Getting Kids To Read

Would anyone argue that books don't command the attention of America's youth as much as they once did?

With TV, DVDS, video games, instant messaging, text messaging, social networking, virtual worlds, camera phones, organized sports, organized play groups, organized snack times, forced and unforced naps, theme restaurants and ADD epidemics, is there even time for anything else? And if there were time, what kid would spend that time reading?

Sixty years ago, kids read because the only other option was listening to plays that featured a bunch of bored foley artists and came from a radio the size of a professional wrestler.

Once TV came along, books took another hit. But teachers and parents told kids to read, and being children of past generations, they did as they were instructed.

If you want kids to read in today's climate, you need to embark on some serious strategy being that it takes a bit more attention, effort and focus to read a book than to space out while watching someone else's zany cat bat at the air on YouTube.

You tell your kid to read now, you'll be lucky if he pauses his game of Guitar Hero before he tells you to F-off. Imagine how teachers feel as their assigned reading is likely bring a slew of cease and desist letters from parents' attorneys citing cruel and unusual emotional distress thrust upon the too-busy-to read-are-you-kidding-me students.

Battling students who'd rather read some random hottie's MySpace profile, unsupportive and uninvolved parents, all but the best teachers would rather just show the kids the movie in class than have them read the book (and for Romeo and Juliet, they pass on the 1968 classic for 1996's ultra-hip, modern vernacular, Leo DiCaprio version.).

To get books into the lives of children, educators had to go a step further. Call it creative enticement.

They could bite the bullet and just trade reading for cash, but in addition to studies that point out that this doesn't really work, it also wouldn't suit today's ever-slim school budgets. They could reward kids with cheap prizes or go with the standby school-wide ice cream or pizza party for students who meet certain literary goals. But since contemporary children eat Chuck E. Cheese whenever they damn-well feel like it and demand and receive DQ each time they pass it in the car, those once sought-after foods have become a drab burden more than anything.

Eschewing unadulterated bribery, schools with principals willing to take one for the team have resorted to another mode of reading enticement: voluntary public humiliation.

This can come in many forms, but taking on an embarrassing hair style seems to be most popular: a shaved head, a mohawk or some variation of socially unacceptable hair dye.

Principals and teachers have been known to kiss pigs, allow themselves to be dunked in pools of water or slime, take pies in the face or ingest something so clearly disgusting it forces other adults in attendance into a bout of dry heaves.

Still waiting to emerge is the principal who takes the humiliation reward too far, like promising to take shots to the groin from every kid who meets their goal. After getting a solid moon boot to the testicular region, the red-faced and sweating principal is doubled-over in pain as he gathers the composure to force the words "Thanks for reading William!"

The reasoning as to why this approach seems to get kids to read when nothing else will is simple. As a reward for completing a task, children get to watch an authority figure stripped of his power, losing a bit of dignity and thus being brought closer to their level.

He is no longer Principal Wilson; he's that goofy guy with the mohawk who personally invited the giggles and scorn.

So this tactic will work for the time being, that is until someone produces a video game that, using uploaded images, creates an animated digital version of their own principal. Students will then be able to play games where they are free to assault the principal with pies, water torture, sleep deprivation and, of course, countless kicks to the crotch.