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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, it's me, Kamau. Welcome to Who's With Me.

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Speaker 2: As you know, I'm a parent, dad version, talk about

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Speaker 2: my kids a lot, love my kids, also worry about

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Speaker 2: my kids. And these days, every major news outlet, and

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Speaker 2: even the minor ones, are talking about America's so-called reading crisis,

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Speaker 2: and how we're all only on screens, and kids don't

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Speaker 2: ever touch books, and they don't even know how to

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Speaker 2: read like we knew how to read back when we

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Speaker 2: were readers. So in the middle of reading about all

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Speaker 2: that stuff, I heard about this episode of the podcast,

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Speaker 2: No Such Thing, And I decided I wanted to share

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Speaker 2: it with you. So No Search Thing is hosted by

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Speaker 2: three best friends, Manny Fidel, Devin Joseph, Noah Friedman. And

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Speaker 2: the premise of the podcast is exactly what you want

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Speaker 2: it to be. It's three best friends hanging out. They laugh,

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Speaker 2: they fight, they argue about stuff. But like friends do,

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Speaker 2: instead of just yelling at each other, like we do

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Speaker 2: on the internet, they actually go out and find the answer.

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Speaker 2: They talk to experts. They run experiments. They come back

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Speaker 2: and see if anybody's mind got changed. It's a rare

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Speaker 2: thing these days. Instead of being loud and wrong, these

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Speaker 2: fellas want to be loud and correct. In this episode,

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Speaker 2: they dig into the whole kids can't read anymore thing.

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Speaker 2: The headlines say that literacy scores are down. We're hearing

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Speaker 2: that schools are ditching full books and just using excerpts.

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Speaker 2: You know, everyone's wringing their hands about the death of reading. Meanwhile, Manny, Devin,

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Speaker 2: and Noah are going to give their opinions. They go

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Speaker 2: looking for the real story. They talk with children's author

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Speaker 2: Jason Reynolds, professor Paul Thomas, and public school teacher Kelsey Clodfelter.

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Speaker 2: who's actually in the classroom seeing this play out every day.

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Speaker 2: And the fellows try to find out, is it as

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Speaker 2: bad as it looks? And even if it is, does

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Speaker 2: it actually matter?

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Speaker 1: Stick around. Listen to the whole thing. Then you're going

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Speaker 1: to dig it.

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Speaker 2: And after you listen to the whole thing, go find

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Speaker 2: No Such Thing wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes

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Speaker 2: come out every Wednesday, just like my podcast, Who's With Me.

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Speaker 2: Now you'll have a two-podcast Wednesday.

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Speaker 1: Thanks.

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Speaker 3: Enjoy. I'm Manny.

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Speaker 1: I'm Noah. This is Devin.

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Speaker 4: And this is No Such Thing, the show where we

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Speaker 4: settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research.

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Speaker 4: In this episode, kids aren't reading anymore.

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Speaker 1: Who cares?

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Speaker 5: There's no such thing. No such thing. No such thing.

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Speaker 5: No such thing. No such thing.

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Speaker 4: So, as we know, there have been many stories, reports,

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Speaker 4: about the death of reading.

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Speaker 6: The latest version of the nation's report card shows America's

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Speaker 6: high school seniors have the worst math and reading scores

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Speaker 6: in more than two decades.

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Speaker 1: Just 40% of fourth graders are working below what's considered

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Speaker 1: a basic reading level for their age.

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Speaker 7: Nearly a third of seniors did not have the basic

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Speaker 7: reading skills needed... Define the details in a given text

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Speaker 7: to understand its meaning.

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Speaker 8: Our nation's report card is abysmal right now.

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Speaker 4: So one that I'll highlight for now is from the

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Speaker 4: Atlantic magazine titled, America is sliding toward illiteracy. So this

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Speaker 4: is a quote from the article. By some measures, American

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Speaker 4: students have regressed to a level not seen in 25

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Speaker 4: years or more. Test scores from NAEP, short for the

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Speaker 4: National Assessment of Educational Progress, show that 33% of 8th

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Speaker 4: graders are reading at a level that is below basic.

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Speaker 4: meaning that they struggle to follow the order of events

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Speaker 4: in a passage or to even summarize its main idea.

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Speaker 4: That is the highest share of students unable to meaningfully

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Speaker 4: read since 1992. Among fourth graders, 40% are below basic

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Speaker 4: in reading, the highest share since 2000. The bottom 10th

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Speaker 4: of 13-year-olds, according to NAEP's long-term trend data, are hitting

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Speaker 4: lows in reading and math scores not seen since those

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Speaker 4: tests began in 1971 and 1978, respectively. They go through

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Speaker 4: a bunch of different theories of why school spending is lower, No,

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Speaker 4: school spending has increased from 2012 to 2022 from 14,000

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Speaker 4: per student to 16,000 adjusted for inflation.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 4: So that's not the culprit. People look at COVID. There

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Speaker 4: was a dip, but not as pronounced as you would think.

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Speaker 4: And it's kind of numbers have basically leveled out. So

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Speaker 4: it's not like you could totally blame that. And then

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Speaker 4: people talk about smartphones and attention. There's different things. Then

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Speaker 4: there's also stuff about schools teaching kids excerpts instead of

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Speaker 4: full books because no one's going to pay attention to

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Speaker 4: doing that.

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Speaker 3: Oh, my God.

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Speaker 9: A disturbing new report on what kids are reading, or

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Speaker 9: rather not reading, in school. The New York Times with

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Speaker 9: this headline. Kids rarely read whole books anymore, even in

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Speaker 9: English class.

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Speaker 10: If four books was a typical number of books to

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Speaker 10: be experiencing in high school English language arts, now we're

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Speaker 10: seeing many schools reporting that kids are experiencing only one,

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Speaker 10: even two books in high school ELA.

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Speaker 8: So something's going amiss.

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Speaker 4: Have you guys seen this, people not reading, as far

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Speaker 4: as among peers and also any younger people you might

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Speaker 4: be around?

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Speaker 11: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: I really noticed this with my brother. He's in high

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Speaker 6: school now. He's a senior in high school. We were talking,

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Speaker 6: this was a year or two ago.

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Speaker 1: It was summer. And I was saying, what books do

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Speaker 1: you have to read this summer? Yeah.

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Speaker 6: He said, what do you mean, what books do I

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Speaker 6: have to read this summer? I was like, don't you

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Speaker 6: get books assigned from school?

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Speaker 3: Summer reading. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Everybody gets their summer reading from school.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: We would get like two, I think it was like

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Speaker 6: two books. You know, everybody would wait to the last

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Speaker 6: minute to do it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And you may have to spark note half the

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Speaker 1: book or whatever.

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Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 4: You had a book you were supposed to read. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: You had a book that was assigned to you that

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Speaker 1: you were supposed to read. Yeah.

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Speaker 6: And he said, we don't get summer reading. I was like, okay,

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Speaker 6: is that a new thing? Have you ever gotten summer reading?

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Speaker 6: He's like, no, we've never gotten summer reading.

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Speaker 12: Wow.

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Speaker 6: So I was like, okay, do you read books during school?

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Speaker 6: He's like, yeah, sometimes we read in class. I was like,

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Speaker 6: do they give you books to read on your own?

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Speaker 1: He said, no.

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Speaker 5: Hmm.

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Speaker 6: And I was like, okay, this is a high schooler

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Speaker 6: who is not being assigned a single book to read

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Speaker 6: in its entirety.

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Speaker 1: That's crazy.

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Speaker 3: And, you know, yeah, such a stark difference from when

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Speaker 3: we were in high school.

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Speaker 4: We're reading multiple books a year.

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Speaker 6: And look, a lot of kids didn't read the books,

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Speaker 6: but the expectation was that you were to read the book.

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Speaker 4: And you were talking about the book in full, not

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Speaker 4: like here's this one chapter.

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Speaker 6: My feeling on it is that There's a bit of

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Speaker 6: a reaction to kids don't have attention spans. They aren't

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Speaker 6: reading anyway. Why would I waste time assigning them something

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Speaker 6: they aren't going to read? So it's just sort of

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Speaker 6: a waste of time. So now we're at the point

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Speaker 6: where the bar has been lowered to the point where

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Speaker 6: it's not even an expectation for them to read. So

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Speaker 6: then it's like, yeah, why would he read? Like my

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Speaker 6: brother does not like read books for fun. And at

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Speaker 6: his age, I wasn't really either. I was reading what

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Speaker 6: I had to read for school. Every once in a while,

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Speaker 6: I would pick up a book. But I didn't really

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Speaker 6: start reading for fun until after college. Most of my

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Speaker 6: reading during high school was because I had to read

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Speaker 6: for school.

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Speaker 4: Do you think it's mainly the attention span thing? And

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Speaker 4: why do you think that has changed so much?

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Speaker 3: The obvious thing that sticks out to me in terms

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Speaker 3: of what's changed since we were in high school is

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Speaker 3: phone usage.

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Speaker 11: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: The amount of.

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Speaker 3: Time you spend on your phone, the kind of things

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Speaker 3: you see on your phone. When I was in high school,

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Speaker 3: you could basically text someone on your phone.

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Speaker 4: And that was it.

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Speaker 3: Barely. You couldn't watch videos or.

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Speaker 4: Anything like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you weren't on social media on your phone.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you did have to go home and get on

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Speaker 3: your dial-up internet to get on Facebook, to send a

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Speaker 3: Facebook status.

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Speaker 4: And you did. And I did, trust me. I was

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Speaker 4: on there.

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Speaker 3: My cursory guess here is that it's got to be

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Speaker 3: the attention span thing.

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Speaker 1: And it's not just kids. Right.

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Speaker 6: I think adults are– nobody reads.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: That's my thing. I think you can find surveys of

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Speaker 4: how many books adults read too obviously. But yeah, it's

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Speaker 4: easier especially when trying to get comprehensive data my guess

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Speaker 4: is to research obviously for schools and students.

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Speaker 12: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And like it seems more important than like telling a 40-year-old.

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Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing. It's like, yeah, you learn the

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Speaker 1: skill of doing it.

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Speaker 6: And it's like, yeah, even if you haven't read a

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Speaker 6: book in, you know, 10 years, it's like, well, you

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Speaker 6: could read a book.

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Speaker 1: I think it's different.

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Speaker 6: It's the same thing with me of like AI with

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Speaker 6: younger people. It's like, okay, we know how to write

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Speaker 6: a 15-page, you know, essay ourselves. So if I were

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Speaker 6: using AI to do it now, not great. But like

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Speaker 6: I've done the thing. So I know kind of what

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Speaker 6: goes into it. If you've never read a single book

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Speaker 6: in your entire life, how does that impact you? how

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Speaker 6: you interpret, like they're saying, people can't read passages and

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Speaker 6: interpret simple information, right? I think a lot of times

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Speaker 6: it gets spun into like an attention span thing, which

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Speaker 6: is obviously, yeah, that's part of it. But I think

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Speaker 6: a bigger issue is like people can't comprehend very basic

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Speaker 6: things a little bit like, you know, Facebook, TikTok brain

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Speaker 6: of just sort of like people can basically read headlines

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Speaker 6: and that's it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So that kind of leads to Another question is basically,

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Speaker 4: does this actually matter? Like, what are the impacts of

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Speaker 4: this sort of thing if people just largely don't read? Like,

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Speaker 4: what if tech and communication and the way we share

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Speaker 4: information is moving into different mediums and formats? So whether that's,

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Speaker 4: you know, short form video like TikTok or longer form media,

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Speaker 4: but audio only like a podcast or just like shorter texts. Like,

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Speaker 4: what if we just learn through tweets? What do you

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Speaker 4: think are the pitfalls of that?

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Speaker 6: I just don't think we're society right now that values

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Speaker 6: reading in a real way that's.

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Speaker 4: It to me i think it's like there's no emphasis

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Speaker 4: from anyone no to actually spend time i mean it's

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Speaker 4: not even just about okay focusing to read a novel

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Speaker 4: or something it's like everyone just used to these really

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Speaker 4: short whether it's bullet points or tiktoks or something and

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Speaker 4: it's like i'm sorry there are great tiktok creators out

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Speaker 4: there talking about politics or whatever but like you're not

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Speaker 4: going to get a full story in yeah even the

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Speaker 4: best version of that it's an introduction it's a different

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Speaker 4: thing and i think people just take that as like

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Speaker 4: oh i learned this from this tiktok yeah and then

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Speaker 4: yeah they'll flash up the headlines and the bullet points

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Speaker 4: with the statistics of whatever issue yeah but you're not

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Speaker 4: getting any full story from that yeah and i think

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Speaker 4: that's like slowly then just degrading how we process and

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Speaker 4: like comprehend not only information but it kind of flattens

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Speaker 4: out any nuance you could have for anything and even

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Speaker 4: a podcast i think it's the same thing where it's

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Speaker 4: like you can listen to a three hour long podcast

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Speaker 4: about health or fitness or whatever or whatever some any

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Speaker 4: of the dumb things we do yeah i think this

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Speaker 4: all the time like whatever we're doing a 45 minute

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Speaker 4: episode on this you would be better served if you

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Speaker 4: read five articles on this in that time yeah well

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Speaker 4: like and actually read them.

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Speaker 6: The amount of information that we learned for the thing

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Speaker 6: that we're like this is too much information to put

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Speaker 6: in the episode right like when we're doing our own

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Speaker 6: research it's like we know a lot more information obviously

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Speaker 6: than we're saying in the episodes themselves so like you're

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Speaker 6: saying yeah it is only scratching the surface i think

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Speaker 6: people now want it's like people just want other people

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Speaker 6: to think for them.

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Speaker 9: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: That's why people like, oh, I'm watching the TikTok. This

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Speaker 6: guy's done all the research already. This is what he

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Speaker 6: finds to be the most important things. And like, that's

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Speaker 6: why people love AI, right? It's like, it just summarizes

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Speaker 6: things for you. You don't have to go through, read

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Speaker 6: the articles, pull out the information, go through the studies,

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Speaker 6: you know, actually read the conclusions, look at the data.

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Speaker 6: Someone has done all that work for you and you

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Speaker 6: can learn it in 90 seconds.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Or faster if you hit that 3x.

