By Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
June 30, 2003
Over the weekend I received a number of e-mails relating to the threat to America posed by the new 870 page Harry Potter book, The Order of the Phoenix, and a couple of e-mails about a different threat to America outlined in Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt’s 660 page book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.
According to the Harry Potter alarmists, “The book is a subtle how-to course in the Wiccan religion. It teaches kids about divination and how to cast spells, potions, and the make up of the witch's broom. It’s basically an indoctrination of young kids (and adults too) about the world of witchcraft. …Is this what we want to be teaching to our children? Why do they allow this book in school but ban the Bible or the Quran?”
According to Iserbyt, who has written a book that is apparently the successor to the book that has been asking for more than fifty years, “Why Can’t Johnny Read,” America’s children are dumber these days because of a deliberate educator plot starting in the 1960s. She says, “The goal of this ‘dumbing down,’ is to create a system of matching docile students with jobs, much like the controlled economies of Nazi Germany or China.”
I suggest there is an a problem with these two news stories. First, Collier's magazine of November 30, 1946 published an article entitled "Why Can't They Read?" It stated: "A third of all school children are illiterate. It's nothing new; it's been going on for years. It is common knowledge among educators that at least one third of our school children lag behind their age and grade in reading, all the way through school. Thousands emerge from high school totally unable to read and comprehend so much as the daily paper. As for reading for pleasure - only a lucky minority ever learn to do that.”
I graduated from high school at the age of 16 in 1945. Not only did thousands of my peer group graduate from high school unable to read, 29% of the white kids and 47% of the black kids in the 1940s didn’t graduate from high school at all.
Second, my 15 –year-old granddaughter Jennifer tells me kids as young as eight years of age are determined to read The Order of the Phoenix, a bigger book than “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.” Jennifer, like hundreds of thousands of other children and their sleepy parents, waited in line until midnight to get her copy of the 870 page Potter book. According to BBC, 1,777,000 copies of it sold the first day. Many of those kids, like Jennifer, had it read 2-3 days later.
How many of their parents, do you suppose, will ever plough through Iserbyt’s 660 page The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, much less stay up all night to acquire and read it?
Third, anyone who thinks today’s children are docile creatures who are easily controlled by authoritative figures obviously has not met or tried to teach any of today’s children. Docile is about the last word I would think of to describe the kids I know. The biggest problem teachers and parents complain about these days is trying to get the kids to sit down, be quiet and listen and believe anything they have to say. In fact, the hallmark of today’s kids is widespread skepticism.
Columnist Alan Caruba observed in an article praising Iserbyt’s book, “Take away their pocket calculators and the newest generation of workers cannot add or subtract. Take away ‘spell check’ on their computers and they are helpless to spell accurately. These are basic skills Americans used to learn in one-room schoolhouses heated with a wood-burning oven. They could also tell you the branches of the US government and a whole lot more than today’s graduates.”
Today’s young people may use computers and spell-check as they write, but I once went to school in a one-room schoolhouse. Most of my peers didn’t have a clue about government and blindly supported the latest socialist program of the ruling Democrats without thinking about it. Quick access to information via computers and spell-check had not even been invented, much less taught back then. Having a computer correct the kids’ spelling is a lot more efficient, more effective and less boring method of teaching kids to spell than trying to get them to memorize spelling words. After the 3rd or 4th spell check correction, they get the hang of spelling the word correctly.
Today’s young people know a whole lot more than lots of people give them credit for. Iserbyt herself, on her website, states: “In the process of gathering this information two beliefs that most Americans hold in common became clear: If a child can read, write and compute at a reasonably proficient level, he will be able to do just about anything he wishes, enabling him to control his destiny to the extent that God allows (remain free).”
If that is the case, I suggest all those millions of kids out there reading Harry Potter books are people who will be able to do just about anything they wish, and are in control of their own destiny. So far as the fears some express that the Harry Potter books indoctrinates the children “about the world of witchcraft,” I don’t think anyone needs to worry about the kids believing it. They figure most of what adults tell them isn’t really true.
Of course, allowing adults to read The Order of the Phoenix may be a bit risky. Based on some of the e-mails I get, a lot of adults out there today can’t figure out the difference between make-believe and truth. They also may have trouble getting a copy of the book. Jennifer tells me I can’t understand it until I’ve read the four preceding Potter books, and I’ve only read the first book. In any case, perhaps it’s time to stop worrying about the reading ability of a generation of kids who fight to get to read an 870 page book and start worrying about an educational system that is not giving them enough interesting, accurate and challenging reading material. .
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com