Twenty-five years ago, when MTV played mostly videos, defeated presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan delivered his "Culture War" speech before the Republican National Convention on August 17 at the Houston Astrodome, where he feared for the "soul of America." Twenty-five years later, when conservatives have ceded all control of the culture war to the Left, MTV's Video Music Awards (VMAs, itself a bizarre oxymoron for an outlet that plays no videos) is now a forum about politics and the course of the country. Conservatives should watch more MTV. Take heed Buchanan's observations. And fight back.
For decades MTV has contributed to the cultural degeneration of America, and today it is more pronounced and emphatically symptomatic of the culture wars felt by, and waged against, conservatives.
Yesterday as today, what we call reading skills heavily influence academic achievement. They further influence the development of writing skills beyond the early years of schooling when writing is almost a transcription of a child's speech patterns. The development of reading skills, especially a reading vocabulary, and then writing skills depends largely on willing practice in reading. There are no silver bullets for a large reading vocabulary. Perhaps we can learn something by looking at what educators did at the turn of the 20th century and over the last century to keep students with a minimal interest in reading and studying engaged with schooling as compulsory education laws and prohibitions against factory work compelled most students to stay in high school — and still do.
The surge in high school enrollment at the turn of the 20th century — mainly to address the huge wave of immigration to our urban areas — led educators to make many changes to the high school curriculum as high schools were being built or expanded — in large part to accommodate the wide range of reading skills and student interests in grades 10-12. Several sinister theories have long been advanced to account for these changes (e.g., to sort out the children of an upper class or upper middle class from those who would become part of the workforce). The students attending newly formed or expanded high schools were not apt to be children of the wealthy but children of a broad middle class and immigrants. What and how could teachers in a high school or any secondary classroom teach if large numbers of students (but not all) in typically large classes couldn't read the textbooks and literary works assigned for their grade level?