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Speaker 12: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: You can speed it up.

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Speaker 6: So it's like I get– and look, I think in

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Speaker 6: some ways it's great, right? Like I think we are

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Speaker 6: at a time where if you want to learn stuff,

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Speaker 6: there's more information than ever.

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Speaker 1: And for a lot of things, no, I don't want

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Speaker 1: to read.

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Speaker 6: An article about some of these topics that I'm watching

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Speaker 6: TikToks about.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes the TikTok is enough information.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: And it's not something I care that deeply about. And

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Speaker 6: it's something like, oh, I'm a little bit informed about

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Speaker 6: this thing and I would be not informed at all

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Speaker 6: about it if there were not a TikTok about it

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Speaker 6: because I wouldn't read an article.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they're not totally useless, but it's just a different thing.

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Speaker 1: But it can't be everything.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's just a big cultural thing.

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Speaker 4: It's just not pushed. We can talk about school curriculum,

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Speaker 4: but I just think we don't really value people actually

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Speaker 4: having real deep knowledge about things at all. Because even

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Speaker 4: just think about something silly where it's like, like the

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Speaker 4: performative male meme really annoyed me because it's like, it

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Speaker 4: implies that like, of course, like, yeah, of course there's

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Speaker 4: going to be some guy in college who like gets

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Speaker 4: into some, like Joan Didion so he can talk to

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Speaker 4: the cute girl at the coffee shop. But like to

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Speaker 4: act like any guy sitting at a park reading is

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Speaker 4: doing that, not because he wants to read, but because

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Speaker 4: he's trying to get laid. It's just like, that could

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Speaker 4: be part of it. But like, it just like, well,

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Speaker 4: it just shows like, I think to me, it more

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Speaker 4: says like anyone saying that, can't ever comprehend wanting to

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Speaker 4: spend their free time spending 15 minutes reading a book

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Speaker 4: so instead they're like oh well it'd be a lot

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Speaker 4: cooler if he was staring at his phone watching a

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Speaker 4: dumbass talk about nothing it's like yeah like that's cool.

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Speaker 3: There's certain ways we don't incentivize people to read yeah

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Speaker 3: like some i have run into this and i you

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Speaker 3: know i should be paying some more money but like

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Speaker 3: i'll be like yeah i want to read more about

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Speaker 3: this thing and it's paywalled and i'm like all right

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Speaker 3: well never mind yeah yeah just the search for information

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Speaker 3: stops there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah That's a good point too, right?

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Speaker 6: It's getting harder to access high quality information.

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Speaker 4: So what I want to do is I want to

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Speaker 4: find out, is this literacy decline real? What does it mean?

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Speaker 4: And what can we do to combat it if it

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Speaker 4: actually is a real problem? I'm going to talk to

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Speaker 4: a teacher first, then an author, and then a scholar

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Speaker 4: who's looked into this data to find out what's actually

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Speaker 4: going on. Well done.

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Speaker 1: That's after the break.

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Speaker 4: After the break.

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 6: All right, fellas, I need you to help me with

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Speaker 6: a problem that I got. You know, usually we're the

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Speaker 6: ones helping other people with their problems, but I'm about

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Speaker 6: to go abroad and I want to watch Mets games.

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Speaker 1: Noah, how can I watch them?

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Speaker 4: That's a tough one. Maybe get a really large telescope.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's the best way to do it.

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Speaker 6: Manny, do you have any solutions on how I can

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Speaker 6: watch Mets games abroad?

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Speaker 3: I think I've got a slightly more practical solution for you, Devin.

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Speaker 3: If you use NordVPN, you'll be able to change the

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Speaker 3: location of your laptop's IP address and watch the content

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Speaker 3: with no problem.

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Speaker 4: What about my privacy online? I'm worried someone's watching me.

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Speaker 3: First of all, no one is watching you, Noah. But

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Speaker 3: in case someone was watching you, NordVPN provides you with

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Speaker 3: privacy online. leaving no digital footprint by hiding your IP address.

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Speaker 3: It's like wearing an invisibility cloak while you're surfing the web.

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Speaker 4: Sounds comfy.

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Speaker 6: So Manny, I've heard about these VPNs and how they're

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Speaker 6: super slow.

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Speaker 1: How do I make sure my internet is not throttling?

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Speaker 3: If you want to use a VPN without slowing down

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Speaker 3: your internet, Devin, you're going to want to use NordVPN

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Speaker 3: because whenever I use it, I don't see any buffering

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Speaker 3: or lagging while I'm streaming my favorite content.

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Speaker 1: How do I get NordVPN?

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Speaker 3: Devin, if you or our listeners want to get the

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Speaker 3: best discount off of your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com

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00:15:25,994 --> 00:15:30,154
Speaker 3: slash nst. Our link will also give you four extra

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Speaker 3: months on the two-year plan, and there's no risk because

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Speaker 3: Nord has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

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Speaker 4: The link is in the show notes.

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Speaker 3: That's nordvpn.com slash nst.

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Speaker 4: All right, we're back. We're talking about the alleged decline

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Speaker 4: of reading. So the first couple of interviews that I

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Speaker 4: want to share are with people who are active in

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Speaker 4: the children's literacy space.

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Speaker 8: I'm Kelsey Cloudfelter.

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Speaker 11: I've been teaching English for, this is my 11th year now,

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Speaker 11: and I've taught in both Chicago and Minnesota.

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Speaker 8: I teach freshmen and juniors right now.

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Speaker 4: Kelsey, aka Miss C, has a big following on TikTok

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Speaker 4: where she shares what it's like to teach kids today.

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Speaker 11: I have an idea that has been germinating for a

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Speaker 11: while and it has taken hold of my brain and

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Speaker 11: it's called 90s classroom. The idea is simple. What if

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Speaker 11: next year I do everything within my power to revive

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Speaker 11: the spirit of the 90s in my classroom? To bring

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Speaker 11: back the best parts of being a student and a

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Speaker 11: teacher in that era. Mind you, this was.

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Speaker 8: Pre-phones, pre-Chromebooks, pre-AI, pre-state testing, I think. Here's my vision.

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Speaker 8: Extremely limited technology. Books everywhere. Overstuffed couch in the corner.

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Speaker 8: The room's bustling with human interaction. I feel like this

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Speaker 8: is doable.

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Speaker 11: I do have the affliction of believing everything's doable for me,

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Speaker 11: but this one, especially. 90s classroom.

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Speaker 4: Let's do it. So according to measures like the nation's

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Speaker 4: report card, reading and math levels have declined to their

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Speaker 4: lowest level in like over 20 years. Have you seen

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Speaker 4: this in your experience teaching over the past few years?

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Speaker 8: Definitely.

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Speaker 11: I mean, I think just in, like I said, my

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Speaker 11: 11 year career, I've even noticed a decline. But I

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Speaker 11: think the comparison most millennial teachers draw is just comparing

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Speaker 11: our own educational experience, where many of us were like

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Speaker 11: very avid readers. And also there was a pretty high

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Speaker 11: expectation for how much and how well we should be

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Speaker 11: reading to what we're seeing now with high school age students.

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Speaker 11: I've been at a couple schools where we were told, like,

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Speaker 11: we do not teach novels.

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Speaker 8: We teach excerpts. We teach short texts.

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Speaker 11: Students can read full-length novels if they choose to, but

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Speaker 11: we don't teach novels.

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Speaker 8: It's a waste of time.

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Speaker 11: Seeing that is very frustrating because you can see how

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Speaker 11: districts are directly contributing to the decline in students being

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Speaker 11: able to engage with longer form texts.

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Speaker 4: Is it a shift because they want to just focus

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Speaker 4: on maybe getting better test scores and they think that's

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Speaker 4: an easier way to do it? Or do they think

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Speaker 4: it's more like the kids won't read longer books, so

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Speaker 4: let's just not even try?

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Speaker 8: I think it's both. I think it's both for sure.

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Speaker 11: I think there's definitely the element of students will do

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Speaker 11: better on standardized tests if we drill them with these

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Speaker 11: short form passages and the questions they'll see on those tests.

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Speaker 11: I think the instinct is understandable, but the consequences of

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Speaker 11: years and years of a curriculum like this is really.

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Speaker 8: Really negative.

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Speaker 4: So, I mean, the ironic thing, too, is the scores

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Speaker 4: aren't even going up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. You spend more time.

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Speaker 4: You're doing all this to get what the kids will

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Speaker 4: do for the test scores. And then those are going down.

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Speaker 4: So then I kind of asked about that question, the

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Speaker 4: kind of question about like, well, it's a modern world.

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Speaker 4: Maybe we're just evolving in a different way and we

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Speaker 4: don't need this skill as much.

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Speaker 11: Yeah, I think I've had, I've been in a lot

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Speaker 11: of arguments with people about this. I'm just recalling a

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Speaker 11: conversation I had a few years ago at another school

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Speaker 11: where I taught. And I was arguing with a math

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Speaker 11: teacher who basically said, anything students need to learn, they

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Speaker 11: can learn from YouTube videos. Like anything you need to

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Speaker 11: know how to do, you don't need to read a book.

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Speaker 11: You can watch a YouTube video. And my argument to

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Speaker 11: that was just this idea of learning as a technical how.

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Speaker 8: To is really, really different from how I conceive of learning.

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Speaker 11: Right. I think like the beauty of a long form

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Speaker 11: text and being able to immerse yourself in a completely

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Speaker 11: different perspective. It builds empathy. It broadens your worldview. It

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Speaker 11: just does so many things that I think. a YouTube

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Speaker 11: video on how to fix a faucet is like not

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Speaker 11: even in the same category of what we're talking about here.

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Speaker 11: I guess the idea there is an idea that you

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Speaker 11: should gain something tangible from reading, right? That you should leave-

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Speaker 11: with a piece of knowledge that you can then implement

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Speaker 11: in the world and it will help you in some way.

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00:20:05,234 --> 00:20:08,574
Speaker 11: And I think the goal and purpose of reading is

443
00:20:08,614 --> 00:20:13,634
Speaker 11: so much more aesthetic and kind of amorphous and ill-defined.

444
00:20:13,694 --> 00:20:16,734
Speaker 11: So I get why schools may be resistant to teach

445
00:20:16,774 --> 00:20:20,794
Speaker 11: something that it's really hard to explain like how this

446
00:20:20,834 --> 00:20:23,614
Speaker 11: actually helps students. But the people who believe that it

447
00:20:23,674 --> 00:20:26,794
Speaker 11: does are really passionate about saying, yes, it does.

448
00:20:29,734 --> 00:20:32,444
Speaker 4: Let's talk a little bit more about generally like the phones.

449
00:20:32,724 --> 00:20:35,464
Speaker 4: Do you think that's a big piece of why maybe

450
00:20:35,484 --> 00:20:39,264
Speaker 4: they're not able to pay attention to long form books anymore?

451
00:20:39,764 --> 00:20:42,224
Speaker 8: For sure. I mean, I have really, really great students.

452
00:20:42,544 --> 00:20:45,084
Speaker 11: So like right now we're reading a Gabriel Garcia Marquez

453
00:20:45,104 --> 00:20:50,744
Speaker 11: book in my advanced literature class. And students will read

454
00:20:50,804 --> 00:20:53,204
Speaker 11: parts of the book and then they'll just tell me,

455
00:20:54,484 --> 00:20:56,934
Speaker 11: I didn't understand any of that. And we'll try to

456
00:20:56,954 --> 00:20:59,874
Speaker 11: kind of go through and break down why. And it's

457
00:20:59,914 --> 00:21:02,854
Speaker 11: not actually a comprehension issue. It's like a distraction issue.

458
00:21:03,334 --> 00:21:05,534
Speaker 11: So I'm like, okay, this sentence, I'll read it aloud.

459
00:21:05,634 --> 00:21:07,533
Speaker 11: And they'll be like, oh, I didn't see that when

460
00:21:07,554 --> 00:21:10,004
Speaker 11: I was reading it. I'm like, okay, but when I

461
00:21:10,064 --> 00:21:11,864
Speaker 11: read it to you, you didn't understand it, right?

462
00:21:11,884 --> 00:21:15,444
Speaker 8: And they're like, yeah, totally. So it's like, they are

463
00:21:15,544 --> 00:21:16,964
Speaker 8: even self-aware.

464
00:21:16,444 --> 00:21:18,634
Speaker 11: That as they're reading, they're kind of zoning out, their

465
00:21:18,654 --> 00:21:21,074
Speaker 11: brains are going a million different places. It's something I

466
00:21:21,114 --> 00:21:24,094
Speaker 11: experienced as well as like a very online person when

467
00:21:24,154 --> 00:21:26,194
Speaker 11: I am sitting down at night and trying to read,

468
00:21:26,494 --> 00:21:28,854
Speaker 11: the first 10 minutes are just like my brain's everywhere.

469
00:21:29,214 --> 00:21:30,734
Speaker 11: And then I can finally kind of get into a

470
00:21:30,754 --> 00:21:34,414
Speaker 11: flow state. So I can't even imagine what they're dealing

471
00:21:34,474 --> 00:21:38,664
Speaker 11: with as growing up, you know, many of them.

472
00:21:38,584 --> 00:21:40,484
Speaker 8: Are self-proclaimed iPad kids, right?

473
00:21:40,524 --> 00:21:43,584
Speaker 11: Like raised on iPads, trying to sit down and like

474
00:21:43,884 --> 00:21:45,664
Speaker 11: immerse yourself in a book is really challenging.

475
00:21:45,684 --> 00:21:50,234
Speaker 3: It's so fascinating. I mean, even in our conversation about

476
00:21:50,254 --> 00:21:53,374
Speaker 3: the importance of reading, like I definitely do find it

477
00:21:53,594 --> 00:21:55,554
Speaker 3: a little bit harder to read than I did when

478
00:21:55,594 --> 00:21:59,013
Speaker 3: I was like earlier in my life. I'll have to

479
00:21:59,054 --> 00:22:01,374
Speaker 3: like read, like go back and read a page again

480
00:22:01,454 --> 00:22:03,534
Speaker 3: or like, and I think probably it does have a

481
00:22:03,554 --> 00:22:07,154
Speaker 3: lot to do with how we consume information and other

482
00:22:07,234 --> 00:22:10,754
Speaker 3: aspects of our lives, like in social media. So, you know,

483
00:22:11,374 --> 00:22:13,114
Speaker 3: on one hand, it's like, damn, I wish these kids

484
00:22:13,134 --> 00:22:14,924
Speaker 3: were reading more. On the other hand, you kind of

485
00:22:14,944 --> 00:22:17,044
Speaker 3: can't blame them. It's like the world they grew up in.

