Prof Tiberius Mineola to the top

In what has to be one of the best and most reasoned strings in some time, this BB has talked about the propensity (or lack thereof) to read among Dominicans in general.

I will base the next part on 39 years of experience here, essentially in the field of education, but also in business and agriculture--Oh yes, a true Renaiscence man..LOL!

I have stated before on this board some fairly obvious realities of Dominican life. (1) The total (repeat TOTAL!) number of newspapers published on a daily basis, does not reach 500,000 in a land of +/- 7.5 million. (2) The highest rated daily radio program over the last 40 years is "Radio Mil Informando". They read the newspapers over the air. (3) There are no real news programs on TV in the morning. Generally speaking they read the papers,with one even having a large sized front page for pointing out just where on the page the news is.

\What this results in, is an "Aural" society. The spoken word having preferance over the written word. This is not good for development, nor is it a positive impression given to most of the people that visit here.

Even so, there are 400,000+ people that do read and write and who enjoy the thrills of reading good books. We have met several of them in this string,that's for sure.

And the US is possibly getting worse.!! Yes,they are. The USA has finished last in every Geography Quiz in the last twenty years. They are nowhere in sight in the Math Olympics. Who wins the Westinghouse Science Prizes? Normally, someone from a high school in the East with Advanced Placement courses and with an unpronounceable last name. Must be why I teared up watching "October Moon". What a baby!!...

So it boils down again to education. Did you know that now there are nearly 7 girls in school at the university level for every boy? This is going to be a great place one of these days.

But who are these kids that are in school.? Less than 5% of the kids that enter school in the first grade ever make it to high school. Natasha, one of the best educated places on this island used to be Samana. Students were read, polite and eager to learn more. Look at Milton Ray Guevara as an example...what we need is more of that spirit.

Keep the flame going, educate!

HB

My personal opinion of books, specifically fiction, is that if they are not a total waste of time, they are at the very least a highly unproductive use of time. For the fiction that actually includes some useful information, today's multi-media sources are far better and efficient and conveying information.

Newspapers are a rotten source for the news. They are inefficient at transferring information and frequently politically biased. Bravo that the Dominicans don't read them. I don't either. What a waste of time. Anything that is important you will be hear, read, see, and discuss until overkill because the media has a way of doing that. I haven't read a newspaper in years, with the exception of the complimentary USA Today or Wall Street Journal I pick up when passing through an airport club.

The radio, internet, TV, and Cable-news are more efficient ways of getting the news out and one usually doesn't have to stop what they are doing to get the idea, unlike with a newspaper.

Knowledge level and book reading have little correlation. I myself can count the number of books I've read on my fingers, yet my education and up to date knowledge on a broad range of subjects has been apparent. On the other hand, my partner reads constantly. Every Sidney Sheldon book and all the other one's like it. Yet this same person doesn't know that the purpose of a battery is to produce electricity, or that glass is made from sand, or that the bible isn't God's word, or understand annuities, or how a telephone works, ...

People would be better off spending an hour a day watching the discovery channel than reading a book. This is the year 2001. Your notions fit well back in 1950 but today they are outdated.

This is very typical Without meaning any disrespect to Mr. Hillbilly, who is both educated and in touch with the world, I and most people hold educators in low regard, mostly as people that could not (or didn't have the guts to) make it in the business world, are wholly out of touch and/or behind the times with the real world, and have cushy jobs. I find this to be true in most (but not all) cases. Education at the university level is the kindergarten of life. Real education, (the kind many will never get) doesn't start until you get out into the real world - work, travel, deal with businesses and people, communicate, and of course, absorb information distributed via the media and multimedia (internet, discovery channel, special cable programming and features, for example).

Today's lack of education is due to every aspect of our life being pre-packaged and handed to us, with the details distributed on a need-to-know only basis. "If I don't need to know, why should I", "Who cares", "If it doesn't affect me directly, I don't want to hear it" attitude is prevalent. It is the age of the spoiled child who has become the spoiled adult.

Books and newspapers' days are numbered. Welcome to the digital age.

Your observations are well taken. Many people today are spoon fed, instead of reading a book and excersizing the most important "muscle" in the body, the brain. Reading versus other media forces the participant to become part of the action. This loss of the "theater of the mind" is one of the biggest reasons today that many people (despite academic schooling) are more ignorant than the generation before.
Although television will probably go down in history as one of mankinds greatest achievements, it heralded the beginning of the end. There is a darn good reason that the period of the early thirties to the early fifties is referred to as the golden age of radio and the involvement and imagination a listener achieved when listening to Orson Welles Mercury Theater presentation of "The War of the Worlds."
Reading and more importantly, reading comphrehension, is basic and without it you would not be able communicate the way you do with or without modern inventions.

