The Christian library one town over from where we live does a "reading summer" event every year for the school holidays: kids who borrow books, read them, and write a small book report (2-3 sentences) for them enter a lottery and can win a small prize at the end of the holidays. And I believe every participants gets a certificate also.
You'd think that this would not appeal to anyone, but they actually have a great turnout every year. Quite amazing actually.
xtiansimon · 26m ago
As a yuth in the East Bay my Alameda Co. library had a summer reading program with a treasure map. For each book you read, you got a stamp on the map. Then at the end there was a forgettable prize, though, after 45 years I’ve not forgotten the journey.
soco · 56m ago
Primary school kids in Switzerland used to (and maybe they still do) run class-wide "competitions" on the points earned on a similar reading challenge - Antolin if I remember correctly and my kid was quite in for it.
With that said, I miss the trend of reading being so heavily emphasized in youth culture. Dolly Parton, free Pizza Hut, the accelerated reader program. I'm really grateful I grew up in the 90s.
brendoelfrendo · 6h ago
Wishbone was a good show, but I think it occupies a different niche. Wishbone was about adapting the classics, and each episode was more of a production vs Reading Rainbow, which was formatted more to introduce kids to contemporary age-appropriate reading by focusing on picture books and excursions to thematically connected places.
The only downside is that Wishbone holds up better to a modern rewatch in comparison, as opposed to how RR is very much of its time. But that's ok, too; someone needs to inspire kids to be adventurous with their reading so that they can go out and find the next classics.
mock-possum · 54s ago
I’m sure I’m not the only one who fondly remembers their local public library’s “summer reading program” - read books, win prizes!
Norway has gamified summer reading https://sommerles.no/svar
It's quite popular in the first half of elementary school.
You get points for registering read books (even if your parent read it for your, or audio books) and every week all the libraries put up a poster with this week's "code word" which you get points for typing into your profile, and whenever you level up ten levels you get a little prize you can pick up from the library (like a tiny toy, they had shark teeth one year)
aspenmayer · 9h ago
That was a well done show for kids. LeVar Burton can read a book better than me, and I am not ashamed to admit it. He made learning accessible, fun, and cool.
twoodfin · 9h ago
He also has that rare Fred Rogers-esque gift of talking in a way children understand without talking down to them.
Not unheard of in today’s tap-obsessed world of YouTube Kids & streaming apps, but much harder to find.
dotancohen · 2h ago
Adults, too. I might not know what an inverse-tachyon pulse is, but thanks to his convincing demeanor I understand that it could cause a localized spatial distortion.
aspenmayer · 9h ago
He’s a compelling speaker and onscreen talent, I agree. He’s using his superpowers for good, whatever they are. Being able to connect through a screen wasn’t normalized back then. Educational content needed that personal touch. I think it makes all the difference.
jimbob45 · 8h ago
I was bored to tears and I read more than the average kid. I liked the aesthetic though and I wanted to like it because it seemed wholesome. I’ve always suspected RR is one of those shows that everyone knows they should like so they all talk it up as if they did like it. Kinda like Rust.
plemer · 8h ago
Or maybe many did genuinely enjoy RR but you just weren’t the target audience? If it was created to combat the summer reading slump, it likely wasn’t targeting already avid readers.
FWIW, though, my experience was similar to yours: I read a ton and loved the feel of the show, but the actual content was a little slow.
aspenmayer · 7h ago
I agree that it’s the feel of the show. I grew up with 3 free to air channels, and one of them was a PBS station. The content was better than the competition or the VHS tape collection, or replaying one of the video games.
bagels · 7h ago
I always immediately turned it off when I was a kid. I appreciate its purpose now, but loathed it when I was in the target audience.
aspenmayer · 7h ago
I genuinely liked it even though I could read fine. It was an excuse to use the tv when I might not have a good reason to use it instead of someone else otherwise and I enjoyed the content well enough even if I was a couple years older than the intended audience. The public broadcasting shows of that era were weirdly good imo, with Mr Rogers and Shirley Lewis doing puppets, but wholesome too.
