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From: AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: Oddities
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2025 12:30:42 -0500
Organization: Yellow Jersey, Ltd.
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On 4/9/2025 11:56 AM, Zen Cycle wrote:
> On 4/9/2025 12:02 PM, AMuzi wrote:
>> On 4/9/2025 10:31 AM, cyclintom wrote:
>>> One of the things that has really puzzled me is the 
>>> reaction of Liebermann and Flunky to my simoply saying 
>>> that I read out aoll of the nun-fiction books in three 
>>> libraries.
>>>
>>> What in heavens name would be unusual or unlikely about 
>>> that?
>>>
>>> While listening to Victor David Hansen Hoover Fellow at 
>>> Stanford, said the reason. While he was teaching 
>>> literacy, he started out with assigning 6 books starting 
>>> with the Iliad and the Odyssy to his student and was by 
>>> the late 60's forced to reduce this to 2.
>>>
>>> Much to his surprise rather than reading at the normal 
>>> 180 words per minute, students were struggling with 40 or 
>>> 50 wpm and they couldn't understand half of the words 
>>> expected of a high school student, let alone a college 
>>> student.
>>>
>>> Suddenly that rang a bell: the reason that Flunky and 
>>> Liebermann and to a lesser extend Krygowski found this 
>>> unbelievable is because they are nearly illiterate. They 
>>> simply cannot believe that someone would voluntarily 
>>> read, when it is so difficult for them. We did not see 
>>> this sort of disbelief from John or Andrew. We are of an 
>>> age that we were expected to be able to read. While they 
>>> may not be as highly read on every subject, every few 
>>> days, Andrew or John will post something referring to 
>>> books that the other three either have never heard of or 
>>> only heard the title in passing. In our day MOST high 
>>> school students were assigned the Iliad and/or The Odyssy.
>>>
>>> While it is true that I didn't read more current books 
>>> such as those aqssigned in writing or literacy coures, 
>>> that was because it was entirely outside of my areas of 
>>> interest. Liebermann at least has the excuse that English 
>>> is his second language. But what excuse other than 
>>> illiteracy would Flunky have? Or while misspelling when 
>>> you have trouble seeing the screen means that my touch 
>>> typing is shitty, why would spelling be so important to 
>>> Frank if he didn't have such a microscopic vocabular?
>>>
>>> Shadow found no trouble with my reading, because he is 
>>> himselk well read in Spanish. Roger well read in English. 
>>> Rolf in German. these people did not comment on myh 
>>> reading volume. While it may not have been what they 
>>> might do, they did not find it unusual.
>>>
>>> The reason for this is tha American Teacher's Union. When 
>>> questioned, my wife who herself taught reading and 
>>> writing admitted that there had been a large drop in the 
>>> literacy of teachers with the recognition of the 
>>> Teacher's Union. During the pandemic, in THREE weeks, she 
>>> taught her grandsons reading well enough to go from 2 
>>> years behind their grade level to 2 years ahead. That 
>>> doesn't say a lot for people in Teacher's Unions.
>>
>>
>> Mr Hansen was a professor of Classics at Stanford, not a 
>> remedial reading teacher.
>>
> 
> I made the assumption that it was a typical tommy fuck-up - 
> he actually meant "literature", not "literacy".
> 
> That said, Andrew, I'm struggling to remember the last time 
> you did this:
> "every few days, Andrew or John will post something 
> referring to books that the other three either have never 
> heard of"
> 
> John recently posted references to Alice in Wonderland and 
> Tom Sawyer - hardly qualifies as "never heard of or only 
> heard the title in passing"
> 
> Care to refresh my memory?
> 


US Constitution maybe? Hardly anyone has read that.

-- 
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971