Avoid demonizing television, computer games, and new technologies. Electronic media may compete for kids' attention, but we're not going to get kids reading by badmouthing other entertainment. Admit that TV and games can do things books can't.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the value of various forms of media instead of criticizing them, especially in relation to engaging children in reading.
Jon Scieszka suggests that rather than condemning modern entertainment platforms like television and video games, we should recognize their inherent value and how they can engage children in unique ways. He argues that by denouncing these mediums, we fail to create a positive environment that encourages reading; instead, we should embrace the strengths of different media in order to foster a love for literature among youth.
In practice
In a school assembly focused on promoting literacy, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of integrating technology in education.
The more important argument against grade curves is that they create an atmosphere that's toxic by pitting students against one another. At best, it creates a hypercompetitive culture, and at worst, it sends students the message that the world is a zero-sum game: Your success means my failure.
As long as parents and teachers in general shall fall under the established rule, it is clear that politics and modes of government will educate and infect us all. They poison our minds, before we can resist, or so much as suspect their malignity. Like the barbarous directors of the Eastern seraglios, they deprive us of our vitality, and fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle.
If we as a nation are to break the cycle of poverty, crime and the growing underclass of young people ill equipped to be productive citizens, we need to not only implement effective programs to prevent teen pregnancy, but we must also help those who have already given birth so that they become effective, nurturing, bonding parents.
The idea of education has been so tied to schools, universities, and professors that many assume there is no other way, but education is available to anyone within reach of a library, a post office, or even a newsstand.
Women and girls should be able to determine their own future, no matter where they're born.
Education, the great mumbo jumbo and fraud of the age purports to equip us to live and is prescribed as a universal remedy for everything from juvenile delinquency to premature senility.
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