Ghost Writer was ahead of its time and deserves a post of its own.
> The series revolves around a multiethnic group of friends from Brooklyn who solve neighborhood crimes and mysteries as a team of youth detectives with the help of a ghost named Ghostwriter. Ghostwriter can communicate with children only by manipulating whatever text and letters he can find and using them to form words and sentences.
> Ghostwriter producer and writer Kermit Frazier revealed in a 2010 interview that Ghostwriter was a runaway slave during the American Civil War. He taught other slaves how to read and write and was killed by slave catchers and their dogs. His spirit was kept in the book that Jamal discovers and opens in the pilot episode, freeing the ghost.
Wishbone has costumes and a dog for your dramatic re-enactments of books with a dog actor in the lead role. This is crazy town, and I’m here for it.
The entire PBS slate of shows was elite. Very little did I know at the time how initiative-driven it was (a great thing). To me where in the world was Carmen Sandiego was a fun trivia game. To the creators, they were trying to address the issue of americans not knowing where the country was on a map.
tallanvor · 1h ago
"To the creators, they were trying to address the issue of americans not knowing where the country was on a map."
This is a very glib take. The origin of the series was a 1985 educational computer game from Broderbund. The target age group wasn't expected to know all this information, which is why the game shipped with an almanac.
thaumasiotes · 3h ago
> To me where in the world was Carmen Sandiego was a fun trivia game. To the creators, they were trying to address the issue of americans not knowing where the country was on a map.
Was there a show? To me Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego was a reoccurring segment on a show called Square One. I liked it, but it didn't feel like it was the source of Carmen Sandiego mythology; it felt more like a minor epiphenomenon.
There was also a computer game, which I didn't play much of because it was a lot of work. It felt a lot more fully developed than the TV segments, though.
fracus · 6h ago
I honestly just loved the theme song and the good vibes, but yeah, I didn't really watch it watch it.
burnt-resistor · 6h ago
Whatever works, I guess. It made a difference, although it was corny somewhere between `Punky Brewster` and `Captain Planet`. Vintage `Sesame Street` is legit cool.
monkeyelite · 7h ago
> LeVar Burton can read a book better than me, and I am not ashamed to admit it.
This is a weird comment. He’s a professional actor. I hope he does
aspenmayer · 6h ago
He makes the hard thing look easy. This wasn’t a backhanded compliment but a genuine one. He isn’t acting per se, but he does voice act the stories. It was audiobooks and ASMR sorta before those things were cool. He does a fantastic job with the words on the page and also goes on-site to film IRL things from the books. It’s a simple premise and it works. It doesn’t have to be surprising to be enjoyable and engaging.
pfannkuchen · 6h ago
Why are you looking for a hyper stimulus? Man didn’t evolve in an environment where stories were told by people who’d won a massive intertribe tournament of story telling ability. Stories were told by family.
If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this area, suspect other hyper stimulus present.
eclecticfrank · 4h ago
> Man didn’t evolve in an environment where stories were told by people who’d won a massive intertribe tournament of story telling ability. Stories were told by family.
The stories we grew up to were indeed those which won "a massive intertribe tournament of story telling ability". Only interesting stories got retold. Stories travelled further when made into songs. They became artworks when tranformed into plays. They became myths and legends in the luggage of those travelling the planet. And the art of telling stories also became a way of making a living much before our contemporary society produced the first pop star.
aspenmayer · 6h ago
> Why are you looking for a hyper stimulus? Man didn’t evolve in an environment where stories were told by people who’d won a massive intertribe tournament of story telling ability. Stories were told by family.
> If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this area, suspect other hyper stimulus present.
Reading Rainbow is the opposite of a hyperstimulus compared to most tv programs, let alone “educational” tv programming.