486
00:22:17,404 --> 00:22:18,264
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.

487
00:22:18,284 --> 00:22:18,524
Speaker 3: Yeah.

488
00:22:18,744 --> 00:22:20,144
Speaker 4: Like you were saying, it's like so hard for us

489
00:22:20,184 --> 00:22:22,244
Speaker 4: to pay attention. Like even if I'm reading a book,

490
00:22:22,464 --> 00:22:23,144
Speaker 4: a printed book.

491
00:22:23,264 --> 00:22:23,544
Speaker 11: Yeah.

492
00:22:23,884 --> 00:22:25,644
Speaker 4: Every couple of pages, I'll stop and look at my phone.

493
00:22:25,944 --> 00:22:26,684
Speaker 4: Nothing going on.

494
00:22:26,824 --> 00:22:27,324
Speaker 5: Yeah.

495
00:22:27,904 --> 00:22:30,274
Speaker 4: You know, and that's like, I feel like I'm actually

496
00:22:30,314 --> 00:22:32,714
Speaker 4: pretty good at reading every day something.

497
00:22:33,034 --> 00:22:33,334
Speaker 1: I agree.

498
00:22:35,304 --> 00:22:35,784
Speaker 3: No, it is.

499
00:22:35,804 --> 00:22:38,524
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear her. I think that there is a

500
00:22:38,524 --> 00:22:39,504
Speaker 1: lot of finger pointing.

501
00:22:39,804 --> 00:22:42,154
Speaker 6: That's why I'm like, for me, it's like not about

502
00:22:42,354 --> 00:22:46,574
Speaker 6: the kids not reading. It's about changing the expectations to

503
00:22:46,634 --> 00:22:49,184
Speaker 6: not have them read because it's like, yeah, it's tough

504
00:22:50,124 --> 00:22:54,684
Speaker 6: to read, period. It's going to be even tougher to

505
00:22:54,744 --> 00:22:56,904
Speaker 6: read if there's no expectation of you to read.

506
00:22:56,964 --> 00:22:57,244
Speaker 12: Yeah.

507
00:22:57,404 --> 00:22:57,584
Speaker 5: Yeah.

508
00:22:57,954 --> 00:23:01,494
Speaker 6: If I was not assigned books in high school to read,

509
00:23:01,514 --> 00:23:03,254
Speaker 6: I don't know how much reading I would be doing

510
00:23:03,654 --> 00:23:05,514
Speaker 6: in high school. So it's not like to say, like,

511
00:23:05,534 --> 00:23:08,584
Speaker 6: these kids are so much dumber. Like, they don't have

512
00:23:08,644 --> 00:23:10,424
Speaker 6: what I had. It's just sort of like, well, if

513
00:23:10,724 --> 00:23:13,364
Speaker 6: you don't expect them to do the things, then they're

514
00:23:13,384 --> 00:23:13,994
Speaker 6: not going to do it.

515
00:23:14,244 --> 00:23:16,884
Speaker 4: Lastly, I asked Kelsey, what does she think would help

516
00:23:16,964 --> 00:23:17,444
Speaker 4: fix this?

517
00:23:17,744 --> 00:23:19,014
Speaker 8: I think it comes down to.

518
00:23:20,024 --> 00:23:23,224
Speaker 11: tension like I think a lot of teachers myself for

519
00:23:23,244 --> 00:23:25,384
Speaker 11: a long time in my career to avoid any kind

520
00:23:25,404 --> 00:23:29,754
Speaker 11: of tension and I'm unfortunately like to help students read

521
00:23:29,814 --> 00:23:34,314
Speaker 11: better they have to do the very unpleasant work of

522
00:23:34,434 --> 00:23:38,274
Speaker 11: sitting there and actually forcing themselves to read and you

523
00:23:38,314 --> 00:23:40,154
Speaker 11: as the teacher have to do the very unpleasant work

524
00:23:40,194 --> 00:23:42,424
Speaker 11: of like calling out when they're not or being like

525
00:23:42,514 --> 00:23:45,024
Speaker 11: all right y'all we are reading this book right now.

526
00:23:45,624 --> 00:23:47,724
Speaker 11: We are five minutes in and I see no one

527
00:23:47,784 --> 00:23:50,084
Speaker 11: is looking at the page. Like what is going on?

528
00:23:50,104 --> 00:23:53,064
Speaker 11: A lot of us too in our teaching have really

529
00:23:53,104 --> 00:23:55,504
Speaker 11: been fed this idea that everything has to be like

530
00:23:55,544 --> 00:23:57,444
Speaker 11: super glitzy and engaging all the time.

531
00:23:57,464 --> 00:23:59,004
Speaker 8: And that students should be like on the edge of

532
00:23:59,024 --> 00:24:02,544
Speaker 8: their seat, like doing fun collaborative activities.

533
00:24:02,684 --> 00:24:06,454
Speaker 11: And I just think like, I know kids aren't going

534
00:24:06,474 --> 00:24:08,614
Speaker 11: to read at home. So we're going to read and

535
00:24:08,654 --> 00:24:11,854
Speaker 11: discuss in class. And I think that can make things

536
00:24:11,954 --> 00:24:15,434
Speaker 11: feel a little bit dull and even tense sometimes, but

537
00:24:15,754 --> 00:24:16,844
Speaker 11: I think it's worth it.

538
00:24:18,164 --> 00:24:21,674
Speaker 4: As far as maybe bigger picture, like whether it's from a,

539
00:24:22,184 --> 00:24:24,244
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's a government policy standpoint, do

540
00:24:24,264 --> 00:24:26,584
Speaker 4: you think there's things that could be coming from a

541
00:24:26,744 --> 00:24:30,554
Speaker 4: higher level that could help get these literacy rates up?

542
00:24:30,594 --> 00:24:31,614
Speaker 4: Do you think it would be a change in the

543
00:24:31,654 --> 00:24:33,874
Speaker 4: testing or what sort of programs might work?

544
00:24:34,594 --> 00:24:38,904
Speaker 11: Curriculum that emphasizes the importance of long form texts is necessary.

545
00:24:39,304 --> 00:24:41,804
Speaker 8: I'm actually really lucky to teach at an IB school.

546
00:24:42,244 --> 00:24:45,184
Speaker 11: And the IB curriculum is designed around a variety of

547
00:24:45,244 --> 00:24:47,704
Speaker 11: long form and short form texts. But you really deep

548
00:24:47,724 --> 00:24:50,264
Speaker 11: dive into certain authors. So like, for example, when students

549
00:24:50,284 --> 00:24:53,784
Speaker 11: study poetry, they study a set of poems by one author.

550
00:24:53,984 --> 00:24:56,044
Speaker 11: And that's like a really cool opportunity to go deep

551
00:24:56,084 --> 00:24:58,334
Speaker 11: into their style. You also have to read like a

552
00:24:58,374 --> 00:25:01,114
Speaker 11: certain number of novels, a certain number of dramas. And

553
00:25:01,154 --> 00:25:04,624
Speaker 11: I think that is really, really beneficial for students. Other

554
00:25:04,644 --> 00:25:08,164
Speaker 11: schools that have not had that type of curriculum that

555
00:25:08,204 --> 00:25:10,144
Speaker 11: have more pushed like the test prep thing.

556
00:25:10,204 --> 00:25:12,584
Speaker 8: I feel like the test prep model is what we

557
00:25:12,624 --> 00:25:13,804
Speaker 8: really need to move away from.

558
00:25:13,904 --> 00:25:17,184
Speaker 11: And that is definitely something that can be influenced like

559
00:25:17,224 --> 00:25:18,694
Speaker 11: at the state and policy level.

560
00:25:22,754 --> 00:25:25,054
Speaker 1: I like this, what she said. I think, you know,

561
00:25:25,214 --> 00:25:25,834
Speaker 1: I read for fun.

562
00:25:26,624 --> 00:25:28,344
Speaker 6: I don't think it's boring to read for fun, but

563
00:25:28,384 --> 00:25:32,434
Speaker 6: I do think there is that tension that sometimes you

564
00:25:32,474 --> 00:25:35,514
Speaker 6: don't want to read. Sometimes I force myself to read

565
00:25:35,554 --> 00:25:37,254
Speaker 6: when I'm not in the mood to read because I'm

566
00:25:37,274 --> 00:25:39,994
Speaker 6: just like, yeah, I could scroll on my phone for

567
00:25:40,014 --> 00:25:43,674
Speaker 6: TikTok for 30 minutes or I can read this chapter

568
00:25:43,714 --> 00:25:47,024
Speaker 6: of this book and I'll feel better after reading the

569
00:25:47,044 --> 00:25:47,664
Speaker 6: chapter of the.

570
00:25:47,624 --> 00:25:50,224
Speaker 1: Book than I will after scrolling TikTok. Oh, definitely. Definitely.

571
00:25:50,504 --> 00:25:53,214
Speaker 6: But it takes, you know, like she's saying, sometimes, you know,

572
00:25:53,254 --> 00:25:55,094
Speaker 6: it takes a little bit to get into it, you know?

573
00:25:55,134 --> 00:25:55,254
Speaker 11: Right.

574
00:25:55,274 --> 00:25:57,034
Speaker 6: You kind of have to force yourself, like, okay, I

575
00:25:57,074 --> 00:25:58,694
Speaker 6: got to focus. I got to, like, put my head

576
00:25:58,734 --> 00:25:59,414
Speaker 6: down and do this.

577
00:25:59,654 --> 00:25:59,874
Speaker 5: Yeah.

578
00:26:00,034 --> 00:26:02,914
Speaker 6: You know, no one is– we've never been on TikTok or,

579
00:26:02,994 --> 00:26:05,634
Speaker 6: you know, Instagram or whatever and been like– I really

580
00:26:05,654 --> 00:26:06,074
Speaker 6: got to get.

581
00:26:05,974 --> 00:26:08,264
Speaker 4: My mind in the right space to do this.

582
00:26:08,284 --> 00:26:10,444
Speaker 1: You know, it's just sort of like, yeah.

583
00:26:10,564 --> 00:26:11,984
Speaker 4: Instant gratification.

584
00:26:12,004 --> 00:26:13,564
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're doing it. Yeah.

585
00:26:13,864 --> 00:26:16,584
Speaker 6: So I think there is that discipline and it like,

586
00:26:16,624 --> 00:26:19,474
Speaker 6: you will get to a place that is rewarding and

587
00:26:19,554 --> 00:26:21,934
Speaker 6: will feel like, you know, like we're talking about, you

588
00:26:21,954 --> 00:26:25,054
Speaker 6: get engrossed in these worlds, but it takes more time

589
00:26:25,834 --> 00:26:29,814
Speaker 6: to truly get into it. And I think it, I'm

590
00:26:29,834 --> 00:26:32,284
Speaker 6: glad that she's like, you know, forcing those kids to

591
00:26:32,344 --> 00:26:35,914
Speaker 6: have discipline and just like, shut up and read in class.

592
00:26:35,934 --> 00:26:38,274
Speaker 6: And it's like, yeah, we can do all that collaborative

593
00:26:38,334 --> 00:26:40,984
Speaker 6: fun stuff once you read the book.

594
00:26:41,644 --> 00:26:42,924
Speaker 1: And if you read at home, we wouldn't have to

595
00:26:42,964 --> 00:26:43,304
Speaker 1: do this.

596
00:26:45,214 --> 00:26:47,624
Speaker 4: So next up, I spoke to number one New York

597
00:26:47,644 --> 00:26:50,984
Speaker 4: Times bestselling children's book author Jason Reynolds. He's written books

598
00:26:51,024 --> 00:26:53,824
Speaker 4: such as Long Way Down, Ghost, and many, many more.

599
00:26:53,984 --> 00:26:58,004
Speaker 4: Jason has also received the Newbery Honor and NAACP Image Award,

600
00:26:58,204 --> 00:27:00,104
Speaker 4: just to name a few bullet points on his resume.

601
00:27:00,244 --> 00:27:02,954
Speaker 4: I wanted to speak to Jason in particular because of

602
00:27:02,994 --> 00:27:06,513
Speaker 4: his book Soundtrack, which was originally released in 2025 as

603
00:27:06,554 --> 00:27:09,754
Speaker 4: an audiobook only. I wondered, in a time of a

604
00:27:09,834 --> 00:27:13,034
Speaker 4: so-called literacy crisis, why would you publish something so only

605
00:27:13,074 --> 00:27:15,454
Speaker 4: as audio. It turns out it started off as a

606
00:27:15,474 --> 00:27:17,334
Speaker 4: traditional print novel, unpublished.

607
00:27:18,214 --> 00:27:21,494
Speaker 13: I had written a novel a decade ago that sat

608
00:27:21,534 --> 00:27:24,374
Speaker 13: in the drawer, right? And I wrote this thing and

609
00:27:25,074 --> 00:27:27,364
Speaker 13: for whatever reason, my publishers at the time, I don't

610
00:27:27,384 --> 00:27:30,064
Speaker 13: know if they didn't see it, right? They didn't see

611
00:27:30,084 --> 00:27:32,704
Speaker 13: the vision of the story or if there are other

612
00:27:32,744 --> 00:27:35,904
Speaker 13: stories that I'd written sort of, you know, took precedence, right?

613
00:27:36,304 --> 00:27:38,124
Speaker 13: And so after a while, the book kept getting bumped

614
00:27:38,524 --> 00:27:43,054
Speaker 13: and eventually it just kind of sat and you know,

615
00:27:43,134 --> 00:27:44,274
Speaker 13: purgatorial jaw.

