I´ve seen it lately in Germany, I knew it operates since years in France and other European countries, I´ve heard about what happens in the States: young people from disadvantaged backgrounds - be it social, ethnic, health - are underserved by the education system. We may be proud of the free education and equal chances for all, but in the end, the success comes to those - parents - who do have resources, knowledge and connections to support their children. Those from struggling families rarely do it anywhere better beyond the compulsory education system.
There is a lot to say and write about it and hopefully will address it in a lengthy video one day. Those thoughts - that as a mother and educator I deal at least few times the week - were amplified by the reading of Oliver James memoir Unread. James, who has a 300k+ followers on TikTok where she is under oliverspeaks1, is a California-based personal trainer, motivational speaker and literary activist. He also learned reading in his late 30s, and the book is a personal and emotional account of this journey.
Under the label of ´difficult children´ hides often learning impairments that can be fixed as long as discovered and treated seriously earlier. Understanding sentence structures beyond the isolate words is a skills that some need support to handle. And when school and educators fail, young people may end as James did, a troubled young man serving prison time.
Reading is also something we are taking for granted. Without basic and medium literacy we cannot survive this world. We need people to rely on, we depend on other people to fill taxes, forms, sign. I´ve been involved with adults unable to read, mostly women, and they lived in the shadow of others - children, man of the house...The lack of reading skills, and the struggle to hid it, leads to isolation, worsening of the mental health condition.
And there is also another reason why we need reading into our lives, and James is in full honesty enthusiastically sharing: the magic of stories. The ways in which feelings can be experienced, the push towards going to places our imagination only can lead us, it comes first as a shock to the system. This is the reading muscle is developing and our understanding of life expands.
I appreciated Unread as a direct, candid sometimes, account that has the value of testimony witnessing the shortcomings of educational systems and the need to offer alternative, grass root support to the so-callled ´difficult child´ tailored according to their specific learning and social needs.
Rating: 4 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review