I wasn’t seeking a hyperstimulus. You don’t even know me. I could read and write before kindergarten, which was my first schooling outside the home.
pfannkuchen · 6h ago
> compared to most tv programs
Modern media is so replete with hyper stimuli that it is often hard to see where the line is between what is evolutionarily congruent and what is greater.
I don’t see how knowing you is relevant. This is my position on what most people do. Either you have a different viewpoint on this than the mainstream and yet arrived at the very same conclusions, or I essentially am familiar with your viewpoint in this area. What have I gotten wrong?
thaumasiotes · 3h ago
I would expect being a professional storyteller to translate a lot better to reading aloud than being a professional actor, really.
LongjumpingCat · 5h ago
This brought back some memories. It’s kind of amazing how shows like this made reading feel fun instead of something you had to do. Just stories, imagination and a bit of magic, sometimes that’s all it takes to get a kid hooked on books.
ChrisArchitect · 9h ago
Reminds of another 1980s reading incentive thing, tho during the schoolyear not summer: Pizza Hut's Book It!
We did Book It! for a couple of years, but Accelerated Reader for most of the others. One of my favorite childhood memories as a kid was having to go to the local junior high, because the elementary school didn't have the test for the books I was reading.
It also made me want to read Anna Karenina, because that was listed as the book with the highest points awarded. It only took me 30 years to get around to finishing it.
aspenmayer · 9h ago
Read books, get free pizza you want, not the pizza they serve at school. Whoever invented this is a genius. I still regret losing the holographic Book It! pin I had, but I can probably find another one if I look.
RandallBrown · 8h ago
It was sort of Ronald Reagan that invented it.
ajuc · 7h ago
I wonder how many public libraries are there in US.
In Poland every gmina (which is like a collection of a few villages - around 10k people and 10x10 km) have a public library. It's how I learned to love reading books - there was no internet yet, TV had like 3 channels, and I was on vacations bored to hell. So I went to the library and started borrowing random books. I didn't had to drive anywhere or ask my parents - it was just a short walk.
I especially love the small countryside libraries where you don't need to ask the librarian for a book you want - you walk among the shelves and look for the books yourself. Back in 80s/90s most books in such libraries were hand-covered with gray packing-paper covers and had the author and title written by the librarian on that. So you didn't even had images on the cover to let you know what the book was about. It was a complete surprise every time. Through 3 summer vacations I went through half the library, even trying some Harlequins or "collected works of Lenin" :) (not a very good read BTW). Mostly I looked for fantasy and sci-fi, but that was like 5 shelves out of 50, so I tried everything eventually. And I learnt to love reading ever since.
RandallBrown · 6h ago
The US public library system is very big. There are over 17,000 libraries and that doesn't include the almost 100,000 libraries that are in schools.
My city (Seattle, a pretty large US city) has 27 public libraries. I only live a few blocks from the closest one but could fairly easily walk to at least 2 more.
ajuc · 6h ago
> 17,000 libraries
It doesn't seem like "A lot" for a country the size of US TBH.
Poland has 7541 public libraries. Which is 1 per 41 km^2, but of course big cities have many libraries, so the actual distance is larger in the countryside. But it's a number.
17000 libraries in US is like one per 580 km^2.
And yes every school has one too, there's 35 000 schools. But many of these are very small libraries that mostly carry mandatory lectures for school + some classic books. In my village the school library sucked.
I lived in a village of 500 people and had a library within 5 minute walk.
Tallain · 6h ago
Going by land area isn't a great metric, since the US has a great deal of unpopulated or sparsely populated space. Per capita might be better, but not by much. But if you go "per city," the US has around 19,000 incorporated areas. So 17k libraries to 19k incorporated areas (cities, towns, villages, designated census areas, etc.), might be better metric.
dustincoates · 1h ago
You can have small towns with libraries in the US, too. Flatonia, TX has a population of 1,300 and has a public library.
There are probably even smaller towns, but I know Flatonia has one because I've been there.
burnt-resistor · 6h ago
I guess one needs to consider the US is geographically much larger and most land doesn't actually contain people. Considering the density is wiser, but even still. Libraries per occupied area still isn't a good metric. There is no good metric.