The reading (important) and reading books (not important) are not the same thing. I find books to be a highly inefficient way to convey information. They are a good medium for reference and other permanent type of data, but too slow for news and ever-changing type information and for entertainment. I don't buy into that "working the brain" stuff. After all, which is the better experience: Being there or imagining being there.

Criminy! This is going to be one of “those” posts.

I read your post and I couldn’t help to have contradictory feelings. I think there is some true in what you say, but I mostly disagree with you. Books serve various purposes, one of which is to entertain, fiction is meant as entertainment. You cannot say that what entertains you is better than somebody else’s choice; I’d choose books (of any kind) over TV any day. But that again is my choice. Some people chase butterflies and then pin them to a cardboard, some people have even weirder forms of amusing themselves (some of which might land them in jail for quite a few years).

When I read about your choice of multimedia over books it suddenly occurred to me the ridiculous idea of trying to get my oversized TV-set or my computer into the bathroom any time I go in one of those long sessions of “throne-sitting”. Yes, it is true that there are alternate ways to pass along information these days, still nothing have beaten the books. You should know that an hour of TV could never amount to the level of information that you can get in an hour of reading. We are talking COMPLETELLY different media. Anyone who (like myself) usually reads the book before they make the movie finds out, too many things are left unsaid. The movie is just a glimpse on the world the author tried to portrait. Too many good books have been made into lousy movies. It is the same for “expert knowledge” books.

You say that “knowledge level and book reading have little correlation”, well, yes and no. “Cultural literacy, unlike expert knowledge is meant to be shared by everyone. To a large extent this common knowledge allows people to communicate, to work together, to live together.”1 I know of few ways of sharing this “cultural literacy” or cultural legacy other than reading. What other medium could transmit this knowledge from one person to another? You even need books to learn how to read. Please don’t come telling me that today they have all those little gadgets that you can download books from the Internet. Those are books, call it any way you want, 3000 years ago they were called “rolls”, and long before that they were called “tables”, “rocks”, etc.

“Education at the university level is the kindergarten of life“ You may say that you learnt a great deal of stuff “out there”, but I have a word for you: doctors. Would you like to see in the guy’s office a diploma that reads “Graduated from the “Discovery Channel Brain Surgery in 2 Hours Series’”? I don’t think so. It gives you a certain relief thinking that this guy read a lot about his trade before you got to be on the business end of the scalpel.

About the written media being biased, I hate to tell you that ALL media are biased. Even the grapevine is, all humans are biased by definition. So, no matter from where you get your news some of the teller’s opinion is going to stick to it.

I may have misread you, I have to admit that I am on an overdose of caffeine, please do tell me if I misread you. I’d like this thread to develop into a respectful, informative and open discussion about this one subject. But I have the fear I am on for some hate posts.

1. Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (by a bunch of guys)

jim, i was reading your post and went to return to index when my screen was frozen again,( 3rd time today on dr1), so of course i had to restart my computer. while it went through the task of scan disc i went back to reading the newspaper where i read the story and saw a photo of Korey Stringer suffering the effects of heat prostration before his death on Tuesday.

well this got me to thinking-so i did a search on Korey Stringer on the net. low and behold site/directory #12 was the first web page to make note of his death. sorry, i have to disagree, the net is neither the fastest nor the most accurate source of info. give me a newspaper or a book any day. and it appears that i am not alone in this belief. (by the way, is USA Today considered a newspaper?)

Jim, yet again you display your Teutonic heritage, back ground, and biases. Just because you have an income level that allows you to jump on a jet airliner any damn well time that you please doesn't make you the messiah of the digital age. The vast majority of this planets population isn't connected so what in hell's name are they suppose to do in the mean time while they are waiting for the discover channel and the Internet to appear in their village? Being able to read and comprehend is the mark of a truly educated person. (If I were you Jim I wouldn't
be so boastful of the fact that you have to use you fingers to count the number of books that you have read, and "working the brain" stuff. - it's apparent)

Its obvious to anyone with any mental capacity that reading a book usually demands concentration. Whether its fact or fiction, a reader has as one goal to tie together all that has been read. That means not only excercising your memory but also your dedutcive reasoning powers. Additionally, one learns significantly more vocalbulary reading. You can stop and look up words....or investigate confusing arguments. This does not happen watching TV. HOWEVER, most of this CAN be accomplished electronically over the web, but at the higher risk of being distracted by an instant message or an urge to check again you e-mail, or regurgitate the stock market closing numbers. Nothing beats being held captive by a book.

"Nothing beats being held captive by a book." - Jim thinks other wise, and Andy B. has pointed out something that's truly missing from the pop culture of today's TV brain dead society, namely the power of one's imagination.

How true your words are 2DRs!Hinsch's rantings about his education,wealth(snicker)and of course his very tiring look at me look,at me attitude...save it Hinsch we have all heard it before and for many of us are quite tired of it too.

PS, put down that Archie comic......people might be watching you