616
00:27:44,774 --> 00:27:47,484
Speaker 4: Years later, a contact of his at Penguin Random House

617
00:27:47,624 --> 00:27:51,544
Speaker 4: Audio was looking for original audio projects, and Soundtrack, which

618
00:27:51,584 --> 00:27:55,224
Speaker 4: is a book about music, was released into the world. Anyway,

619
00:27:55,864 --> 00:27:59,004
Speaker 4: now Soundtrack is also available in print, but very much

620
00:27:59,094 --> 00:28:02,634
Speaker 4: reads like an audio-first project. And Jason's focus was on

621
00:28:02,654 --> 00:28:05,774
Speaker 4: the format serving the story. He used this example of

622
00:28:05,814 --> 00:28:07,634
Speaker 4: an older fellow you might be familiar with.

623
00:28:09,274 --> 00:28:13,404
Speaker 13: I love Shakespeare, and sometimes I wonder... just how much

624
00:28:13,444 --> 00:28:16,464
Speaker 13: of a disservice we have done by reading it so

625
00:28:16,524 --> 00:28:20,303
Speaker 13: often and not seeing it ever, right? When it was

626
00:28:20,384 --> 00:28:23,244
Speaker 13: meant to be seen, you know, it's easier to understand

627
00:28:23,414 --> 00:28:24,414
Speaker 13: if you could just see it.

628
00:28:24,674 --> 00:28:25,774
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.

629
00:28:25,954 --> 00:28:29,414
Speaker 13: But instead, we're like studying it line for line, you know?

630
00:28:29,434 --> 00:28:32,134
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is helpful, but maybe helpful after we already

631
00:28:32,174 --> 00:28:32,604
Speaker 4: kind of know it.

632
00:28:32,614 --> 00:28:33,234
Speaker 12: After we see it.

633
00:28:33,274 --> 00:28:34,354
Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly.

634
00:28:38,084 --> 00:28:40,644
Speaker 4: I asked what he thought about, you know, audiobooks, people

635
00:28:40,684 --> 00:28:41,604
Speaker 4: who look down on them.

636
00:28:42,394 --> 00:28:45,934
Speaker 13: People are just so weird about that, right? It's like,

637
00:28:46,014 --> 00:28:47,654
Speaker 13: if you give a baby a bottle of milk, does

638
00:28:47,694 --> 00:28:48,374
Speaker 13: it count as eating?

639
00:28:48,454 --> 00:28:48,714
Speaker 11: Yes.

640
00:28:50,074 --> 00:28:50,894
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?

641
00:28:51,354 --> 00:28:55,514
Speaker 13: And the nourishment that that milk is having is still valuable,

642
00:28:55,574 --> 00:28:59,434
Speaker 13: whether it's being liquefied or whether it's something that has

643
00:28:59,454 --> 00:29:04,224
Speaker 13: to be chewed. The nutrients are the nutrients, right? I

644
00:29:04,254 --> 00:29:06,604
Speaker 13: don't like it. And I think it's just weird elitism

645
00:29:06,684 --> 00:29:09,604
Speaker 13: around what the book is supposed to be. And by

646
00:29:09,644 --> 00:29:13,064
Speaker 13: the way, the reason why I feel that there's this

647
00:29:13,124 --> 00:29:15,484
Speaker 13: weird elitism is because I actually don't think that people

648
00:29:15,544 --> 00:29:19,444
Speaker 13: look at literature or at books, quote unquote books, as art.

649
00:29:20,294 --> 00:29:24,234
Speaker 13: I think they look at them as sort of intellectual touchstones.

650
00:29:24,314 --> 00:29:26,294
Speaker 13: And it's the only of all the art mediums, by

651
00:29:26,334 --> 00:29:28,054
Speaker 13: the way, I would argue that it might be the

652
00:29:28,174 --> 00:29:33,854
Speaker 13: only one that is this way. People put boundaries on

653
00:29:34,034 --> 00:29:36,504
Speaker 13: even the container that a story can be in, let

654
00:29:36,544 --> 00:29:39,684
Speaker 13: alone boundaries on the stories themselves. And so I think

655
00:29:39,724 --> 00:29:41,904
Speaker 13: all of it is foolish. Either we want the world

656
00:29:41,944 --> 00:29:44,364
Speaker 13: to have stories or we don't. Either we want to

657
00:29:44,404 --> 00:29:47,854
Speaker 13: make them super accessible or we want to create gates

658
00:29:47,954 --> 00:29:49,974
Speaker 13: around them so that only a few of us have

659
00:29:50,014 --> 00:29:51,034
Speaker 13: an opportunity to act.

660
00:29:51,384 --> 00:29:51,564
Speaker 5: Them.

661
00:29:52,084 --> 00:29:54,284
Speaker 13: Either we're going to complain about how we want them

662
00:29:54,344 --> 00:29:58,124
Speaker 13: to be at the forefront of culture, right? And if

663
00:29:58,164 --> 00:30:00,064
Speaker 13: we complain about it, then we fight to make it

664
00:30:00,104 --> 00:30:02,554
Speaker 13: so that they are at the forefront of culture by

665
00:30:02,654 --> 00:30:06,794
Speaker 13: making them accessible and changing and by creating multiple formats

666
00:30:06,814 --> 00:30:09,714
Speaker 13: in which they can live or create We sort of

667
00:30:09,754 --> 00:30:12,864
Speaker 13: throw stones from the other side of the road with our,

668
00:30:13,034 --> 00:30:15,964
Speaker 13: you know, our arms full of, you know, paper tones.

669
00:30:17,484 --> 00:30:19,124
Speaker 13: You know, and pat ourselves on the back in that

670
00:30:19,184 --> 00:30:23,224
Speaker 13: way for having done the hard work, quote unquote. Let

671
00:30:23,264 --> 00:30:25,864
Speaker 13: alone people don't realize how much concentration it requires to

672
00:30:26,024 --> 00:30:27,204
Speaker 13: also listen to a book.

673
00:30:27,344 --> 00:30:27,684
Speaker 4: Oh, right.

674
00:30:27,704 --> 00:30:27,884
Speaker 12: Yeah.

675
00:30:28,144 --> 00:30:28,324
Speaker 5: Yeah.

676
00:30:28,464 --> 00:30:30,214
Speaker 1: That's the big thing.

677
00:30:30,374 --> 00:30:33,114
Speaker 13: There's just nonsense and like silly ways for people to

678
00:30:33,134 --> 00:30:35,834
Speaker 13: sort of figure out ways to separate themselves intellectually.

679
00:30:35,874 --> 00:30:37,114
Speaker 1: And so I'd rather not even participate.

680
00:30:44,314 --> 00:30:46,614
Speaker 6: I think it would be beautiful if we were saying

681
00:30:47,514 --> 00:30:49,594
Speaker 6: we can't get kids to read. They're just listening to

682
00:30:49,694 --> 00:30:50,234
Speaker 6: audio books.

683
00:30:50,594 --> 00:30:50,974
Speaker 1: Yeah.

684
00:30:51,014 --> 00:30:52,074
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.

685
00:30:52,294 --> 00:30:54,624
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think that'd be a pretty

686
00:30:54,644 --> 00:30:56,724
Speaker 1: good place for us to be. Yeah, of course.

687
00:30:57,304 --> 00:30:59,344
Speaker 4: Next, I asked the big question. Do you believe we're

688
00:30:59,364 --> 00:31:02,784
Speaker 4: in a reading crisis? Here's what Jason Reynolds had to say.

689
00:31:03,524 --> 00:31:06,204
Speaker 13: Do I believe we're in a reading crisis? I think

690
00:31:06,224 --> 00:31:08,484
Speaker 13: globally we're in a reading crisis. And I think there

691
00:31:08,504 --> 00:31:10,444
Speaker 13: are lots of things that we could maybe point to

692
00:31:10,464 --> 00:31:13,444
Speaker 13: to figure out what is causing the crisis. It's impossible

693
00:31:13,484 --> 00:31:18,284
Speaker 13: for us to deny the impacts of technology simply because

694
00:31:18,304 --> 00:31:21,004
Speaker 13: of the injection of hyperstimulation.

695
00:31:21,024 --> 00:31:21,524
Speaker 3: Yeah.

696
00:31:22,324 --> 00:31:23,904
Speaker 1: And, you know, it's like, yo, I have.

697
00:31:23,884 --> 00:31:27,834
Speaker 13: So many other things to do. There was a point

698
00:31:27,874 --> 00:31:34,414
Speaker 13: in the world where there was theater, cinema, radio, eventually television.

699
00:31:35,154 --> 00:31:37,634
Speaker 13: And then there was the book. And the only one

700
00:31:37,654 --> 00:31:40,544
Speaker 13: of those things that you could entertain yourself on the

701
00:31:40,584 --> 00:31:43,384
Speaker 13: go with would have been the book. The book as

702
00:31:43,424 --> 00:31:45,784
Speaker 13: an object to have on the body, on the person,

703
00:31:46,664 --> 00:31:50,074
Speaker 13: in a way that now the phone is. And in

704
00:31:50,114 --> 00:31:54,294
Speaker 13: that laptop and on that phone is the world. A

705
00:31:54,334 --> 00:31:58,254
Speaker 13: kaleidoscope of distraction. And by the way, we talk about

706
00:31:58,274 --> 00:31:59,934
Speaker 13: this in this way because I write for kids. We

707
00:31:59,954 --> 00:32:02,274
Speaker 13: always talk about young people because we see... And I

708
00:32:02,314 --> 00:32:03,774
Speaker 13: get why I write the stakes or how I want

709
00:32:03,794 --> 00:32:05,414
Speaker 13: to make sure that they are literate.

710
00:32:05,914 --> 00:32:07,014
Speaker 1: Right. So it makes sense.

711
00:32:07,084 --> 00:32:10,024
Speaker 12: But the majority of adults don't read.

712
00:32:10,544 --> 00:32:14,804
Speaker 13: It could even be argued that they read less because

713
00:32:14,884 --> 00:32:15,884
Speaker 13: they don't have to.

714
00:32:16,504 --> 00:32:18,304
Speaker 1: So then there are other questions that one must ask.

715
00:32:18,424 --> 00:32:18,564
Speaker 5: Right.

716
00:32:18,604 --> 00:32:21,314
Speaker 13: Number one is reading being modeled in the home. We

717
00:32:21,334 --> 00:32:22,334
Speaker 13: be blaming kids.

718
00:32:22,374 --> 00:32:25,914
Speaker 1: It's always like, man. those kids, they're not, they just

719
00:32:25,954 --> 00:32:26,954
Speaker 1: don't read anymore, man.

720
00:32:26,974 --> 00:32:29,594
Speaker 13: And it's like, well, yes, and we should sort of

721
00:32:29,634 --> 00:32:31,274
Speaker 13: sort this out, but I think there are other questions

722
00:32:31,294 --> 00:32:33,474
Speaker 13: that we have to ask ourselves. Like, I've heard, I've

723
00:32:33,494 --> 00:32:36,814
Speaker 13: had arguments around, like, expectations, that we should keep expectations

724
00:32:36,894 --> 00:32:39,214
Speaker 13: high for young people so that they can meet that expectation.

725
00:32:39,604 --> 00:32:41,164
Speaker 13: I don't disagree with that. I just think we need

726
00:32:41,184 --> 00:32:44,884
Speaker 13: to also recalibrate what the baseline is to meet them

727
00:32:44,904 --> 00:32:46,964
Speaker 13: where they are for this moment in this culture at

728
00:32:47,024 --> 00:32:48,564
Speaker 13: this particular era of society, right?

729
00:32:48,844 --> 00:32:49,624
Speaker 12: That's all I'm saying, right?

730
00:32:49,664 --> 00:32:53,644
Speaker 13: So, like, if we're recalibrating the baseline, then maybe we

731
00:32:54,064 --> 00:32:58,864
Speaker 13: Maybe we don't start with Melville or Hemingway.

732
00:32:58,634 --> 00:33:02,614
Speaker 1: Or Steinbeck, right? Maybe we start with.

733
00:33:02,594 --> 00:33:04,814
Speaker 13: Something that feels a little more contemporary and something that

734
00:33:04,834 --> 00:33:07,054
Speaker 13: feels a little more fresh. Maybe we start with me

735
00:33:07,154 --> 00:33:09,474
Speaker 13: or we start with some of my contemporaries and partners, right?

736
00:33:09,754 --> 00:33:10,994
Speaker 1: They love Captain Underpins.

737
00:33:11,614 --> 00:33:14,204
Speaker 13: And I know everyone's like, but that's not literature. It's like,

738
00:33:14,604 --> 00:33:19,604
Speaker 13: is it not? If Pilkey got millions.

739
00:33:18,964 --> 00:33:21,404
Speaker 12: Of kids to read, you don't think?

740
00:33:21,684 --> 00:33:24,364
Speaker 13: Because no one had a problem with Captain Underpins. No

741
00:33:24,384 --> 00:33:26,684
Speaker 13: one had a problem with the silliness and the goofiness

742
00:33:27,484 --> 00:33:30,204
Speaker 13: of Dr. Seuss back then, especially. Like, we didn't have

743
00:33:30,244 --> 00:33:34,124
Speaker 13: any issues with that. Why not lean into Dog Man and, like,

744
00:33:34,184 --> 00:33:34,624
Speaker 13: why not?

745
00:33:37,144 --> 00:33:38,744
Speaker 6: That's how I got my brother to read, like, when

746
00:33:38,784 --> 00:33:40,404
Speaker 6: he was younger. He didn't want to read anything else.

747
00:33:40,424 --> 00:33:42,284
Speaker 6: We got him into Diary of a Wimpy Kid and

748
00:33:42,344 --> 00:33:43,064
Speaker 6: Captain Underpants.

749
00:33:43,104 --> 00:33:43,484
Speaker 10: Yeah.

750
00:33:43,784 --> 00:33:44,744
Speaker 4: You got to level up.

751
00:33:44,764 --> 00:33:45,024
Speaker 3: Yeah.

752
00:33:45,444 --> 00:33:47,624
Speaker 4: Lastly, Jason told me an anecdote about how such an

753
00:33:47,684 --> 00:33:50,934
Speaker 4: intense focus on data and numbers can result in negative outcomes.