What's more important is the qualitative offerings and impact:
1. Spectrum of a. most common services and collections offered everywhere to b. the most comprehensive of those offered by a specific library.
2. What people can do at them: read, research subjects, borrow things, accomplish tasks, host meetings, etc.
This is very hard to measure and not something a business person running the government "like a business" would understand.
ajuc · 5h ago
IMO the most important metric is "what percentage of kids can walk to a library without asking anybody".
But nowadays people have internet, so I guess it's not THAT important anymore. The ideal library is just a website that lets you download pirated ebooks for free.
burnt-resistor · 5h ago
You've just reinvented Z-library. ;)
The utility of the brick-and-mortar is that some/(many by state) libraries include services and physical items that can be checked out besides media. Plus, besides free Wi-Fi and meeting rooms, it's a non-consumption location to exist in a physical public space. There aren't many more free spaces in America. And, there are millions of people who can't afford internet, a tablet, a computer, or have a place for books. Millions of books and historical local newspapers don't exist in electronic form!
But no, really, (most of) America is truly unwalkable for almost any activity.
pfannkuchen · 6h ago
That’s really convenient, you’ll have a great place to hang out nearby if you ever become homeless.
pfannkuchen · 6h ago
Is gmena a typo or does Polish seriously have “gm” as a digraph? I have seen a reasonable amount of written Polish but I’ve never noticed “gm” before. That strikes me as really reaching, get a different alphabet, already.
MandieD · 5h ago
Even Germany has Gmünd: Schwäbisch Gmünd, Georgensgmünd…
internet_points · 4h ago
> get a different alphabet, already
English has entered the chat
ajuc · 6h ago
"Gmina" is correct. It's the lowest administrative unit in Poland.
There's a few other words with "gm", like "gmerać" (to fiddle with sth), "gmin" (plebs, common people - same root word as gmina I'd imagine), "gmach" (a huge building, usually of some public institution).
It's not a digraph tho, it's just pronounced as "g" and then "m"?
I'm like 99% sure it's a German loanword. Most of city/administration/building language in Polish comes from German - dach (roof), szyba (glass pane), rynek (main market square), ratusz (city hall), burmistrz (city mayor), rynsztok (gutter), etc.
All through middle ages Poland imported lots of germanic settlers and had them build whole new towns from scratch in Poland in exchange for tax breaks. There's a town called "Niemcy" (Germans/Mutes) like 10 km from where I live :), and there's a village called "Dys" nearby.
What's the problem with using latin script for gm by the way?
MandieD · 5h ago
As someone who speaks German but not Polish, “Gemeinde” was the first thing that came to mind seeing that “gmina” is a collection of rural villages, because that’s what the smallest incorporated settlements here are called (at least in Bavaria). Gemeinde -> Markt -> Stadt
cyberax · 6h ago
> I wonder how many public libraries are there in US.
A _lot_ of them (nearly 125000 about 250 people per library on average). And you can do inter-library loans, and you can check out DVDs and BluRays.
etchalon · 9h ago
It sure was neat when people aspired to help kids learn instead of being completely focused on them not learning the wrong thing.
monkeyelite · 7h ago
I think if you back and watch these 90s PBS shows you’ll find they are also very overt in promoting their ideas.
throwing_away · 7h ago
It really felt like propaganda as a kid.
Made me think reading was probably a scam.
esseph · 7h ago
Sure was buddy
Big Book out to get u
(How the fuck did you know what "propaganda" was before you could even read btw?)
vintermann · 6h ago
Ask a parent! Kids can be very wary of attempts to "shape" them. Of course they're not going to know the word propaganda, but the instinct to detect manipulation (and react negatively to it) goes deep.
