This publish was written by Cherice Montgomery, a Humanities Middle school fellow.
As a toddler, I beloved tales; and if the thirty books now precariously perched on my nightstand are any indication, that has not modified a lot. Books are a few of my finest associates. They inform me all the things from their most trivial ideas to their deepest, darkest secrets and techniques. A few of them are bossy know-it-alls that spend most of their time attempting to get me to vary, whereas others persistently mirror my finest qualities again to me. I even have a number of that love to choose fights with me (and my prejudices), however my favorites all the time appear to know the best way to encourage me. Merely put, my associations with books have cast my values, formed my voice, and expanded my imaginative and prescient in constructive and highly effective methods. Like my human associates, they’ve additionally been a constant supply of pleasure in my life.
I’ve all the time been particularly keen on books through which the characters encounter long-forgotten diaries that result in unanticipated adventures. Just a few years in the past, I got here throughout simply such a e-book. The Matchbox Diary by Paul Fleischman tells the story of a younger woman who visits her Italian great-grandfather for the primary time. Whereas in his house, she discovers a set of matchboxes. Her great-grandfather explains to her that they’re his diary—his means of amassing issues he needed to recollect at a time in his life when he didn’t but know the best way to learn or write. As they open the matchboxes collectively, every of the artifacts they comprise evoke tales from his life as an immigrant.
The premise of the story captivated my creativeness, motivating me to look on Household Search to see if I might discover some hidden treasures of my very own. To my delight, I encountered some fascinating household tales, corresponding to family who ate sego lily bulbs for need of meals, unruly cows that jumped off ferries, grasshopper-eating turkeys, and intriguing encounters with indigenous tribes. One among my favourite tales recounts how one among my great-great grandmothers grabbed a heat pancake from the range, and in desperation, wrapped it round her sick child’s head earlier than fleeing an approaching mob. I additionally found that a few of my great-great grandfathers had written prolonged, first-hand accounts of the horrors of World Battle I and the devastating results of the Nice Despair. I used to be notably shocked once I stumbled throughout detailed accounts of actual miracles and non secular manifestations in a few of my ancestor’s histories. These tales have grow to be a few of my biggest treasures. They’ve given me a deeply private stake prior to now, in addition to a extra expanded imaginative and prescient of my attainable futures. I can see who I’m extra clearly as a result of I higher perceive my very own historic context extra totally.
These explorations have led to questions on how my favourite artists, authors, and scientists curated their lives. What captured their consideration? How did they spend their time? What mattered to them? How did they speak to themselves when nobody else was current? I discovered that they had been all eager observers of nature and humanity (e.g., George Orwell). Many had been additionally collectors of objects and concepts and used their journals to report them (e.g., Charles Darwin; Leonardo Da Vinci). As with my circle of relatives historical past, I additionally skilled many enjoyable surprises. As an illustration, had been you conscious that Thomas Edison was extremely witty—even when writing about his personal dandruff?! Have you ever ever tried to deduce what Beethoven will need to have stated based mostly on the feedback and questions his friends wrote in his dialog journals as soon as he started dropping his listening to? (Alvarez, 2017). Did you notice that Anne Frank wrote two totally different variations of her diary, or that Nathaniel Hawthorne saved a joint journal along with his spouse, Sofia?
Identical to these diaries, humanities students are additionally reminiscence collectors. Our work is our “letter to the world” (Dickinson, 1862), and after we write, we depart items of ourselves on its pages (see Frida Kahlo’s journal for instance). Our personalities seep by way of the subjects we touch upon (e.g. Ernest Hemingway; Oscar Wilde p.1 & p. 2), the handwriting we use to seize our ideas (e.g., Joseph Smith, Jr.), and the phrases we select to specific them. Within the course of, we by some means grow to be extra strong to ourselves and to our readers. As Picasso as soon as stated, “My work is my diary. For individuals who know the best way to learn, I’ve painted my autobiography” (Adato, 1980). What we select to share leaves a literal residue on the souls of everybody who reads us—that’s, except we lose our literacy.
