Dear Students,
If I have taught you one thing in this Social Studies class, I hope that I have taught you that literacy, the ability to read and to research and to write, is the most important thing that you could have learned from this course. I hear you saying "didn't you want us to learn all those dates, and important historical figures and great world-changing events....isn't that the most important thing we could have learned?" Yes, those are important things, and yes I wanted you to learn them and I do hope that you remember most of that stuff for a long, long time....but the most important thing? No. I know something that you may not know yet, and that is that memory fades. You will be filling your memory banks with more and more information, more and more data, over the next few years and, indeed, for the rest of your life, and what we you learned in this Social Studies class will get pushed further and further back into the recesses of your memory. It may take some doing to recall it ten, twenty, thirty years down the road. However, so long as you know how to read and to research you will always know how to refresh that memory. You will know how to find it again! I always tell my students that knowing a bit of information is not the most important skill that you can develop. Rather, knowing how to find that bit of information when you need it is the most important skill that you can develop. You will never be able to remember every single thing that you learned in this course, and you won't be able to remember every single thing you read in that book you found on the seat next to yours on the plane ride home, but if you remember where you read it and remember how to access it again, it is yours forever! Don't think that all this information that you have been learning is lost and gone forever, because another benefit of the reading habit is that it keeps the information that you learn fresh in your mind. It brings it up closer to the top of the memory bank so that it is more readily accessed. If you keep reading and you read broadly and you read critically, what you learned in this course and in the science class down the hall and in the math class next door will remain as fresh and as vibrant as the day you first saw it in this school building every day of the rest of your life.
I have been the beneficiary of a great deal of education, much more than most. I have been blessed to learn from many great teachers in some of the finest institutions of higher learning in the land. But I tell you honestly and with the utmost sincerity, the great bulk of what I have learned in my life I learned through my own course of reading. Sitting in a comfortable chair, a good floor lamp shining down over my right shoulder, a cup of tea on the table beside me, and a book open in my lap. And I would learn from that book and it would prompt me to read another book on the same subject and I would learn more from that book and that would prompt me to get up and go to the library and get more books and soon, I am the undefeated Trivial Pursuit champion in my family. But it is more than that. It isn't trivial. It is that I know what the commentator on the news channel is talking about when he says that some politician has met his Waterloo. I know what the pundit means when he says that the candidate has been hoisted on his own petard. I know what the reporter means when he says that the latest political scandal is this administration's Watergate. I know what my boss means when he says that we have crossed the Rubicon. If you read often and you read broadly and you read critically you will continue your education even after you have left these hallowed halls. Keep reading, please, and you will learning something new on the last day of your life.
One more thing; don't just read, read critically. Ask yourself, "Why does the author say this?" "What is he trying to tell me?" "Who is this person?" "Who does he represent?" "Why is he trying so desperately to convince me of the correctness of his position?" "Is there another side to this story?". You must always read critically. You need to develop this skill so that you can make up your own mind about things. You need to be able to detect bias and prejudice in anything that you read, and to be strong enough not to be swayed until you have heard both sides of the story. You need to read newspaper articles, magazine articles, blogs, websites, text books and even novels with a critical eye. You especially need to read editorials and opinion pieces critically. And campaign literature? In order to be a well-informed, thoughful, fully participating citizen of the community and the world, you must be informed. To be informed you must read broadly and critically.
So, my dear students. Read, read, read. Read books, read poems, read fiction, read nonfiction, read magazines, read brochures, read billboards and road signs, read the labels on soup cans and the back of cereal boxes, but read. I never go anywhere without a book in my pocket. When I am waiting for my wife to come out of the store, I have something to read. When I am sitting in my doctor's office, I have something to read. When my flight is delayed for two hours, I have something to read. And with every page I turn, I learn more and more and more.
One day, twenty years hence, when we meet on the street, I want you to pull out your library card, hold it up to me and say, "You were so right, Don....this is the most important card that I have in my wallet."
No comments:
Post a Comment