
[/img]
It was a great movie adaptation. (The George Segal/Jane Fonda one.)
Fun with Dick and Jane was the best part of college.
It doesn’t surprise me at all. I’ve watched attention spans, including my own, dwindle over the past few years. I used to listen to radio shows and podcasts. I can’t do that anymore. There’s no way I could sit down to watch a TV episode or movie. I still read stuff on the Kindle app, but it’s really only when I’m killing time.
This jives with what I see. Most women my age leave Netflix on 24/7. And I mean 24/7. They’ll leave crime shows on autoplay in the background even when they sleep. They can’t function in silence and need background noise to survive. But no one ever sits down to watch an episode undisturbed. It’s either piecemeal as background noise or while they are playing on their phone’s social media. Considering this is what I see time and time again in real life from the under 30 crowd, it’s safe to say books don’t stand a chance.
Greetings,
I have to comment on that. I went to visit my niece in Salt Lake and the entire time I was there the television was on what can only be described as “The Murder Channel”. When murder porn became a thing, I don’t know and I don’t know because I stopped watching television in the ’80’s. Of course, I see television if I’m in a sports bar or an airport but I see so little of it that I can see it with a fresh set of eyes when exposed to it.
After about three days of 24/7 murder porn, I had to sit her down and tell her that it probably was not healthy for her 6 year old and her 2 year old twins to be listening to people being murdered all day long. To get her to understand, I had to put it like this: It doesn’t take a lot of work to convince a child to believe in Santa. All you’ve got to do is put out some decorations and put some gifts under a tree and you’ve got a lifetime believer. They must be lifetime believers because they’ll do the same thing to their children and grandchildren. Christmas happens once a year and you love Christmas. Well, Murder Porn is happening here every day. What do you believe the result of that will be??
Funny, don’t schools do “book reports” anymore?
I still remember the last one I did in 6th grade, the first one of the year for the rest of the class.
“Run Between the Raindrops” by Dale Dye.
Teacher asked me if I understood it, said “Yes.”
Asked if my parents knew I was reading things like that, told her “My Dad got this book from the Radar Base Library for me to read.”
“Well, I guess you don’t need to do any more reports…”
Greetings,
That book shoud be required reading for school kids. I have not read it as an adult so I’m going to re-read it and see how it hits.
It is much easier to indoctrinate a dumb ass. Besides education is not the goal of universities. Their purpose is to use students as cash cows and make free shit voters.
“Raise your right foot. Good. Now, your left foot. Congratulations! Welcome to the University.”
I love books!!!! Fuck Kindle and other computer books!!! No wonder so many people have such short attention spans. It takes sustained attention to read a book. So sad, their loss. Computers and TV were created by the demon kings to give you a taste of hell without having to die first.
Yours in Sophia
Diogenes