Hmm, interesting thesis

We've all heard the complaint that today's kids have awful writing/reading/comprehension skills. I've experienced it firsthand in the classroom. I don't give a lot of assignments that are graded on grammar, but test answers and short papers show me that today's students have trouble writing. The more common problem I encounter, though, is reading comprehension. As a few of you know firsthand, my test questions are written in "word problem" form. I present a hypothetical scenario and then ask the students to "solve" the problem presented. I think that's why the most common complaint I hear, semester-to-semester, is that my test questions are hard to figure out. "It's not the material, it's the figuring out what you're asking," they'll say. "Yes," I tell them, "that's part of what I want to test you on."

As I said, it's a common complaint. Virginia Postrel has an interesting explanation. According to Virginia, the downward trend in "language skills" can be (partially) blamed on the movement in churches away from actually reading the Bible, especially the King James Version:

Some years ago, an editor asked me how he could give his children an appreciation for the English language. He wanted them to write well. Since he's an evangelical Christian, I told him he should teach them Psalms from the King James translation of the Bible. My mother did that with me as a child, and it gave me an early sense of metaphor and rhythm. It taught me to appreciate, and understand, complex, beautiful English.

My friend didn't like my suggestion. After all, nobody reads the KJV anymore. Forget poetry (not to mention sensitivity to the underlying Hebrew), today's suburban Christianity is all about accessibility. It's been dumbed down.

Now I'm not a Christian, let alone an evangelical. If megachurches want to play bad-to-mediocre rock instead of great hymns, that's their business. But the spread of Christian pap does have spillovers, not the least of which is that devout Christian faith no longer brings with it a deep familiarity with what's actually in the Bible, as opposed to a few verses from the preacher's PowerPoint. Unless the person is over a certain age, Biblical literacy, when you do find it, rarely means acquaintance with great English. Forget theological or philosophical sophistication. I'd settle for the ability to comprehend complex sentences.

Now I'm not sure I buy this as (nor do I think she's selling it as such) a total explanation, but it's an interesting hypothesis. I remember reading the KJV as a child and Virginia is right; it is not an easy read. Forget all the "begot" chapters, it's a complex piece of writing. Though I didn't grow up reading the bible by lamplight every night, I do agree that Bible literacy was much higher in days of yore. Despite the fact that church attendance has remained high, my experience with a lot of the modern churches has shown me that the Bible doesn't really show up a whole lot from Sunday-to-Sunday. It seems weird for me to say this now, but one of the things I did like about church (back when I used to go more regularly) was the formality and sanctity of the whole experience. I guess I understand why churches have (in Virginia's words) dumbed down the material, but I sort of think church has become almost too casual.

This is an issue my friend Angie and I have discussed, but I never really thought of the effect on literacy. See, Ang, another reason I'm not going to be swayed by your (admittedly good) arguments. Anyway, just something I thought was interesting. Feel free to respond if you'd like to offer your take.

Oh, I also tried this from Daniel Drenzer, but evidently I don't look like any celebrities. It was kind of a letdown because I've always pictured myself as a sort of Clint Eastwood/Brad Pitt/Tom Cruise looking fellow. Okay, that was a joke, but I was sort of disappointed that I apparently match NO celebrity faces at all. Sigh.