Reading is an essential aspect of writing - I can't imagine not being able to read anything for an extended period of time! Reading is also a vital tool to critical thinking.
I was glancing through an autobiography by Senator John McCain, the section on his POW survival and was reminded about another POW, Dr. Phillip Butler, I was fortunate to be assigned to interview for a class project.
Both men had been POW's in Vietnam for several years. I wont go into the tactics that the Vietnamese used to demoralize the men held in the Hanoi Hilton except that these men were deprived of reading and writing materials. In Dr. Butler's case that was 8 years! Only it was an open sentence, he had no way of knowing he would be a POW for 8 years.
Not being able to read or write would be one of my definitions of hell.
Of course, the POW's were deprived of all communication - an even greater hell!
Yet the men communicated in spite of the Vietnamese using a tapping code. If the they were caught they were severely beaten. "They'd work you over for a week". But that was less important than the need to communicate.
When I'd commented on the strength of character it must have taken to survive 8 years as a POW Dr. Butler became agitated and adamant, "The reality of our survival is...because we communicated and maintained a social network with each other...it enabled us to survive and come home".
In other words, it was the strength of the group - not the individual. Community.
Umm, How often do we consider our community, let alone the strength of our community? How often do we give any consideration to the reading materials we can choose from, or the ability to write? Or the ease with which we have access to information?
I do not consider myself a "Bleeding Heart" Liberal but do tend to lean to the left on most issues with occasional wanderings over to the right for other issues. In other words, I choose. I choose based upon several factors that include, reading, and communicating with others. A process of critical thinking.
To have these basic privileges taken away is an abomination to the human spirit - a tactic of war.
Dr. Butler claims that, "Americans don't think. They have no empathy, Which I find very disturbing. What is the most important child? Is it an American child? We lost, Americans killed in Vietnam, 58,000 and change. And they lost somewhere between 2 and 3 million people in that war".
I've been working on my MA in Special Education through the University of Phoenix Online. As part of the requirements I have spent the past couple years in a middle school setting often sitting in regular education classes assisting students with special needs. I have also compared observations with classmates across the country. We've noted a problem.
Americans are no longer being taught to think.
American schools are not geared toward teaching any type of thinking beyond rote memorization and the skills required to take the exit exam. Students today are especially not taught critical thinking. Sure there are exceptions and many teachers do make an effort to include teaching critical thinking however ,the focus of sanctioned curriculum is narrowly geared toward passing an exit exam.
Dr. Butler is right, Americans don't think.
We, as a community, have all these freedoms and privileges and access to books, Internet, and other sources of information and we choose to not think!
This next generation will not even have the skills to think regardless of their access to advanced tools and data. As a community of Americans we need to ponder the implications of a generation lacking the ability to think critically.
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