754
00:33:51,464 --> 00:33:54,344
Speaker 13: I'd done an event at Forbes years ago. They were

755
00:33:54,384 --> 00:33:56,844
Speaker 13: talking about spreadsheets. It's all very cut and dry, bottom

756
00:33:56,884 --> 00:33:59,984
Speaker 13: line mathematics, right? This is what the chart shows. We're

757
00:34:00,004 --> 00:34:02,374
Speaker 13: doing projections. We're doing this. There was a mantra they

758
00:34:02,414 --> 00:34:05,694
Speaker 13: kept saying where they said, the numbers are all that counts, right?

759
00:34:05,734 --> 00:34:06,334
Speaker 1: The numbers.

760
00:34:06,714 --> 00:34:08,734
Speaker 13: And then it was my turn to speak. And I said,

761
00:34:08,754 --> 00:34:10,893
Speaker 13: you know, that's something that in the literary world that

762
00:34:10,954 --> 00:34:14,234
Speaker 13: scares me. If I ever heard anyone say the numbers

763
00:34:14,654 --> 00:34:16,893
Speaker 13: are the only thing that counts. I say, because if

764
00:34:16,913 --> 00:34:20,044
Speaker 13: you look at the numbers, the numbers will tell you

765
00:34:20,064 --> 00:34:23,524
Speaker 13: something like kids And, you know, especially let's say 2012, right?

766
00:34:23,564 --> 00:34:28,324
Speaker 13: They'll say kids in black communities aren't reading, right? Black boys,

767
00:34:28,364 --> 00:34:33,843
Speaker 13: especially aren't reading. Publishers say based on the numbers, right?

768
00:34:33,924 --> 00:34:36,403
Speaker 13: If black boys aren't reading, then we need not publish

769
00:34:36,453 --> 00:34:39,513
Speaker 13: books about black boys because they don't read. So it'll

770
00:34:39,533 --> 00:34:41,593
Speaker 13: be a waste of our time to publish books about

771
00:34:41,634 --> 00:34:45,073
Speaker 13: black boys because that's what the numbers say until you

772
00:34:45,114 --> 00:34:48,774
Speaker 13: get somebody with a different interpretation of the numbers. And

773
00:34:48,834 --> 00:34:50,354
Speaker 13: if I walk in that room and I see those

774
00:34:50,473 --> 00:34:53,814
Speaker 13: same numbers, I say, black boys aren't reading. So we

775
00:34:53,834 --> 00:34:57,524
Speaker 13: should probably publish books about black boys so that they

776
00:34:57,544 --> 00:34:57,963
Speaker 13: could read.

777
00:34:58,243 --> 00:34:59,094
Speaker 1: So we can bring them in.

778
00:34:59,364 --> 00:35:03,223
Speaker 13: Maybe they're not reading because there is a deficit when

779
00:35:03,283 --> 00:35:06,263
Speaker 13: it comes to them reading things they feel directly connected to.

780
00:35:06,544 --> 00:35:08,663
Speaker 13: And then people will say, well, kids shouldn't have to

781
00:35:08,703 --> 00:35:10,943
Speaker 13: feel directly connected to this, that, and the third.

782
00:35:11,223 --> 00:35:12,123
Speaker 1: Not every kid does.

783
00:35:12,163 --> 00:35:15,343
Speaker 13: But if we're paying attention to what's going on, maybe

784
00:35:15,364 --> 00:35:17,893
Speaker 13: these are at least some things we should consider. Why

785
00:35:17,913 --> 00:35:20,453
Speaker 13: don't we do tests and study the samples of the

786
00:35:20,493 --> 00:35:22,714
Speaker 13: books that are working and say, well, if Long Way

787
00:35:22,754 --> 00:35:24,953
Speaker 13: Down works in a particular way, why does it work?

788
00:35:25,013 --> 00:35:28,233
Speaker 13: And how do we figure out how to incorporate this more?

789
00:35:28,294 --> 00:35:30,693
Speaker 13: If Ghost is working in a certain way, why does

790
00:35:30,754 --> 00:35:32,593
Speaker 13: it work? If The Hate U Give worked in a

791
00:35:32,634 --> 00:35:35,334
Speaker 13: particular way, why does this book work? And granted, you

792
00:35:35,373 --> 00:35:38,014
Speaker 13: can't always get this right because artists are artists. Authors

793
00:35:38,074 --> 00:35:40,054
Speaker 13: are artists and they're making the things they're making.

794
00:35:40,094 --> 00:35:40,423
Speaker 1: You don't.

795
00:35:40,803 --> 00:35:42,424
Speaker 12: You don't want to turn this into some.

796
00:35:42,303 --> 00:35:44,743
Speaker 13: Sort of empirical rubric that you repeat over and over

797
00:35:44,783 --> 00:35:47,174
Speaker 13: and over again because you rob yourself and you rob

798
00:35:47,183 --> 00:35:49,834
Speaker 13: the young people of understanding the beauty and vastness of

799
00:35:49,854 --> 00:35:51,233
Speaker 13: what art could actually be, right?

800
00:35:51,493 --> 00:35:52,354
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying that.

801
00:35:52,413 --> 00:35:56,413
Speaker 13: I'm just saying we do have ways to study what

802
00:35:56,473 --> 00:36:00,093
Speaker 13: is happening to figure out how we shift curriculum in

803
00:36:00,214 --> 00:36:03,334
Speaker 13: general that might be a little more engaging. I'm not

804
00:36:03,393 --> 00:36:06,033
Speaker 13: saying that this is the only answer. I'm saying that

805
00:36:06,114 --> 00:36:08,113
Speaker 13: maybe this is the beginning of the bigger answer.

806
00:36:08,594 --> 00:36:09,794
Speaker 4: But I think it's a good point where it's like

807
00:36:09,873 --> 00:36:12,154
Speaker 4: you can look at the stats and then end up

808
00:36:12,924 --> 00:36:14,763
Speaker 4: doing the opposite of what you want by making it

809
00:36:14,803 --> 00:36:15,424
Speaker 4: less appealing.

810
00:36:15,663 --> 00:36:16,383
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.

811
00:36:16,464 --> 00:36:19,584
Speaker 4: Whether that's, like he's saying, holding certain standards for too

812
00:36:19,623 --> 00:36:23,243
Speaker 4: long or expectations for too long and not adjusting them

813
00:36:23,283 --> 00:36:25,764
Speaker 4: to actually get people to read. Carving out basically certain

814
00:36:25,803 --> 00:36:28,373
Speaker 4: groups and being like, well, they'll never relate to this

815
00:36:28,433 --> 00:36:31,754
Speaker 4: or something, so why bother? That sort of thing. When, like,

816
00:36:31,814 --> 00:36:32,633
Speaker 4: obviously that's not true.

817
00:36:32,993 --> 00:36:36,044
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's got a good idea about, like, packaging reading

818
00:36:36,324 --> 00:36:38,623
Speaker 3: in certain ways because we're not going to be able

819
00:36:38,663 --> 00:36:40,383
Speaker 3: to beat technology, so to speak.

820
00:36:40,703 --> 00:36:45,323
Speaker 4: That was Miss C and Jason Reynolds on reading. But

821
00:36:45,364 --> 00:36:48,143
Speaker 4: when we're back after this commercial break, we hear from

822
00:36:48,183 --> 00:36:51,564
Speaker 4: someone who says there is no crisis in reading.

823
00:36:52,024 --> 00:36:52,143
Speaker 11: Oh.

824
00:36:52,263 --> 00:36:53,524
Speaker 4: And we've been looking at this all wrong.

825
00:37:04,013 --> 00:37:05,894
Speaker 1: I'm Manny. I'm Noah. Devin.

826
00:37:05,913 --> 00:37:08,654
Speaker 4: All right, we're back. So we're talking about the so-called

827
00:37:08,714 --> 00:37:12,893
Speaker 4: reading crisis in America. So lastly, I talked to Paul Thomas.

828
00:37:13,794 --> 00:37:16,873
Speaker 7: I am a professor of education at Furman University, which

829
00:37:16,913 --> 00:37:19,834
Speaker 7: is in Greenville, South Carolina. And probably from my voice,

830
00:37:19,873 --> 00:37:21,863
Speaker 7: you can tell I'm from South Carolina. I've been here

831
00:37:21,884 --> 00:37:24,304
Speaker 7: my whole life. I was a high school English teacher

832
00:37:24,344 --> 00:37:27,323
Speaker 7: for 18 years before I went to higher ed.

833
00:37:27,384 --> 00:37:29,283
Speaker 12: And I've been doing this 42 years now.

834
00:37:30,384 --> 00:37:34,113
Speaker 4: Paul says that all these stories... These pessimistic stories about

835
00:37:34,134 --> 00:37:36,893
Speaker 4: the decline of reading and more specifically the decline of

836
00:37:36,933 --> 00:37:41,234
Speaker 4: reading scores in schools are fundamentally misreading the data and

837
00:37:41,274 --> 00:37:42,734
Speaker 4: misleading the public.

838
00:37:43,473 --> 00:37:45,034
Speaker 3: He said we can't read.

839
00:37:45,094 --> 00:37:46,073
Speaker 4: That's what he's saying. We can't read the data.

840
00:37:46,114 --> 00:37:46,414
Speaker 13: Damn.

841
00:37:46,433 --> 00:37:48,834
Speaker 4: He's saying the public is being misled as to the

842
00:37:48,873 --> 00:37:52,093
Speaker 4: severity of the issue. What if we've been looking at

843
00:37:52,114 --> 00:37:54,253
Speaker 4: this wrong the entire time?

844
00:37:54,493 --> 00:37:55,513
Speaker 3: I can't wait to hear this.

845
00:37:56,533 --> 00:37:57,744
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sit down.

846
00:37:58,953 --> 00:38:00,453
Speaker 4: If you're listening, sit down. I'm sitting down.

847
00:38:00,634 --> 00:38:01,694
Speaker 1: Stop your cars.

848
00:38:01,973 --> 00:38:04,113
Speaker 4: If you're cooking, you know, get a stool at least.

849
00:38:04,354 --> 00:38:08,264
Speaker 4: All right. Here's what Paul had to say. There's been

850
00:38:08,303 --> 00:38:11,044
Speaker 4: all these articles more recently, but also then it's like

851
00:38:11,064 --> 00:38:12,884
Speaker 4: when you do a search for it, these kind of

852
00:38:12,904 --> 00:38:16,444
Speaker 4: come up every few years. I'm sure you're very well familiar.

853
00:38:16,564 --> 00:38:19,004
Speaker 4: I'll ask you, are we in a reading crisis?

854
00:38:20,524 --> 00:38:20,763
Speaker 3: No.

855
00:38:21,263 --> 00:38:22,523
Speaker 12: This is sort of paradoxical.

856
00:38:22,683 --> 00:38:26,623
Speaker 7: Either we have always been in a reading crisis or

857
00:38:26,643 --> 00:38:28,623
Speaker 7: we've never been in a reading crisis.

858
00:38:29,303 --> 00:38:30,084
Speaker 12: I just don't like the.

859
00:38:30,024 --> 00:38:34,554
Speaker 7: Word crisis because I always use the example of the plane,

860
00:38:34,594 --> 00:38:38,473
Speaker 7: the Sullenberg, the crash landing in the Hudson.

861
00:38:39,013 --> 00:38:39,873
Speaker 12: That's a crisis.

862
00:38:40,254 --> 00:38:45,054
Speaker 7: Everybody's behavior in that was extreme because it was needed.

863
00:38:45,493 --> 00:38:47,873
Speaker 7: So I worry when we say crisis, we're going to

864
00:38:47,913 --> 00:38:49,784
Speaker 7: do extreme things.

865
00:38:50,283 --> 00:38:51,304
Speaker 12: And that's what's happening.

866
00:38:51,703 --> 00:38:54,934
Speaker 7: And as you mentioned a second ago, almost word for word,

867
00:38:55,033 --> 00:38:56,254
Speaker 7: almost claim for claim.

868
00:38:56,433 --> 00:38:58,694
Speaker 12: This happened in the 40s. It happened in the 50s.

869
00:38:58,734 --> 00:39:00,014
Speaker 12: So I don't think we're in a crisis.

870
00:39:00,033 --> 00:39:04,314
Speaker 7: I just think the situation we have with reading is

871
00:39:04,354 --> 00:39:10,283
Speaker 7: essentially the same it's always been. We're underserving certain populations

872
00:39:10,344 --> 00:39:16,903
Speaker 7: of students. And overall, most people learn to read and

873
00:39:17,024 --> 00:39:21,763
Speaker 7: function relatively well in the world because and probably read

874
00:39:21,864 --> 00:39:26,783
Speaker 7: more and can read better than we think. Now, those

875
00:39:26,904 --> 00:39:31,184
Speaker 7: underserved populations like black and brown children, multilingual learners, special

876
00:39:31,223 --> 00:39:34,823
Speaker 7: needs students, to me, it's a crime that we don't

877
00:39:35,294 --> 00:39:38,093
Speaker 7: serve those students, but we never have. That is not

878
00:39:38,194 --> 00:39:42,444
Speaker 7: some new thing that's been caused by a particular reading program.

879
00:39:43,064 --> 00:39:45,564
Speaker 4: So one of these stats that people tend to use

880
00:39:45,584 --> 00:39:48,404
Speaker 4: in these articles is this national report card. You contend

881
00:39:48,444 --> 00:39:51,423
Speaker 4: that this is being totally misread or misrepresented as far

882
00:39:51,444 --> 00:39:53,784
Speaker 4: as what it's actually measuring and then what the numbers

883
00:39:54,123 --> 00:39:56,784
Speaker 4: are saying. Can you kind of explain what the national

884
00:39:56,803 --> 00:40:00,693
Speaker 4: report card is and then how it's being misused when

885
00:40:00,714 --> 00:40:01,774
Speaker 4: we're talking about this crisis.

886
00:40:06,944 --> 00:40:09,384
Speaker 12: We usually use NAEP, N-A-E-P.