TeMPOraL · 5h ago
Indeed. Also, small kids are excellent bullshit detectors. They can tell when they're being given non-sequiturs, or explanations are inconsistent, and they (rightfully) see this as problem and are confused when such things come from sources they trust (e.g. parents).
omeid2 · 6h ago
I am always fascinated by this degree of assurance and absolute lack of scepticism.
In what way, do you think, a show can have no room for critical viewing? Does being related to "reading or books" sufficient for such unquestionable and noncritical acceptance? Or was something else about it that makes it so cocksure good?
gonzobonzo · 4h ago
Watching Mr. Rogers as an adult, I was surprised by how opinionated the show could be. There was an episode where one of the puppets was trying to teach a child puppet to read before they entered school, and it was presented as a extremely harsh and mean way to treat a child. A human actor comes in and starts scolding the puppet that it's not necessary to teach the kids to read before school and that she needs to stop. Later, Mr. Rogers talks with an actual kindergarten teacher, and they discuss how it's completely unnecessary to teach kids to read before they enter kindergarten.
It felt like it was indoctrinating kids into believing that the right way to raise them was the way that Fred Rogers preferred.
There's this strange point of view that once it's decided that something is good and it's being made by good people, it's absurd to look at it critically and anyone who does should be mocked.
thaumasiotes · 3h ago
That is a Waldorf perspective, though presumably not exclusive to them. I was sent to a Waldorf kindergarten, and my mother despised it because they repeatedly insulted her for having taught me to read. They felt this was unhealthy.
Independent of Waldorf, kindergarten teachers - like most teachers - don't like it when their students already know the material they're supposed to be teaching.
gonzobonzo · 2h ago
> Independent of Waldorf, kindergarten teachers - like most teachers - don't like it when their students already know the material they're supposed to be teaching.
Yes, "don't do it that way, you're not suppose to know that yet" is depressingly common. Also unfair, since it usually only applies to certain kids - we don't tell artistic kids that they shouldn't paint so well, because kids aren't supposed to be at that level yet, nor do we tell athletic kids this. But it's extremely common in subjects like math.
One of the things that's frustrating is the one size fits all mentality when it comes to education. Even if some kids don't get a lot out of home education, some really enjoy it, and it can be a great bonding experience for many parents and children. It feels irresponsible to dismiss it all together.
anniedethomasis · 5h ago
It's simply the left-wing mindset. Individuality, including one's own ability to question others and think critically, is shunned and suppressed. Collectivist organizations and entities (including government, academia, publishers and the mass media, doctors, the pharmaceutical industry, etc.) are considered to be infallible. Anyone and anything questioning the collectivist "wisdom" of the moment is met with overt hostility.
pessimizer · 4h ago
Reading is a communist plot, but you guys are foiling it with critical theory and New Left Marxist analysis directed at children's books, with the aim of trying to detect hidden propaganda from the System meant to secretly train students to conform to the government, academia, mass media, and the medical industry... literally the consciousness-raising New Left.
The woke right is no joke. You guys and the rainbow-haired gender people speak in the same distorted stepped-on 8th-generation Freudian dream logic. There's no limit to the nonsense that one can be led into when one assumes that all of the wealthiest people on the planet who share the least (and own the media, publishers, etc.) are all committed collectivist Soviet agents bussed in from 1915, rather than as likely as not old German firms inherited by the children of the literal ex-Nazis that ran them until the 80s.
palmfacehn · 19m ago
"...when one assumes that all of the wealthiest people on the planet who share the least (and own the media, publishers, etc.) are all committed collectivist..."
I will not engage with "woke right" or all of your points, much of which appears to be sarcasm.
However, I will note that historically collectivist movements such as the early Progressives around the dawn of the 20th century, were championed by wealthy elites. Looking back it is easy to see how the centralization of authority in this era benefited the elite classes disproportionately.
So, yes, I agree that much of the messaging for collectivist movements does focus on the perceived victim classes. However, that is only the surface level marketing. When examining the historical record, critics generally cite the outcomes rather than the slogans.
