Hi babblers! If you’re reading this then it is officially spring! Pat on the back to us all for making it through, though we still have a couple weeks till the last frost.

Through tiktok debates, bad movie adaptation discourse, & popular headlines I’ve noticed a pattern of using the so called, literacy crisis, to diminish people’s opinions or as a vague term to virtue signal and separate yourself as an intellectual. But what even is the literacy crisis? And how easily can we fall into elitist rhetoric instead of investigating the intersectionality and root of a problem? So let’s chat about the literacy crisis!

Special thanks to my mom, Sarah Hawley, for joining me to have a deep discussion about education, the literacy crisis, and the American school system with her first hand 20+ years experience as an educator.

REFERENCES & MORE INFO: https://babblings.net/so-you-want-to-talk-about-the-literacy-crisis/

Time Stamps:

5:20 Current Events Corner

6:24 Jon Lemon & Georgia Fort - Journalist Arrested

10:37 Remembering Wael Tarabishi - ICE targeting people w/ disabilities

14:21 US/Israel v Iran

16:49 Main Topic: The So Called Literacy Crisis

20:17 The Reading Wars & Literacy Politics

24:04 Literacy Crisis or Critical Thinking Crisis?

25:16 Let’s Talk To An Expert

INTERVIEW STARTS:

26:30 What are the challenges to teaching kids how to read?

37:35 Understanding Literacy Crisis Data

49:55 Phonics vs Whole Language

56:05 The American School System

1:00:06 The Importance of Reading & Complex Texts

1:20:14 Reading & Empathy

1:24:50 AI and Future Crisis

1:26:46 JUST READ!!

1:28:23 Outro

Links:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliannreed/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@babblings20

Podcast Links: https://babblings.net/category/babblings_pod/

Blog: babblings.net

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/sounds-from-space

License code: HFCWEOEYJ9AUOI6C