887
00:40:09,464 --> 00:40:13,424
Speaker 7: That's the letters of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

888
00:40:13,484 --> 00:40:16,424
Speaker 7: It comes out of the Department of Education. The dirty

889
00:40:16,444 --> 00:40:21,033
Speaker 7: little secret about NAEP is it was designed with a

890
00:40:21,094 --> 00:40:24,513
Speaker 7: little bit of intent, probably a lot of intent, to

891
00:40:24,594 --> 00:40:29,984
Speaker 7: make schools look bad. The terminology in NAEP is very confusing.

892
00:40:30,623 --> 00:40:35,383
Speaker 7: The word that everybody focuses on is proficient. So proficient

893
00:40:35,643 --> 00:40:41,573
Speaker 7: on NAEP is at the 70th percentile. That is designed

894
00:40:41,674 --> 00:40:45,294
Speaker 7: for only 30 percent of children to reach. That's the

895
00:40:45,334 --> 00:40:49,434
Speaker 7: way statistics work. That's the way standardized testing works. The misinformation,

896
00:40:49,473 --> 00:40:54,254
Speaker 7: I think, comes from that states use the word proficient differently.

897
00:40:55,033 --> 00:40:58,413
Speaker 7: So we give state assessments generally like third grade and

898
00:40:58,493 --> 00:41:01,874
Speaker 7: eighth grade. And then sometimes we've fluctuated, but in high school.

899
00:41:02,574 --> 00:41:04,453
Speaker 7: So when we give a third grade test at the

900
00:41:04,594 --> 00:41:07,913
Speaker 7: state level and we're looking for proficiency, we tend to

901
00:41:07,953 --> 00:41:12,053
Speaker 7: think of that as grade level. So the expectation is

902
00:41:12,844 --> 00:41:17,924
Speaker 7: in South Carolina that ideally all children can be proficient

903
00:41:18,364 --> 00:41:23,384
Speaker 7: in third grade. Those standards for proficient at the state

904
00:41:23,444 --> 00:41:29,784
Speaker 7: level match the term basic at the NAEP level. So

905
00:41:30,044 --> 00:41:34,203
Speaker 7: the crisis people like journalists and pundits and people trying

906
00:41:34,243 --> 00:41:38,264
Speaker 7: to sell things, generally they say that two-thirds of students

907
00:41:38,364 --> 00:41:44,873
Speaker 7: aren't proficient. Well, technically, on NAEP, that's true. It doesn't

908
00:41:44,953 --> 00:41:47,794
Speaker 7: mean they're not at grade level, and it certainly doesn't

909
00:41:47,834 --> 00:41:53,274
Speaker 7: mean they can't read. Now, historically, about a third of students,

910
00:41:53,354 --> 00:41:57,733
Speaker 7: sometimes a little more, are below basic on NAEP, which

911
00:41:58,234 --> 00:42:03,953
Speaker 7: certainly may be worth being concerned about. Nobody has ever

912
00:42:04,774 --> 00:42:10,824
Speaker 7: created a standard definition for grade-level reading. We don't have

913
00:42:10,844 --> 00:42:13,163
Speaker 7: that in the United States. Every state has their own.

914
00:42:13,263 --> 00:42:16,363
Speaker 7: NAEP has their own. And we have never sat down

915
00:42:16,404 --> 00:42:19,823
Speaker 7: as a country and decided what's the threshold. Saying that

916
00:42:19,844 --> 00:42:25,334
Speaker 7: two-thirds of students aren't proficient readers is is at best misleading,

917
00:42:25,373 --> 00:42:28,973
Speaker 7: and I think purposefully so. I think we like for

918
00:42:29,033 --> 00:42:31,633
Speaker 7: schools to be failing, and I think we like, as

919
00:42:31,654 --> 00:42:34,314
Speaker 7: a country, we like for teachers to be bad, and

920
00:42:34,334 --> 00:42:37,393
Speaker 7: we like for students... You know, at any point, we all,

921
00:42:37,844 --> 00:42:41,203
Speaker 7: older people, all say that kids are, you know, can't read,

922
00:42:41,283 --> 00:42:42,684
Speaker 7: don't read, can't do math.

923
00:42:43,223 --> 00:42:45,823
Speaker 12: And it's kind of embarrassing. I mean, just to keep

924
00:42:45,904 --> 00:42:47,024
Speaker 12: saying that over and over.

925
00:42:50,243 --> 00:42:53,854
Speaker 4: What would be the motivation for... people making these measures

926
00:42:53,893 --> 00:42:56,154
Speaker 4: to make, want the schools to look bad or what's

927
00:42:56,174 --> 00:42:57,393
Speaker 4: kind of, can you kind of tease that out a

928
00:42:57,413 --> 00:42:57,714
Speaker 4: little more?

929
00:42:57,734 --> 00:43:01,163
Speaker 7: I think it's just human nature to idealize what it

930
00:43:01,203 --> 00:43:03,944
Speaker 7: was like when we were young. I try to be realistic.

931
00:43:04,143 --> 00:43:07,104
Speaker 7: I went to junior high and high school in the seventies.

932
00:43:07,924 --> 00:43:13,864
Speaker 7: Students were smoking pot in the bathroom in my junior high.

933
00:43:15,104 --> 00:43:19,964
Speaker 7: And you cannot tell me that we were a brighter generation,

934
00:43:20,303 --> 00:43:24,204
Speaker 7: that we were more dedicated to learning. than the students

935
00:43:24,223 --> 00:43:26,283
Speaker 7: that I taught throughout the 80s and 90s. And the

936
00:43:26,324 --> 00:43:29,784
Speaker 7: students that I'm teaching now are just, they're brilliant. They're

937
00:43:29,944 --> 00:43:33,564
Speaker 7: very bright human beings. They've had way better education than

938
00:43:33,683 --> 00:43:36,433
Speaker 7: I did. And I think it's just this urge to

939
00:43:36,654 --> 00:43:40,713
Speaker 7: idealize our past. And I think we get a little

940
00:43:40,794 --> 00:43:45,094
Speaker 7: depressed about being older and we want something to complain about.

941
00:43:45,354 --> 00:43:47,413
Speaker 7: Some of it to me too is, I mean, just

942
00:43:47,654 --> 00:43:53,654
Speaker 7: the nature of a capitalist market society is, There is profit.

943
00:43:53,774 --> 00:43:58,413
Speaker 7: There's political and financial profit in crisis. There's political and

944
00:43:58,453 --> 00:44:04,144
Speaker 7: financial profit. Education reform is an industry. Since the early 1980s,

945
00:44:04,814 --> 00:44:10,234
Speaker 7: people have made a lot of money and politicians' careers

946
00:44:10,274 --> 00:44:10,753
Speaker 7: have been made.

947
00:44:10,814 --> 00:44:11,364
Speaker 12: George W.

948
00:44:11,373 --> 00:44:17,854
Speaker 7: Bush became president of the United States almost exclusively on

949
00:44:17,993 --> 00:44:23,693
Speaker 7: his role as an education governor. Other politicians have figured

950
00:44:23,714 --> 00:44:29,114
Speaker 7: that out. So there's profit, human nature, idealizing our past,

951
00:44:29,614 --> 00:44:31,304
Speaker 7: criticizing our current status.

952
00:44:31,364 --> 00:44:33,263
Speaker 12: I think there's a lot of factors that go into it.

953
00:44:34,243 --> 00:44:36,623
Speaker 1: I hear him on the good old days.

954
00:44:38,324 --> 00:44:41,643
Speaker 6: But I would say, I don't think my parents would

955
00:44:41,683 --> 00:44:44,163
Speaker 6: have said they got a better education than I did.

956
00:44:45,984 --> 00:44:47,223
Speaker 4: You think they would?

957
00:44:47,324 --> 00:44:49,504
Speaker 1: No, they would not. They would not have said that.

958
00:44:49,544 --> 00:44:54,734
Speaker 6: So I do think There is a– people love to glorify,

959
00:44:54,754 --> 00:44:56,973
Speaker 6: I should say, you know, when they went to school

960
00:44:56,993 --> 00:45:00,854
Speaker 6: and whatever. But I do think that our parents would

961
00:45:00,893 --> 00:45:02,573
Speaker 6: say we got better educations than they did.

962
00:45:02,594 --> 00:45:04,964
Speaker 1: Right, yeah. I don't know if I can say that

963
00:45:05,004 --> 00:45:08,643
Speaker 1: about my brother. Yeah. And, you know, there's a distance,

964
00:45:08,703 --> 00:45:10,304
Speaker 1: but it's not that much of a difference.

965
00:45:10,324 --> 00:45:10,983
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.

966
00:45:11,424 --> 00:45:14,823
Speaker 3: Or like even if reading levels are actually not in

967
00:45:14,844 --> 00:45:16,683
Speaker 3: a crisis– It does seem to be the case that

968
00:45:16,803 --> 00:45:19,364
Speaker 3: we don't even assign books anymore.

969
00:45:19,384 --> 00:45:22,874
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, yeah. And to be clear for– on Paul's behalf,

970
00:45:22,913 --> 00:45:24,873
Speaker 4: he's not saying there's nothing to be done and that

971
00:45:24,973 --> 00:45:27,973
Speaker 4: we're doing better. Yeah, yeah. I think it's like the

972
00:45:28,013 --> 00:45:31,754
Speaker 4: way we're then approaching how to fix this issue is

973
00:45:32,074 --> 00:45:34,673
Speaker 4: more the issue. He has– as you'll hear, he has

974
00:45:34,714 --> 00:45:36,814
Speaker 4: lots of problems with kind of the way things are going.

975
00:45:37,314 --> 00:45:39,113
Speaker 4: We go pretty deep. First off, you're going to hear

976
00:45:39,134 --> 00:45:42,093
Speaker 4: him talk about what's called the science of reading. So–

977
00:45:42,484 --> 00:45:45,104
Speaker 4: This isn't just like the study of reading. It's kind

978
00:45:45,123 --> 00:45:47,084
Speaker 4: of a catch-all term for a recent wave of new

979
00:45:47,123 --> 00:45:51,053
Speaker 4: curriculums and teaching styles. Over 40 states have passed legislation

980
00:45:51,094 --> 00:45:54,093
Speaker 4: incorporating new programs that fall under this category. I'm sure

981
00:45:54,114 --> 00:45:56,993
Speaker 4: there's tons more we can get into there, obviously. But

982
00:45:57,013 --> 00:45:58,713
Speaker 4: just so when you hear him say science of reading,

983
00:45:58,734 --> 00:46:02,533
Speaker 4: he's talking about like a movement and not like studying reading.

984
00:46:02,814 --> 00:46:05,674
Speaker 4: So Paul broke down the science of reading into a

985
00:46:06,334 --> 00:46:08,634
Speaker 4: sort of three-pronged multiverse. He's this comic book guy, as

986
00:46:08,854 --> 00:46:13,403
Speaker 4: he says. One is the miracle versus crisis framing. two

987
00:46:13,484 --> 00:46:15,183
Speaker 4: is marketing, and three is research.

988
00:46:16,053 --> 00:46:18,654
Speaker 7: One way I talk about this is the science of

989
00:46:18,734 --> 00:46:22,294
Speaker 7: reading movement is sort of a multiverse. So you've got

990
00:46:22,533 --> 00:46:27,734
Speaker 7: journalists who have two stories. They have crisis and miracle.

991
00:46:28,214 --> 00:46:32,753
Speaker 7: So they're constantly saying education is in crisis, but this

992
00:46:32,873 --> 00:46:36,754
Speaker 7: school or this state is doing miraculous things.

993
00:46:37,354 --> 00:46:40,054
Speaker 12: I mentioned George W. Bush, the Texas miracle.

994
00:46:40,493 --> 00:46:43,263
Speaker 7: And it's a perfect template for what what you just asked,

995
00:46:44,004 --> 00:46:46,864
Speaker 7: it got him huge political capital.

996
00:46:48,743 --> 00:46:50,584
Speaker 12: While George Bush was governor of.

997
00:46:50,584 --> 00:46:55,283
Speaker 7: Texas, there was some intense standards and high stakes testing

998
00:46:55,344 --> 00:47:01,544
Speaker 7: curriculum reform. They raised state testing scores pretty dramatically.

999
00:47:02,203 --> 00:47:03,974
Speaker 12: And this is something that's kind of dangerous.

1000
00:47:04,354 --> 00:47:09,654
Speaker 7: It's really easy to create standards, teach to the test

1001
00:47:10,714 --> 00:47:13,493
Speaker 7: and raise test scores. So at the same time he

1002
00:47:13,513 --> 00:47:15,993
Speaker 7: was claiming a miracle, and the media was kind of

1003
00:47:16,094 --> 00:47:21,723
Speaker 7: eating that up, researchers in Texas, scholars, education professors, looked

1004
00:47:21,763 --> 00:47:25,663
Speaker 7: at the data and noticed at the same time that Texas'

1005
00:47:25,703 --> 00:47:29,304
Speaker 7: state scores were going up, their NAEP scores were going down.

1006
00:47:30,303 --> 00:47:34,073
Speaker 7: And it's harder to manipulate those NAEP scores. So it

1007
00:47:34,114 --> 00:47:36,633
Speaker 7: was never a miracle. And I think, so you get this,

1008
00:47:36,854 --> 00:47:38,814
Speaker 7: the media likes crisis, miracle.

1009
00:47:38,873 --> 00:47:39,714
Speaker 1: Crisis, miracle.

1010
00:47:43,884 --> 00:47:45,423
Speaker 4: I think that underscores it a bit where you can

1011
00:47:45,803 --> 00:47:48,363
Speaker 4: teach to the test and get those individual scores up,

1012
00:47:48,614 --> 00:47:52,373
Speaker 4: but then the actual overall reading scores, even these ones

1013
00:47:52,413 --> 00:47:54,873
Speaker 4: from NAEP, are going down. So it's like, well, who's

1014
00:47:55,134 --> 00:47:56,934
Speaker 4: better off? It's like, great, you can take one test,

1015
00:47:56,973 --> 00:48:00,633
Speaker 4: but you might not be able to think. I think

1016
00:48:00,654 --> 00:48:01,803
Speaker 4: that's a good point.