Hope this helps to add perspective to this contentious issue.
throwing_away · 6h ago
That was just the vibe.
It was mandatory watching by the state education program. It had product placement and a clear message.
I mean, I feel like it would take more education to not see it as propaganda.
I didn't like The Magic Schoolbus either though. Same reason.
Oh, and Scholastic everything.
sitzkrieg · 6h ago
i felt like a lot of my teachers kept it handy in the "fucking hungover" pocket too
pbhjpbhj · 3h ago
I've only seen Magic School Bus as an adult, but I don't recall any product placement? They seem fun and educational - like Storybots.
Only problem I have with those shows for kids is the lack of real people.
tclancy · 6h ago
Well, good work avoiding that scam. I guess. Does this make you Goofus or Gallanyt?
dehrmann · 5h ago
I'm torn. I see lots of value in reading (for both kids and adults!), but at some point, there also needs to be emphasis on doing.
aspect0545 · 4h ago
How is reading different from doing. This is about encouraging children to read, it’s a very active process. Maybe I‘m missing something?
xandrius · 4h ago
Just to argue reading vs doing: I know lots of heavy readers who can't absolutely do something new. They only read and read.
On the other hand, doing is a totally different skillset.
I'm not against reading just that it's very unlike doing something in general.
resource_waste · 2h ago
No need to be black and white.
Reading can be active, if I'm taking notes on nonfiction its a somewhat active process.
Reading can be passive, if I'm cruising on a fiction book.
ethan_smith · 2h ago
Reading is doing when it involves active engagement - kids who read deeply are processing, imagining, questioning, and building mental models they later apply to real-world problems.
JimBlackwood · 5h ago
How do you propose that should look?
The whole show is to motivate people to want to pick up a book, which to me sounds like an emphasis on doing.
If you’d replace this with posters or shows that just say “READ A BOOK”, it would not be as effective.
pessimizer · 4h ago
Doing what? Just whatever? As long as they aren't doing any reading?
They should also replace lunch period with a "life" period. I see a lot of kids sitting around eating, getting fat, but kids need experience in real life; eating will get them nowhere.
You'd think that this would not appeal to anyone, but they actually have a great turnout every year. Quite amazing actually.
Looking back on the list of Reading Rainbow books: https://knowtea.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/rea...
I can't say I've read many of them.
With that said, I miss the trend of reading being so heavily emphasized in youth culture. Dolly Parton, free Pizza Hut, the accelerated reader program. I'm really grateful I grew up in the 90s.
The only downside is that Wishbone holds up better to a modern rewatch in comparison, as opposed to how RR is very much of its time. But that's ok, too; someone needs to inspire kids to be adventurous with their reading so that they can go out and find the next classics.
https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81750412?s=i&trkid=25859316...
Not unheard of in today’s tap-obsessed world of YouTube Kids & streaming apps, but much harder to find.
FWIW, though, my experience was similar to yours: I read a ton and loved the feel of the show, but the actual content was a little slow.
Ghost Writer was ahead of its time and deserves a post of its own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter_(1992_TV_series)
> The series revolves around a multiethnic group of friends from Brooklyn who solve neighborhood crimes and mysteries as a team of youth detectives with the help of a ghost named Ghostwriter. Ghostwriter can communicate with children only by manipulating whatever text and letters he can find and using them to form words and sentences.
> Ghostwriter producer and writer Kermit Frazier revealed in a 2010 interview that Ghostwriter was a runaway slave during the American Civil War. He taught other slaves how to read and write and was killed by slave catchers and their dogs. His spirit was kept in the book that Jamal discovers and opens in the pilot episode, freeing the ghost.
Wishbone has costumes and a dog for your dramatic re-enactments of books with a dog actor in the lead role. This is crazy town, and I’m here for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_(TV_series)
This is a very glib take. The origin of the series was a 1985 educational computer game from Broderbund. The target age group wasn't expected to know all this information, which is why the game shipped with an almanac.
