There are battles that announce themselves with headlines and protests, and there are also quiet battles. 

They unfold slowly, almost invisible to our understanding. Then one day they emerge with a frightening surprise like a hydra, causing us to ask ourselves how did this happen?

Reading may be one of those battles.

Recently, The Atlantic magazine published an article, provocatively entitled, “The End of Reading is Here.” It has sparked no small amount of furor across the expanse of our country. Educators, parents, political pundits, librarians and writers have all weighed in. The title may be intentionally hyperbolic, but the questions it raises and the statistical evidence it reveals are truly concerning. This is something that deserves our attention.

Illiteracy, once thought to be a societal malaise about to be vanquished, has reared its ugly head again, in all places — the American backyard. 

Why here now? Understand please, this is an American problem, not confined to Missouri or even our beloved Cassville. No, no. Across America, reading scores continue to decline. The bandwidth it impacts is all sectors of our demography.

More troubling still, students are reading less for pleasure, less for intellectual curiosity, less for the search for truth. All grade levels are struggling in comprehension. As in, what did I just read?  

And, many exhibit this very real difficulty in being able to sustain attention, cue in the squirrel looking for the buried nut metaphor, because it is spot on. Initially, it was pooh poohed just a COVID-19 issue. No more, the evidence is clear. 

The problem reaches far deeper. It is changing the educational landscape and will with a quick two step impact our communities in the future.

Missouri has not escaped these challenges. Reading proficiency remains below pre-pandemic levels, even as schools work to improve instruction through evidence-based initiatives and expanded early literacy programs. Those stats matter. Stats alone do not solve the problem. The problem is a multi-headed monster. Let the finger pointing begin: the internet, social media, educational systems, home life, economics, pandemic circumstances, etc, etc.

As an English instructor at Crowder College in Cassville, literacy is top of mind every day, every class, every student. What I have seen reinforces all the stats. A great many students, when they come into my Composition class have not read a book, save one that may have been assigned in high school. There are exceptions, yes. But, the vast majority read not for pleasure, not at all.

Sarah Smith, the Director at Crowder Cassville, is a fierce advocate for reading for humanistic development. She has started a reading initiative by establishing a free library, and this summer offering up novels gratis with no requirements to turn in homework, just read.

Why does she do this?

I am glad you asked. Sarah Smith knows from her years in higher education that students thrive when they value different perspectives, learn from challenges and remain curious about the world. Reading plays a vital role in developing their minds and their desire to make the world a better place. Reading does this. NB: Sarah is an Avid reader, capital “A.”

Fact: There are two known ways in which critical thinking is developed. This is the holy grail of education (little “h”). Critical thinking is also known as problem solving aptitude, a higher-level cognitive efficacy. The first way is through the steady practice of reading, primarily long form narrative reading, not social media and whatever the blue glow from a screen reveals. 

Novels, short stories, novellas, dramas, and poetry, that is what long form reading is. The second avenue is to learn a second language. This is a physiological fact, science-based evidence on how our brains develop most efficiently.

I have spoken of the classroom, education as a part of growing up to be responsible citizens. Yet this concern about the decline of reading reaches into the community, our community. Because the collective nature of the citizenry is to develop habits that benefit the greater good of all. The steady practice of reading is a habit that has benefits for every breathing soul. Now we are no longer talking English or education. 

We are talking about reading as a critical thinking exercise that allows us to grow outside of ourselves, outside of the screen’s influence.

The issue of declining reading scores is a symptom. Not a cause of our lack of empathy for one another. As a nation, as a people gathered around our constitution, our very will to overcome any obstacle before us is part of our Git-R-Done spirit. I do not profess to have a ready-made solution, no bullet points to eradicate illiteracy. But the solution is before us and collectively we will solve any problem.

I remain hopeful — nay — I firmly believe we will right the teetering ship because I have seen it happen. I have witnessed students stand before an audience during Poetry Ain’t Dead, reading words they never imagined anyone else would hear. I’ve watched listeners nod in quiet recognition. I’ve watched strangers begin conversations because of a poem. Those evenings remind me that reading has never merely been about books. It has always been about people. Books simply happen to be one of the ways people learn to understand one another.

The battle for reading will not be won in classrooms alone. It will be won around kitchen tables.

In libraries. At bedtime. On front porches. Perhaps even in a small poetry gathering on a Thursday evening in Cassville. Communities become what they repeatedly practice. If we hope to remain a community that thinks deeply, imagines generously, and listens carefully, then reading is not simply another educational objective. Reading and literacy are worth fighting for. 

Battle on.

Jeremiah Buntin is a historian at the Barry County Museum. He may be reached at [email protected].