1017
00:48:01,824 --> 00:48:02,864
Speaker 1: The whole thinking thing.

1018
00:48:03,044 --> 00:48:06,024
Speaker 4: So now here's the next multiverse, marketing.

1019
00:48:06,424 --> 00:48:08,464
Speaker 12: The other multiverse is marketing.

1020
00:48:09,094 --> 00:48:13,304
Speaker 7: Textbook publishers don't really make any money if we keep

1021
00:48:13,544 --> 00:48:14,163
Speaker 7: a book.

1022
00:48:13,964 --> 00:48:16,004
Speaker 12: That works or a program that works.

1023
00:48:16,723 --> 00:48:20,584
Speaker 7: So the weird thing that just happened is states have

1024
00:48:20,683 --> 00:48:24,444
Speaker 7: banned all of these reading programs, Units of Study by

1025
00:48:24,484 --> 00:48:29,783
Speaker 7: Lucy Calkins, Stuff by Fontas and Pinnell, which were moderately popular,

1026
00:48:30,183 --> 00:48:34,263
Speaker 7: but The United States has never had one reading program.

1027
00:48:34,604 --> 00:48:37,803
Speaker 7: Units of study at its most was in one out

1028
00:48:37,844 --> 00:48:40,703
Speaker 7: of five schools. There's no way that it was causing

1029
00:48:40,763 --> 00:48:44,384
Speaker 7: a crisis. But the same companies that own those programs

1030
00:48:45,254 --> 00:48:47,834
Speaker 7: own the new programs that states are adopting. In a

1031
00:48:47,873 --> 00:48:57,953
Speaker 7: market society, churn is really important. The other multiverse is

1032
00:48:58,174 --> 00:49:01,564
Speaker 7: actual research. And that's the one that is really kind

1033
00:49:01,584 --> 00:49:05,703
Speaker 7: of frustrating because a lot of times it's behind a paywall.

1034
00:49:06,183 --> 00:49:09,284
Speaker 7: A lot of times research is incredibly difficult to read.

1035
00:49:09,984 --> 00:49:13,223
Speaker 7: And scholars have a tendency to be very insular. They

1036
00:49:13,243 --> 00:49:17,053
Speaker 7: don't really take it upon themselves to tell people about

1037
00:49:17,094 --> 00:49:21,953
Speaker 7: their research. The science of reading movement really kind of

1038
00:49:21,973 --> 00:49:23,493
Speaker 7: started around 2012 to 2014, but it really took off

1039
00:49:23,513 --> 00:49:30,264
Speaker 7: around 2018, 2019, 2020. But the research is now catching up.

1040
00:49:30,564 --> 00:49:33,203
Speaker 7: There's states where you can actually do the research and

1041
00:49:33,243 --> 00:49:37,724
Speaker 7: see what's happening. And a couple of weird things about

1042
00:49:37,783 --> 00:49:42,863
Speaker 7: this movement. One, there's not a single scholarly publication. There's

1043
00:49:42,904 --> 00:49:47,954
Speaker 7: not a single experimental or quasi-experimental published study that shows

1044
00:49:48,013 --> 00:49:51,504
Speaker 7: we have a reading crisis caused by bullying. balanced literacy

1045
00:49:51,663 --> 00:49:55,203
Speaker 7: or by reading programs. Nobody's done that research.

1046
00:49:55,263 --> 00:49:56,283
Speaker 12: It doesn't exist.

1047
00:49:56,803 --> 00:50:00,623
Speaker 7: And this whole movement, which says it's a science of reading,

1048
00:50:00,783 --> 00:50:04,104
Speaker 7: is based on the absence of scientific evidence.

1049
00:50:04,993 --> 00:50:07,713
Speaker 4: So, for example, Paul said there's been no research that

1050
00:50:07,754 --> 00:50:10,913
Speaker 4: shows that systematic phonics is more effective for all students

1051
00:50:11,033 --> 00:50:14,214
Speaker 4: for learning comprehension. And of course, we want kids to

1052
00:50:14,254 --> 00:50:17,373
Speaker 4: be able to understand what they're reading or, well, it's

1053
00:50:17,674 --> 00:50:18,694
Speaker 4: kind of not really reading.

1054
00:50:18,754 --> 00:50:18,953
Speaker 13: Is it?

1055
00:50:22,993 --> 00:50:26,314
Speaker 7: Science of reading has attached itself to a thing called

1056
00:50:26,433 --> 00:50:31,363
Speaker 7: structured literacy, and structured literacy is scripted curriculum. Weirdly, that

1057
00:50:31,404 --> 00:50:34,164
Speaker 7: was a big thing in Texas around the Bush era,

1058
00:50:34,404 --> 00:50:37,683
Speaker 7: and it kind of died out because educators saw that

1059
00:50:37,723 --> 00:50:41,283
Speaker 7: it was a really bad thing. Scripted curriculum takes away

1060
00:50:41,324 --> 00:50:45,454
Speaker 7: teacher autonomy, and it also treats every child exactly the same.

1061
00:50:46,393 --> 00:50:49,054
Speaker 7: To me, those are the two most damning things about

1062
00:50:49,094 --> 00:50:53,194
Speaker 7: the movement. I'm a big advocate for teacher autonomy. Just

1063
00:50:53,214 --> 00:50:56,994
Speaker 7: a little side note, 70 to 80 percent of teachers

1064
00:50:57,033 --> 00:50:59,354
Speaker 7: of reading are women. And we have as a nation

1065
00:50:59,393 --> 00:51:01,934
Speaker 7: decided that they have to be told what to do

1066
00:51:02,033 --> 00:51:04,534
Speaker 7: and they can't be professionals. And to me, there's a

1067
00:51:04,574 --> 00:51:07,574
Speaker 7: there's a huge amount of misogyny in this whole movement,

1068
00:51:08,393 --> 00:51:10,854
Speaker 7: which is kind of the sign of the times. Also,

1069
00:51:11,134 --> 00:51:15,734
Speaker 7: the scripted curriculum programs have whitewashed the curriculum programs. We

1070
00:51:15,774 --> 00:51:19,713
Speaker 7: were starting to let students read text that they saw

1071
00:51:19,754 --> 00:51:23,873
Speaker 7: themselves in, you know, girls and children of color, you know,

1072
00:51:23,913 --> 00:51:25,964
Speaker 7: and that was a good thing. We weren't doing a

1073
00:51:25,993 --> 00:51:28,744
Speaker 7: great job, but it was better. There are several studies

1074
00:51:28,904 --> 00:51:33,204
Speaker 7: out showing that the scripted structured literacy programs are going

1075
00:51:33,223 --> 00:51:36,324
Speaker 7: in the opposite direction and, you know, texts are being

1076
00:51:36,384 --> 00:51:40,723
Speaker 7: kind of muted. And we're using the text simply to

1077
00:51:40,763 --> 00:51:43,663
Speaker 7: help children pronounce words. We're not worried about the content

1078
00:51:43,723 --> 00:51:47,064
Speaker 7: of it. We're not worried about... students being engaged. There's

1079
00:51:47,084 --> 00:51:50,633
Speaker 7: a weird thing going on on social media where the

1080
00:51:50,674 --> 00:51:53,953
Speaker 7: science of people are saying that kids don't have to

1081
00:51:53,993 --> 00:51:57,494
Speaker 7: like to read. And it's kind of weird. They're arguing

1082
00:51:57,533 --> 00:52:01,074
Speaker 7: that if they learn their phonics, they will start liking

1083
00:52:01,114 --> 00:52:04,714
Speaker 7: to read. And it's like this weird, I don't know,

1084
00:52:04,754 --> 00:52:08,014
Speaker 7: this weird antagonism toward having any joy in reading.

1085
00:52:08,513 --> 00:52:10,153
Speaker 6: And Jason was saying this a bit too, of getting

1086
00:52:10,533 --> 00:52:13,593
Speaker 6: so caught up with the data. The issue is that

1087
00:52:13,654 --> 00:52:17,814
Speaker 6: people can't and are not reading like the issue is

1088
00:52:17,893 --> 00:52:21,274
Speaker 6: not that the test scores aren't what the you know

1089
00:52:21,314 --> 00:52:23,893
Speaker 6: like yeah yeah sure that's a byproduct.

1090
00:52:23,493 --> 00:52:26,493
Speaker 4: Of it and like i understand wanting tests obviously to

1091
00:52:26,533 --> 00:52:27,694
Speaker 4: measure to measure stuff.

1092
00:52:27,714 --> 00:52:30,573
Speaker 6: You know but we shouldn't be okay if the issue

1093
00:52:30,654 --> 00:52:34,064
Speaker 6: is the test scores are bad just trying to improve

1094
00:52:34,143 --> 00:52:36,384
Speaker 6: the test scores right like the test score should be

1095
00:52:36,464 --> 00:52:42,073
Speaker 6: reflective of right reading comprehension and, you know, all these

1096
00:52:42,114 --> 00:52:44,634
Speaker 6: other things, not just how well people can take the test.

1097
00:52:44,654 --> 00:52:46,413
Speaker 6: If people are really good at the test, but they

1098
00:52:47,114 --> 00:52:50,923
Speaker 6: still can't read or comprehend, it doesn't really matter what

1099
00:52:50,964 --> 00:52:51,904
Speaker 6: the scores say.

1100
00:52:52,163 --> 00:52:54,883
Speaker 4: I asked, what could we do to actually fix this?

1101
00:52:55,143 --> 00:52:57,343
Speaker 4: Whether you want to call it a crisis or just

1102
00:52:57,384 --> 00:52:58,304
Speaker 4: a simple problem.

1103
00:52:58,344 --> 00:52:58,604
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1104
00:52:59,303 --> 00:53:01,923
Speaker 4: So Jason also mentioned this where it's like, we're talking

1105
00:53:01,953 --> 00:53:04,073
Speaker 4: about the schools and kids not wanting to read, but

1106
00:53:04,734 --> 00:53:08,053
Speaker 4: there's no model for people at home. And Paul got

1107
00:53:08,074 --> 00:53:12,094
Speaker 4: to this about The impacts of stuff outside of the classroom, too.

1108
00:53:12,533 --> 00:53:17,734
Speaker 7: Really important research done on what impacts student learning. And

1109
00:53:17,794 --> 00:53:22,104
Speaker 7: it's over 60 percent outside of the school schools.

1110
00:53:22,604 --> 00:53:25,884
Speaker 12: I'm sorry. I love it. I'm an educator. I love schools.

1111
00:53:25,964 --> 00:53:26,783
Speaker 12: I love education.

1112
00:53:27,703 --> 00:53:32,663
Speaker 7: Schools do not change society. Schools reflect society. And we've

1113
00:53:32,703 --> 00:53:36,984
Speaker 7: got this kind of idealistic. It was the Arne Duncan theory.

1114
00:53:37,634 --> 00:53:38,294
Speaker 12: Nonsense.

1115
00:53:38,694 --> 00:53:40,834
Speaker 7: He was one of the worst secretaries of education ever.

1116
00:53:41,393 --> 00:53:44,113
Speaker 7: But he would constantly talk about game changing. This is

1117
00:53:44,154 --> 00:53:46,354
Speaker 7: a game changer. There's kind of a joke about this.

1118
00:53:46,373 --> 00:53:49,494
Speaker 7: He said it all the time. And I'm sorry, schools

1119
00:53:49,553 --> 00:53:53,834
Speaker 7: just don't change. They reflect. So a lot of these

1120
00:53:53,953 --> 00:53:57,314
Speaker 7: reading scores and math scores are not a reflection of

1121
00:53:57,354 --> 00:53:59,913
Speaker 7: the quality of learning or the quality of teaching. They're

1122
00:53:59,933 --> 00:54:03,013
Speaker 7: a reflection of the negligence of our society. I mean,

1123
00:54:03,033 --> 00:54:06,533
Speaker 7: we talked about the NAEP data One fun fact about

1124
00:54:06,634 --> 00:54:11,054
Speaker 7: NAEP that people ignore, the highest scoring schools in the country,

1125
00:54:11,993 --> 00:54:13,034
Speaker 7: Department of Defense.

1126
00:54:14,774 --> 00:54:18,973
Speaker 12: Why? Those kids have meals. Those kids have healthcare.

1127
00:54:19,354 --> 00:54:24,343
Speaker 7: Those kids have a stable home. Way above, Massachusetts is

1128
00:54:24,364 --> 00:54:28,163
Speaker 7: the highest scoring state. Department of Defense is way above them.

1129
00:54:28,364 --> 00:54:32,203
Speaker 7: I mean, significantly above them. I've seen one article on that.

1130
00:54:32,384 --> 00:54:34,383
Speaker 7: Like we don't, you know, We want to talk about

1131
00:54:34,464 --> 00:54:37,944
Speaker 7: Mississippi as, you know, defying the odds. We don't want

1132
00:54:37,964 --> 00:54:40,243
Speaker 7: to talk about, well, why don't we just change the odds?

1133
00:54:40,844 --> 00:54:42,783
Speaker 7: I'm for universal health care, but why don't we just

1134
00:54:42,803 --> 00:54:44,804
Speaker 7: have it for children at least or families?

1135
00:54:44,864 --> 00:54:46,644
Speaker 12: Like, you know, we could start there.

1136
00:54:47,024 --> 00:54:49,463
Speaker 4: We need to put everyone in the military now.

1137
00:54:49,763 --> 00:54:52,344
Speaker 1: I'm drafting. Oh, you mother.

1138
00:54:52,424 --> 00:54:55,823
Speaker 4: Everyone's a soldier now. So here's my king of the

1139
00:54:55,864 --> 00:54:57,614
Speaker 4: world question. So he gets to write the new worlds

1140
00:54:57,674 --> 00:55:01,354
Speaker 4: for education and to get these scores back up. What

1141
00:55:01,373 --> 00:55:03,614
Speaker 4: would he suggest inside and outside the classroom?