Was there a show? To me Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego was a reoccurring segment on a show called Square One. I liked it, but it didn't feel like it was the source of Carmen Sandiego mythology; it felt more like a minor epiphenomenon.
There was also a computer game, which I didn't play much of because it was a lot of work. It felt a lot more fully developed than the TV segments, though.
This is a weird comment. He’s a professional actor. I hope he does
If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this area, suspect other hyper stimulus present.
The stories we grew up to were indeed those which won "a massive intertribe tournament of story telling ability". Only interesting stories got retold. Stories travelled further when made into songs. They became artworks when tranformed into plays. They became myths and legends in the luggage of those travelling the planet. And the art of telling stories also became a way of making a living much before our contemporary society produced the first pop star.
> If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this area, suspect other hyper stimulus present.
Reading Rainbow is the opposite of a hyperstimulus compared to most tv programs, let alone “educational” tv programming.
I wasn’t seeking a hyperstimulus. You don’t even know me. I could read and write before kindergarten, which was my first schooling outside the home.
Modern media is so replete with hyper stimuli that it is often hard to see where the line is between what is evolutionarily congruent and what is greater.
I don’t see how knowing you is relevant. This is my position on what most people do. Either you have a different viewpoint on this than the mainstream and yet arrived at the very same conclusions, or I essentially am familiar with your viewpoint in this area. What have I gotten wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Hut#Book_It!
It also made me want to read Anna Karenina, because that was listed as the book with the highest points awarded. It only took me 30 years to get around to finishing it.
In Poland every gmina (which is like a collection of a few villages - around 10k people and 10x10 km) have a public library. It's how I learned to love reading books - there was no internet yet, TV had like 3 channels, and I was on vacations bored to hell. So I went to the library and started borrowing random books. I didn't had to drive anywhere or ask my parents - it was just a short walk.
I especially love the small countryside libraries where you don't need to ask the librarian for a book you want - you walk among the shelves and look for the books yourself. Back in 80s/90s most books in such libraries were hand-covered with gray packing-paper covers and had the author and title written by the librarian on that. So you didn't even had images on the cover to let you know what the book was about. It was a complete surprise every time. Through 3 summer vacations I went through half the library, even trying some Harlequins or "collected works of Lenin" :) (not a very good read BTW). Mostly I looked for fantasy and sci-fi, but that was like 5 shelves out of 50, so I tried everything eventually. And I learnt to love reading ever since.
My city (Seattle, a pretty large US city) has 27 public libraries. I only live a few blocks from the closest one but could fairly easily walk to at least 2 more.
It doesn't seem like "A lot" for a country the size of US TBH.
Poland has 7541 public libraries. Which is 1 per 41 km^2, but of course big cities have many libraries, so the actual distance is larger in the countryside. But it's a number.
17000 libraries in US is like one per 580 km^2.
And yes every school has one too, there's 35 000 schools. But many of these are very small libraries that mostly carry mandatory lectures for school + some classic books. In my village the school library sucked.
I lived in a village of 500 people and had a library within 5 minute walk.
There are probably even smaller towns, but I know Flatonia has one because I've been there.
What's more important is the qualitative offerings and impact:
1. Spectrum of a. most common services and collections offered everywhere to b. the most comprehensive of those offered by a specific library.
2. What people can do at them: read, research subjects, borrow things, accomplish tasks, host meetings, etc.
This is very hard to measure and not something a business person running the government "like a business" would understand.
But nowadays people have internet, so I guess it's not THAT important anymore. The ideal library is just a website that lets you download pirated ebooks for free.
The utility of the brick-and-mortar is that some/(many by state) libraries include services and physical items that can be checked out besides media. Plus, besides free Wi-Fi and meeting rooms, it's a non-consumption location to exist in a physical public space. There aren't many more free spaces in America. And, there are millions of people who can't afford internet, a tablet, a computer, or have a place for books. Millions of books and historical local newspapers don't exist in electronic form!
