Here's Another One

For my collection of "duh" research, that is.

This one's not really a new study but a summary of current thought on the importance of free play--not organized sports, not music lessons, but real FREE play--in child development.

The Serious Need for Play: Scientific American

I knew this already. It's sad that so many people now see real play as wasting time.

What I'm Reading This Month

In progress:

Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

Maya Frost, The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly International Education (This one's an uncorrected proof of a book scheduled for release in May.)

Shashi Tharoor, India: From Midnight to the Millenium and Beyond

and occasional browsing excursions through the replica 1771 Encyclopedia Britannica my brother sent me for Christmas.

On deck:

Robert Reich, Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life

Ken Follett, World Without End

Jonah Lehrer, Proust Was a Neuroscientist

Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

Stats and More Stats

For the past few years, I've had fun downloading and browsing through the Statistical Abstract of the United States, published annually by the Census Bureau. This week I finally got around to downloading the 2009 edition (published in October), which is 30 sections and 6 appendices full of all sorts of goodies, like:

—There were 240,800 blepharoplasties performed in 2007 (mine, to repair a ptosis, isn't included there, since it was in 2008, so I supposed it'll be included in next year's abstract.

—The likelihood of a 3- to 5-year-old to visit a library is greater when the mother holds a baccalaureate (52%) or graduate (60%) degree (though nothing about the father's education, unfortunately).

—More 18- to 24-year-olds play sports (49.4%) than garden (20.7%), but—not too surprisingly—more 55- to 64-year-olds garden (56.6%) than play sports (16%).

You never know what weird and interesting little tidbits you'll find.

And then a bit later, I came across the 2008 Feltron Report, which is the past year's life of a graphic designer named Nicholas Felton, distilled into graphs and maps. When I first looked through it, I wondered what on earth it would be like to keep track of that much data in order to produce such a report.

But it turns out that Felton and another designer, Ryan Case, have created a website called Datum (still in private beta) for people to collect and report similar data about their own lives. It's about as ferociously geeky an idea as I've seen in a long time, but looks like it could be really interesting.

My Bookshelves May Be Doomed

Like most book people, I can get effusive about the rituals of reading books, about the feel of a nicely bound book, about the smell of the paper and the binding. Many book people—and I used to think I was firmly among this group—find the very idea of electronic book readers appalling. They can't imagine that any ebook reader, no matter how wonderful, could ever satisfactorily replace Real Books.

Now, having worked in a real bookstore a couple of decades ago (it's defunct now, of course), I have fewer illusions about the wonderfulness of physical books than many people. Books are messy—they get dusty fast and even brand new books shed paper lint all over. They're heavy, they take up room (and that's a big problem for those of us who are constantly running out of shelf space), and sometimes it's hard to find just the part you're looking for in them. But it's never been easy for me to give away books (though my shelf-pruning skills have improved as the linear footage of books I own has grown) or, eek, throw them away.

But the drawbacks to physical books have never come close to making me look for an electronic book reader, and none of the current crop, like the Sony Reader or Amazon's Kindle, have done much to change my mind. The idea is good, but the execution is lacking. Neither is particularly attractive and both have monochrome screens which are slow to refresh—they scream "I am an electronic substitute for a real book."

But I'm beginning to be able to envision an appealing ebook reader, thanks to my iPhone. With one of the available ebook apps (I've got Stanza), I can (and do) carry a few classic books (most of Austen, Moby Dick, all of Shakespeare) around with me all the time. On the iPhone, they're in color—text pages are true black and white, not that irritating grayscale—and I can flick through multiple pages with the touch of a finger, do searches, and make notes. Of course, the pages are small, and if you bump up the print size enough for presbyopic eyes to cope, you're left with only a couple of sentences per screen, so it's not the ideal way to read.

But imagine something the size of the Kindle or Sony Reader, with an iPhone-style touchscreen. You'd have the capacity to carry a minor library around with you, the gestures to browse through and manipulate the text with ease, and the visual appeal to satisfy the eye.

One of these days Real Soon Now, there will be an ebook reader that will satisfy even Book People.

And Another Thing . . .

I'm still irked by that quote from Bush I posted about last time:

"How can you possibly determine whether a child can read at grade level if you don't test?"

I was annoyed at the idea that the typical odious multiple-choice-fill-in-the-bubble-standardized test is the only way to determine whether someone can read. My brain kept repeating, "Have them read to you" over and over, like that irritating Tijuana Brass tune they were playing in the salon where I got my hair cut the other day.

I've another problem, though, that's perhaps more serious: Why is knowing that a child can read at grade level so important?

"Reading at grade level" is such a dismal achievement. Goes well, I suppose, with "performs calculations at grade level." Just imagine the excitement in a high-performing classroom where all the students have managed to read and calculate at grade level, the thrill shared by the kids and their teacher, knowing that they've reached the mandated level of skill. What is left for them to accomplish?

I worry that we're creating a generation of kids who are growing up with the idea that learning is drudgery, a series of tasks to be completed, years of meeting grade-level standards with no glimmer of what it is all for.

I don't want kids who meet grade-level standards. I want kids who are curious, who get excited about seeing and learning new things, who have learned how to satisfy their curiosity and lead it on to more and more fascinating things. I want kids who are interested in the world and the people around them and have the opportunity to interact in ways that feed their interests.

People who are interested in the world around them are people who accomplish things in that world. People who have only achieved "grade level" in their endeavors are usually just consumers.

(Of course, that's probably the idea behind NCLB—consumers are a lot easier to manage and manipulate than educated and engaged activists.)