1142
00:55:04,594 --> 00:55:07,174
Speaker 7: It always strikes me as odd that we want children

1143
00:55:07,513 --> 00:55:11,474
Speaker 7: when they magically walk through the school door to pretend

1144
00:55:11,533 --> 00:55:15,004
Speaker 7: their lives don't exist. And I think this is a

1145
00:55:15,064 --> 00:55:18,004
Speaker 7: controversial thing to say, but, you know, a kid is

1146
00:55:18,104 --> 00:55:21,543
Speaker 7: sick or hungry. If they don't care about learning to read,

1147
00:55:21,604 --> 00:55:25,304
Speaker 7: I think they're making a really rational decision. Some colleagues

1148
00:55:25,344 --> 00:55:28,184
Speaker 7: and I, several years ago, we published a book called

1149
00:55:28,364 --> 00:55:31,843
Speaker 7: Social Context Reform. It was a reaction to the no

1150
00:55:31,904 --> 00:55:35,284
Speaker 7: excuses kind of idea that there's no excuse. We just

1151
00:55:35,303 --> 00:55:37,514
Speaker 7: have to do in school. Poverty is an excuse.

1152
00:55:38,053 --> 00:55:41,174
Speaker 4: Social context reform argues that we need social reform before

1153
00:55:41,214 --> 00:55:44,614
Speaker 4: worrying about education. So this would include things like universal

1154
00:55:44,634 --> 00:55:48,354
Speaker 4: health care, food security, job security and housing security.

1155
00:55:48,604 --> 00:55:51,453
Speaker 7: Now, in school, I think there are absolutely things we

1156
00:55:51,614 --> 00:55:53,814
Speaker 7: must do, especially at the early grades.

1157
00:55:53,854 --> 00:55:55,454
Speaker 12: I think we need smaller class size.

1158
00:55:55,594 --> 00:55:59,553
Speaker 7: Particularly, once we identify students who are struggling, they should

1159
00:55:59,594 --> 00:56:05,534
Speaker 7: be guaranteed two things, small class size and an experienced teacher.

1160
00:56:05,674 --> 00:56:09,403
Speaker 7: One of the dirty secrets of education is that the

1161
00:56:09,484 --> 00:56:15,383
Speaker 7: bad kids, the struggling kids, disproportionately are put in classrooms

1162
00:56:15,424 --> 00:56:19,474
Speaker 7: with beginning teachers. And there's kind of an unwritten rule

1163
00:56:19,533 --> 00:56:22,453
Speaker 7: that if you hang around as a teacher, they'll give

1164
00:56:22,493 --> 00:56:25,324
Speaker 7: you the good kids. And that's kind of criminal to me.

1165
00:56:25,364 --> 00:56:28,863
Speaker 7: That's I mean, that's just it's not a policy. It's

1166
00:56:28,904 --> 00:56:31,223
Speaker 7: just kind of a thing that happens. But if our

1167
00:56:31,263 --> 00:56:35,703
Speaker 7: struggling students were guaranteed smaller class size and experienced teachers,

1168
00:56:36,424 --> 00:56:40,303
Speaker 7: I think we would see some real growth. Now, the

1169
00:56:40,344 --> 00:56:47,684
Speaker 7: problem is when you measure teacher impact, it's big. Almost

1170
00:56:47,723 --> 00:56:51,544
Speaker 7: not there. Teacher impact on student achievement is about 1%

1171
00:56:51,544 --> 00:56:55,873
Speaker 7: to 14%. It's very small. So the problem is it's

1172
00:56:55,933 --> 00:57:00,673
Speaker 7: very hard to measure teacher impact. So two things can

1173
00:57:00,714 --> 00:57:04,593
Speaker 7: be true. Teachers are incredibly important, and it's not going

1174
00:57:04,614 --> 00:57:07,204
Speaker 7: to show up in the data. So as long as

1175
00:57:07,243 --> 00:57:10,303
Speaker 7: we stay obsessed with test scores, we're probably going to

1176
00:57:10,384 --> 00:57:13,244
Speaker 7: miss the good things we could be doing. For reading,

1177
00:57:13,283 --> 00:57:15,663
Speaker 7: we need to quit buying programs. Like, I mean, we

1178
00:57:15,703 --> 00:57:18,994
Speaker 7: just need to stop it. I mean, constantly changing and buying.

1179
00:57:19,154 --> 00:57:22,854
Speaker 7: There's so much money. And I think there's a better approach. Oddly,

1180
00:57:22,914 --> 00:57:25,594
Speaker 7: I think we would be better off just buying children books.

1181
00:57:25,794 --> 00:57:29,633
Speaker 7: There's a lot of research that access to text in

1182
00:57:29,694 --> 00:57:33,814
Speaker 7: the home and community and school are strongly correlated with

1183
00:57:33,874 --> 00:57:36,903
Speaker 7: high literacy. I've said many times we should start buying

1184
00:57:37,074 --> 00:57:39,764
Speaker 7: every child at birth, you know, 20 books a year.

1185
00:57:40,104 --> 00:57:42,524
Speaker 7: Let the kid pick 10, let the family pick 10,

1186
00:57:42,524 --> 00:57:46,244
Speaker 7: and then The system picks 10. And by the time

1187
00:57:46,284 --> 00:57:50,224
Speaker 7: you graduate high school, just imagine everybody would have a library. Honestly,

1188
00:57:50,684 --> 00:57:53,084
Speaker 7: that's not that much money. And it's probably less money

1189
00:57:53,124 --> 00:57:55,204
Speaker 7: than we're spending on commercial programs.

1190
00:57:55,844 --> 00:57:58,084
Speaker 4: My last question was, are you considering a run for 2028?

1191
00:57:58,084 --> 00:58:01,524
Speaker 4: He said no, but I don't know. Maybe we can

1192
00:58:01,544 --> 00:58:02,144
Speaker 4: start it right here.

1193
00:58:02,164 --> 00:58:05,954
Speaker 3: It's got to be in someone's administration at least.

1194
00:58:06,054 --> 00:58:06,274
Speaker 5: I know.

1195
00:58:06,294 --> 00:58:07,234
Speaker 4: What are you guys' thoughts?

1196
00:58:08,114 --> 00:58:11,224
Speaker 1: My boy Paul said, We need to look ourselves in

1197
00:58:11,264 --> 00:58:11,684
Speaker 1: the mirror.

1198
00:58:11,884 --> 00:58:12,804
Speaker 4: Schools are a reflection.

1199
00:58:12,824 --> 00:58:15,494
Speaker 1: Schools are a reflection. I like that.

1200
00:58:15,614 --> 00:58:16,314
Speaker 4: Of society.

1201
00:58:16,434 --> 00:58:16,954
Speaker 1: Of society.

1202
00:58:16,974 --> 00:58:17,573
Speaker 4: Of society.

1203
00:58:17,634 --> 00:58:18,694
Speaker 3: Not the other way around.

1204
00:58:19,114 --> 00:58:21,174
Speaker 1: And they're not a projection. They're a reflection.

1205
00:58:21,274 --> 00:58:24,653
Speaker 6: But I think that's so true is that if we

1206
00:58:24,734 --> 00:58:28,134
Speaker 6: as a society valued reading, the kids would be reading.

1207
00:58:28,844 --> 00:58:29,484
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

1208
00:58:29,504 --> 00:58:33,264
Speaker 6: They're not– even if the teacher didn't assign them books,

1209
00:58:33,444 --> 00:58:36,784
Speaker 6: they would be at home reading. If we– said reading

1210
00:58:36,884 --> 00:58:39,823
Speaker 6: is as cool as watching TikToks. And we really felt

1211
00:58:39,864 --> 00:58:42,323
Speaker 6: that as a society, the kids will be at home.

1212
00:58:42,424 --> 00:58:45,224
Speaker 4: And that goes to Jason's point too, about just like

1213
00:58:45,404 --> 00:58:48,424
Speaker 4: the arc of entertainment. And we kept adding these things,

1214
00:58:48,474 --> 00:58:50,914
Speaker 4: but you know, they don't disappear, but like, there's obviously

1215
00:58:50,954 --> 00:58:53,334
Speaker 4: benefits to reading a book, you know, just as leisure.

1216
00:58:53,894 --> 00:58:55,934
Speaker 4: And yeah, if we don't uphold that anywhere outside of

1217
00:58:56,754 --> 00:59:00,334
Speaker 4: learning for the, learning for the test, even like, yeah. Like,

1218
00:59:00,374 --> 00:59:00,854
Speaker 4: why would you?

1219
00:59:01,194 --> 00:59:01,394
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1220
00:59:01,674 --> 00:59:05,404
Speaker 1: We need to make books sexy again. In any form.

1221
00:59:06,384 --> 00:59:08,423
Speaker 4: Yeah, let me be clear.

1222
00:59:08,624 --> 00:59:12,093
Speaker 1: Audiobooks. The issue is far beyond reading.

1223
00:59:12,424 --> 00:59:13,073
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.

1224
00:59:13,094 --> 00:59:13,753
Speaker 1: Let's say that.

1225
00:59:13,794 --> 00:59:17,014
Speaker 4: We have an intellectual crisis, a brain crisis.

1226
00:59:17,074 --> 00:59:19,874
Speaker 6: It's not cool to think about things now. It's not

1227
00:59:19,914 --> 00:59:22,294
Speaker 6: cool to do research. It's not cool to be an expert.

1228
00:59:22,534 --> 00:59:25,823
Speaker 6: It's not cool to know things. Now it's cool to

1229
00:59:25,864 --> 00:59:27,524
Speaker 6: not know anything and say whatever you want.

1230
00:59:28,384 --> 00:59:29,304
Speaker 4: You need to think about things.

1231
00:59:29,564 --> 00:59:29,884
Speaker 11: Yeah.

1232
00:59:30,604 --> 00:59:34,064
Speaker 3: There doesn't seem to be like a desire to be

1233
00:59:34,124 --> 00:59:35,144
Speaker 3: curious about stuff.

1234
00:59:35,464 --> 00:59:36,574
Speaker 1: That's a beautiful way to say it.

1235
00:59:36,744 --> 00:59:39,624
Speaker 3: It's just like, And why would you be curious about anything?

1236
00:59:39,664 --> 00:59:42,484
Speaker 3: It's all just shown to you on your phone. Just

1237
00:59:43,004 --> 00:59:45,524
Speaker 3: like the incentives are backwards.

1238
00:59:45,844 --> 00:59:49,534
Speaker 1: We stopped rewarding curiosity in this society.

1239
00:59:51,114 --> 00:59:51,934
Speaker 4: We need free thinkers.

1240
00:59:53,654 --> 00:59:54,234
Speaker 1: Not those that.

1241
00:59:54,254 --> 00:59:57,894
Speaker 3: We need people who just are asking questions.

1242
00:59:57,914 --> 00:59:59,354
Speaker 4: Let's ask more questions and answer them.

1243
01:00:01,874 --> 01:00:05,584
Speaker 1: In an hour or less, once a week, Preferably on Wednesdays.

1244
01:00:06,104 --> 01:00:08,704
Speaker 4: Yeah. The few minutes there for some ads.

1245
01:00:09,004 --> 01:00:09,564
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1246
01:00:10,984 --> 01:00:12,554
Speaker 4: I mean, in many ways, I think we're writing a

1247
01:00:12,574 --> 01:00:14,354
Speaker 4: book every week. It's basically a book.

1248
01:00:14,514 --> 01:00:14,713
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1249
01:00:14,874 --> 01:00:15,573
Speaker 1: We write a book a week.

1250
01:00:16,074 --> 01:00:17,274
Speaker 3: Shoots the transcript out.

1251
01:00:18,094 --> 01:00:18,634
Speaker 4: That's text.

1252
01:00:19,014 --> 01:00:19,774
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1253
01:00:19,794 --> 01:00:20,534
Speaker 3: Just read the show.

1254
01:00:21,354 --> 01:00:23,653
Speaker 1: Boom. Yeah. Give it a shot. Yeah.

1255
01:00:23,674 --> 01:00:26,374
Speaker 4: Scroll down. There's probably a transcript button if you would

1256
01:00:26,434 --> 01:00:27,754
Speaker 4: prefer to read our books every week.

1257
01:00:30,164 --> 01:00:32,064
Speaker 3: We're coming out with a book every week.

1258
01:00:32,104 --> 01:00:38,444
Speaker 4: It's crazy. Publishing is wild these days. No Such Thing.

1259
01:00:39,984 --> 01:00:42,593
Speaker 4: No Such Thing is a production of Kaleidoscope Content. Our

1260
01:00:42,634 --> 01:00:45,974
Speaker 4: executive producers are Cade Osborne and Mangesh Hattakadur. The show

1261
01:00:45,994 --> 01:00:48,734
Speaker 4: was created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devin Joseph.

1262
01:00:49,214 --> 01:00:51,974
Speaker 4: Theme and credit song by Manny. Mixing by Steve Bone.

1263
01:00:52,014 --> 01:00:54,914
Speaker 4: Thank you, Steve. Our guests this week were Kelsey Kalodfelter,

1264
01:00:55,054 --> 01:00:57,994
Speaker 4: Jason Reynolds, and Paul Thomas. Scroll down for links to

1265
01:00:58,014 --> 01:01:01,774
Speaker 4: their work and go to our newsletter at nosuchthing.show for more,

1266
01:01:01,914 --> 01:01:03,454
Speaker 4: especially if you want to get deeper into the research

1267
01:01:03,514 --> 01:01:05,314
Speaker 4: Paul was discussing in the last bit of the episode.

1268
01:01:05,514 --> 01:01:07,474
Speaker 4: If you have feedback for us or a question, our

1269
01:01:07,554 --> 01:01:10,724
Speaker 4: email is mannynoahdevin at gmail.com, or you can leave us

1270
01:01:10,764 --> 01:01:12,184
Speaker 4: a voicemail by calling the number in.

1271
01:01:12,124 --> 01:01:12,744
Speaker 1: Our show notes.

1272
01:01:13,204 --> 01:01:14,843
Speaker 4: If you like the show, please share it with a

1273
01:01:14,884 --> 01:01:18,444
Speaker 4: friend and leave us a five-star nice review wherever you listen.

1274
01:01:18,744 --> 01:01:20,464
Speaker 4: It really helps us a lot to get to new people.

1275
01:01:21,104 --> 01:01:21,284
Speaker 12: Bye.