But no, really, (most of) America is truly unwalkable for almost any activity.
English has entered the chat
There's a few other words with "gm", like "gmerać" (to fiddle with sth), "gmin" (plebs, common people - same root word as gmina I'd imagine), "gmach" (a huge building, usually of some public institution).
It's not a digraph tho, it's just pronounced as "g" and then "m"?
I'm like 99% sure it's a German loanword. Most of city/administration/building language in Polish comes from German - dach (roof), szyba (glass pane), rynek (main market square), ratusz (city hall), burmistrz (city mayor), rynsztok (gutter), etc.
All through middle ages Poland imported lots of germanic settlers and had them build whole new towns from scratch in Poland in exchange for tax breaks. There's a town called "Niemcy" (Germans/Mutes) like 10 km from where I live :), and there's a village called "Dys" nearby.
What's the problem with using latin script for gm by the way?
A _lot_ of them (nearly 125000 about 250 people per library on average). And you can do inter-library loans, and you can check out DVDs and BluRays.
Made me think reading was probably a scam.
Big Book out to get u
(How the fuck did you know what "propaganda" was before you could even read btw?)
In what way, do you think, a show can have no room for critical viewing? Does being related to "reading or books" sufficient for such unquestionable and noncritical acceptance? Or was something else about it that makes it so cocksure good?
It felt like it was indoctrinating kids into believing that the right way to raise them was the way that Fred Rogers preferred.
There's this strange point of view that once it's decided that something is good and it's being made by good people, it's absurd to look at it critically and anyone who does should be mocked.
Independent of Waldorf, kindergarten teachers - like most teachers - don't like it when their students already know the material they're supposed to be teaching.
Yes, "don't do it that way, you're not suppose to know that yet" is depressingly common. Also unfair, since it usually only applies to certain kids - we don't tell artistic kids that they shouldn't paint so well, because kids aren't supposed to be at that level yet, nor do we tell athletic kids this. But it's extremely common in subjects like math.
One of the things that's frustrating is the one size fits all mentality when it comes to education. Even if some kids don't get a lot out of home education, some really enjoy it, and it can be a great bonding experience for many parents and children. It feels irresponsible to dismiss it all together.
The woke right is no joke. You guys and the rainbow-haired gender people speak in the same distorted stepped-on 8th-generation Freudian dream logic. There's no limit to the nonsense that one can be led into when one assumes that all of the wealthiest people on the planet who share the least (and own the media, publishers, etc.) are all committed collectivist Soviet agents bussed in from 1915, rather than as likely as not old German firms inherited by the children of the literal ex-Nazis that ran them until the 80s.
I will not engage with "woke right" or all of your points, much of which appears to be sarcasm.
However, I will note that historically collectivist movements such as the early Progressives around the dawn of the 20th century, were championed by wealthy elites. Looking back it is easy to see how the centralization of authority in this era benefited the elite classes disproportionately.
So, yes, I agree that much of the messaging for collectivist movements does focus on the perceived victim classes. However, that is only the surface level marketing. When examining the historical record, critics generally cite the outcomes rather than the slogans.
Hope this helps to add perspective to this contentious issue.
It was mandatory watching by the state education program. It had product placement and a clear message.
I mean, I feel like it would take more education to not see it as propaganda.
I didn't like The Magic Schoolbus either though. Same reason.
Oh, and Scholastic everything.
Only problem I have with those shows for kids is the lack of real people.
On the other hand, doing is a totally different skillset.
I'm not against reading just that it's very unlike doing something in general.
Reading can be active, if I'm taking notes on nonfiction its a somewhat active process.
Reading can be passive, if I'm cruising on a fiction book.
The whole show is to motivate people to want to pick up a book, which to me sounds like an emphasis on doing.
If you’d replace this with posters or shows that just say “READ A BOOK”, it would not be as effective.
They should also replace lunch period with a "life" period. I see a lot of kids sitting around eating, getting fat, but kids need experience in real life; eating will get them nowhere.