Henrietta Hay's Column

U. S. kids are at the bottom of the international class. They are not prepared for the 21st century. So says the "report card" issued by the National Education Goals Panel. I had a little trouble with that until I discovered (by reading the fine print) that the only specific standard for measuring competency in this first report was in math. My friend the mathophobe would be the first to realize the importance of math, but somehow she has managed to muddle through life in spite of fearing numbers. She can usually get somebody else to do her figuring for her. Of course a basic understanding of math is essential for functioning in the modern world or in any other world. BUT -- why are reading and writing at the bottom of the national list of things that are important?

The crisis in education is here. Everyone has a different opinion and nobody really knows the answers. Certainly I don't, but the current emphasis on math and science reminds me that things haven't changed much since the days of Sputnik. Reading and writing skills are still somewhere down the list. I happen to believe that if you can't read well and write a sentence with a subject and a predicate and an adjective or two, you're going to have a lot of trouble with the math and science.

Have you ever read a manual written for a computer program? The programs are obviously created by geniuses in the math and logic department. But the manuals are nearly useless. The modern mind can write a complex computer program but cannot explain it. Or have you tried to program your VCR from reading the manual? You have to call in a teenager to do it by osmosis. I have seen reports written by skilled engineers that wouldn't pass 7th grade English.

I have a solution. I suggest that we offer a B.E.T. degree, Bachelor of Explaining Things. Pre-requisites would be the ability to read 60 words a minute and write a cogent sentence. Required courses would include grammar and spelling and maybe one on commas. Then, of course, electives would be those things the student would be required to explain.

That might start to solve the writing problem. As to reading, most of the kids I know seem to be learning to read very well. Of course I don't know all the kids in America but children and teen departments in libraries are growing rapidly, and sales of youth books are increasing.

Children's reading is where it all starts, and kids' books today are wonderful for both kids and adults. They're a lot prettier to look at than the books I used to read and the little kids haul them home by the armload. Of course the old standbys are still going strong too, Mother Goose and Dr Seuss and Nancy Drew and all the others.

Teen reading habits are always interesting. The Mesa County Public Library reports that Horror and Romance are the big teen genres this year. Romance stories have been around for years and continue to flourish. But the really big thing now is HORROR, not the real scary kind, but what we might call soft horror. Sounds gruesome to me, but the kids love it. The Library has 100 copies of the various horror stories of one of the favorite authors, Christopher Pike, and there is never one on the shelf.

Paperbacks are popular with teens. They can be hidden or displayed quite easily, depending on the social situation. At the moment it is cool to read and show off paperbacks and not cool to read hardbacks. Who can ever explain the adolescent mind?

The great thing is, they're reading. It may not always be great literature, but they're reading. Let's face it. How many of us really enjoyed "Moby Dick" or "The Mill on the Floss?" Some of the kids, of course, do a lot of the serious reading that we adults hope will enrich their minds, but the important thing is that they are reading something besides record jackets.

When the next "report card" comes out, maybe it will include more than math. Go on kids, read up. Maybe you will learn to read well enough to understand computer manuals, or even write them.