Why students do not study Russian anymore

[Mr Carmack]

> There is yet another issue:
> US students don't read any more. They just don't. According to CNN, an
> average 16-year-old in the late 90's has a vocabulary of 10,000 words
> whereas an average 16-year-old in the early fifties had a vocabulary of
> 25,000 words.

In your own words: "There is yet another issue." Here at UT-Austin I took a
course in the English Department about teaching reading & writing in high
school, and many educators suggest having the students read comic books and
the like. A certain segment of educators feels this is better than pushing
harder stuff on them, lest the turn away from reading totally. I say, given
'em something good and they'll come back for more,... maybe even put down
their Nintendo for half an hour. As father of 3 kids, aged 7 and younger, we
refuse to buy our children Nintendo or anything like it.
Thankfully the local libraries sponsor a "summer reading program" and we
have enrolled our oldest in that. As for foreign languages, in an Austin
kindergarten (voted the best in the city) my oldest was taught both some
Spanish =and= some Chinese (especially the numerals 1 to 10, and he still
over a year later tells me what a Chinese "10" looks like). Now, in a
small-town, in his first grade he was not even exposed to Spanish! He
learned nothing new in math (in kinder he was already graphing and doing
series). He did make great strides in reading. If we could we would
homeschool him. Meanwhile, he went over to the home of the best math student
in his 1st grade class, a Korean-American, and what did they do... play
Nintendo.

> Television and computers have taken their toll.

O think computers can promote literacy. It's TV. and video games that demote
it. Of course, it is up to parents to guide their kids' exposure to the boob
tube. With a lot of families having two working parents, and they both come
home tired, it is difficult to make supper, clean, do wash, and then sit
down and read with one's kids. Much easier to stick them in front of a video
to entertain them for an hour or more. Guess "Reading Rainbow" makes a good
choice then. :-)

> Several years ago I was looking for the museum of O'Henry (William Porter)
> in Austin , Texas. Though the museum is located in the center of the city,
> next to the popular 6th street, no one of the people I asked could recall
> anything about the museum. In fact, very few people had ever
> heard the name of O'Henry.

As a 10-year resident of Austin, my only comments are that (a) the museum
itself is small and (b) O'Henry is not exactly the most famous of authors.
Not to dispute your message, though. My wife and I did indeed hear of the
O'Henry Museum when we first moved here. But I don't think they do much
advertising. I'd rather visit three dozen other authors' homes than
O'Henry's. Plus his time in Austin, as I recall, was short.


> When I finally located the museum and entered it, the first guestion the
> guide asked was: "Are you from Russia?"
>
> Names like Truman Capote or even Kurt Vonnegut embarrassed most students I
> spoke with.
> No, we have not heard or read.
> Would you expect a massive interest to the Russian classics? What can be
> more boring.

Well, I've read most the major Russian classics and nothing by Capote or
Vonnegut. I think I am more interested in foreign cultures than my
own--perhaps because my own has so recently become so "comic book" and
"video-game" oriented. I think our culture is sinking quickly to the depths
of the ancient Romans, who went to the Coliseum to see people and beasts
attack each other. Wouldn't be surprised if some arena like that opened up,
even in Austin, sometime soon. Hey, it would bring in more fans than does
baseball.

Alan Carmack
MA-TEFL, UT-Austin
student, Slavics Dept, UT-Austin

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