Did Books Steal Your Love of Learning?

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What if we stopped judging dyslexic people on their ability to read, and started judging our alphabet on the fact that 20% of Americans can’t read it well? 

This is a hot take. Let me rewind a bit.

The first book in school that I lied about reading was Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. I was homeschooled from first grade through fourth grade, and when I arrived in a classroom for the first time in fifth grade, the teacher told me I was a proficient reader. News to me. I was just trying to keep up with my older brothers. She put me in the reading group that was most proficient, and handed us Jules Verne’s 500-page tome. 

If you’ve ever read Jules Verne, I commend you. He’s one of the longest-winded dudes to ever do it. Environmentalists might have gone after him for the number of pages he filled, if he wrote in our day. Go ahead and applaud his imagination if you like. I’m worried that he put his editor out of a job–I can’t imagine what got cut out. 

Anyway, my reading group was the smallest, so we got to sit on the couch in the back of the classroom to discuss what we read. She pulled us aside and asked us not to brag to the other kids about our exclusive seats. But as I sank into that old couch, I peered over the pages of my book, and envied my classmates. They got to read Maniac Magee. The cover looked way cooler, the book was way shorter, and the story sounded exciting. Call me crazy, but the story of a kid who ran away from home, and got to sleep in the gear shed of a baseball field was much more relatable to me after I got my Gameboy taken away. 

After I got away with not reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, I began a long scholastic career of not reading the assigned literature. Most teachers never found out, since I was good at writing essays explaining the themes that CliffsNotes taught me the night before. I always felt a little bad about it, especially when the teachers found out. I remember english teachers making kids feel bad about not finishing books, as if they were disrespecting some higher power in the process. 

After I graduated high school, I didn’t read a novel for five years. 

And guess what? My life was great. I didn’t feel anything missing at all. Contrary to how my teachers made it sound, Charles Dickens’ ghost didn’t haunt me at night for not reading his boring ass books. 

So where am I going with this? What does this have to do with dyslexia? Let me explain. 

When I started freelancing, I didn’t have a clue. To make matters worse, I thought I knew exactly what I was doing. I’ll save you some reading time, and just let you imagine a movie montage of me being constantly broke, always feeling stressed out, and getting dropped by clients faster than I could find them. After I signed up for my third dishwashing stint in ten months to try and make rent, I realized I needed to learn something. The last thing I wanted to do was crack open a book, but I dragged myself over to the library, signed up for a library card, and checked out Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek.

I devoured it. 

After finishing the book, I immediately borrowed Business Model Generation, Content Marketing, and Delivering Happiness. I read those in a flash, too. At some point, I thought to myself, why haven’t I been reading anything this past year? 

Then I remembered. I remembered all those teachers who made me feel bad for not finishing books. I remembered all those books I had to read that I hated. And I realized that school stole the love of reading from me. And since they only ever equated learning to reading, they stole the love of learning from me too. 

Books aren’t anything special. They were merely the most technologically advanced way to transfer mass information for about 600 years, since the invention of the printing press. Now, they’ve been a staple in our culture for so long that the education system isn’t ready their precious child go. But when you stop to think about it, the written word is a faulty medium. One in five people have dyslexia. You can’t do anything else while you read. You’re subject to the limitations of your own mind as you read. Just look at the exponential growth of podcasts and education video content in the past ten years. Podcasts can teach you something while you drive a car or work in a warehouse. Video content can show you something you wouldn’t have been able to conceive on your own. 

Now the traditionalists in the back might be shouting “Sure you can learn a few things on YouTube, but you won’t be getting educated thought on the internet.” Well, guess what. The smartest people in the world right now? The most educated, cutting edge thinkers and authors? They all have a podcast. They all have a TED talk. They all have a video series. 

Just for the record, I’m not a book hater. I have a collection of over 120 books on a shelf right next to me. I’m a writer, for crying out loud. I just hate the fact that a dated education system that forces kids to read books they hate is stealing the love of education from people.

Stop reading books that you hate. Go find books that interest you.

Don’t let negative experiences in school steal the wonder of learning. Go find a medium that speaks to you. 

Thanks for reading.