And in keeping with current studies, that’s exactly what is occurring. As an illustration, knowledge from the Nationwide Evaluation of Instructional Progress (NAEP) collected in 2022 present that greater than two thirds (66%) of 4th graders within the U.S. can not learn proficiently. In 2023, a whopping 69% of 8th graders scored beneath proficient in studying (NAEP, 2023). (The brand new report will likely be launched on Jan. 29, 2025.) The present literacy abilities of adults don’t fare a lot better, with 57% of U.S. adults ages 16-65 scoring beneath proficient on the Program for the Worldwide Evaluation of Grownup Competencies (PIAAC) (Nationwide Middle for Schooling Statistics, 2023). Which means that 28% of U.S. adults can solely learn easy, well-organized texts a number of hundred phrases lengthy with no distracting data. One other 29% can paraphrase or make inferences about easy, multi-page texts, however can not deal with advanced texts or duties (OECD, 2024). Solely about 11% of the inhabitants can assemble which means from prolonged, dense texts and make inferences based mostly on conditional data (Nationwide Middle for Schooling Statistics, n.d.). I suppose this isn’t stunning given {that a} 2023 ballot of 1,500 adults discovered that 46% had not learn even one e-book within the earlier yr (Van Dam, 2024). Different sources counsel that over half of U.S. adults (54%) have lower than a 6th grade literacy stage (Nationwide Literacy Institute, 2025).
American literacy is evaporating proper earlier than our eyes, and I lament its loss. When our nation relinquishes studying in favor of different pursuits, it additionally sacrifices alternatives to expertise pleasure, develop advantage, and to deepen its affect on the world. If the American public can not learn the phrases proficiently, how will they ever have the ability to “learn the world” past their very own restricted views? (Freire, 1985, p. 18). The place will they discover the phrases to jot down one thing that’s price studying? So lots of the most precious phrases ever written exist as a result of individuals like Moses, John, Nephi, and Joseph Smith recorded their ideas and emotions concerning the issues that had been taking place to them. Nonetheless, one doesn’t need to be an eminent chief to have one thing worthwhile to say. In reality, a lot of what we learn about necessary historic occasions comes from the journals of odd and even obscure people who simply occurred to take the time to jot down issues down (e.g., Emmaline B. Wells, Zebulon Jacobs, or Joseph Jarvis Crossley) (Hartley, 1984; The Church Historian’s Press; Toone, 2023). Journal writers are the reminiscence keepers of society. Their efforts protect our language, our tradition, our historical past, and our information. The apply of writing issues down additionally adjustments the author—clarifying their values, sharpening their pondering, and deepening their perception. Studying and writing refine us individually and collectively.
Studying has reworked me by giving me the possibility to meander by way of among the biggest minds which have ever lived. It has taken me to locations I might by no means have afforded, invited me into experiences I by no means would have chosen, and uncovered me to views I’d by no means have thought of. Thus, every e-book I learn helps me develop into a greater model of myself. Clearly, I can not singlehandedly reverse the declining literacy charges in the US, however I can use my private affect to strengthen its growth in these whose lives intersect with mine. So subsequent time you end up in want of a present for somebody, contemplate giving them a e-book. As for me, nicely, you’ll discover me in second-hand bookstores, making associates.
References
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Anne Frank Home. (n.d.). The 2 variations of Anne’s diary. Anne Frank Home. https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/go-in-depth/two-versions-annes-diary/
Dickinson, Emily. (1862). “That is my letter to the world.” The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Basis. https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/this-is-my-letter-to-the-world Used below the Public Area.
Fleischman, P. (2016). The matchbox diary. Candlewick Press. https://www.amazon.com/Matchbox-Diary-Paul-Fleischman/dp/0763676381
Freire, P. (1985). Studying the world and studying the phrase: An interview with Paulo Freire. Language Arts, 62(1), 15–21. https://www.jstor.org/steady/41405241
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