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literacy

Education

High school teacher quits her job because 'technology is ruining education'

“We’ve got to start getting rid of the technology and bringing back the things that worked.”

A stressed teacher and student looking at her phone.

Last year, the National Center for Education Statistics published a disturbing study that found that the number of Americans with the lowest measured literacy levels increased substantially between 2017 and 2023. In 2017, 19% of U.S. adults ranked at the lowest levels of literacy, and that number increased to 28% in 2023.

“It is larger than what we would normally see in an international assessment, particularly literacy, which is a fairly stable construct,” NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr said. She added that low literacy levels don’t mean someone is illiterate, but cannot read and write at a level to handle basic living and workplace tasks. When pressed for an answer to the literacy decline in America, she said, “It is difficult to say.”

Why are teachers leaving education?

Hannah Maria, an outgoing 10th-grade English teacher, went viral recently for a nine-minute video in which she described the reason why she thinks there has been a big decline in literacy in the U.S.: technology. The problem has become so bad that it was a major reason why she decided to leave the profession.

"Technology is directly contributing to the literacy decrease we are seeing in this country right now. A lot of these kids don't know how to read because they have had things read to them, or they can click a button and have something read out loud to them,” Maria said. “Their attention spans are weaning because everything is high-stimulation, and they can just scroll [away from something] in less than a minute. They can’t sit still for very long.”

Her students no longer care about watching movies in class; they just stare at their phones. Maria can count on her hands the number of kids in her three classes who actually pay attention to the film on movie day. This lack of attention span and disinterest in learning literacy skills makes it a chore to ask them to write anything by hand. "It's disheartening because if I ask a child to handwrite something, even just a paragraph, five sentences, a basic paragraph, they roll their eyes, throw tantrums. ...they get really unruly,” she lamented.

smartphone, student, student cellphone, desk, classroom, staring at phoneA child staring at his phone in the classroom.via Canva/Photos

Maria says students' disinterest in literacy skills has led them to stop caring about America's foundational documents. That’s a big problem in a democracy that requires a well-informed electorate.

The former teacher suggests that kids should be cut off from technology until they reach college to reverse this trend. "Call me old-fashioned, but we're at the point where I really don't have a lot of faith in some of these kids that I teach. That doesn't go for all," she says, noting she'd had "several" students who have bright futures and want to succeed.

smartphone, student, young woman, backback, hallwayA distressed student with a smartphone sits in the hallway. via Canva/Photos

However, she doesn’t hold her students 100% accountable for the trend. "The older generations have failed them because they haven't emphasized enough that learning how to read and write and use basic mathematical skills is important. These kids just have these devices in their hands that they think will get them through the rest of their life,” she said. “We’ve got to start getting rid of the technology and bringing back the things that worked.”

Ultimately, her students’ attitudes have led Maria to find a new career. She says the biggest reason she’s leaving education is the pay, but if the experience with the students was better, she could have "toughed it out."

True

When Deidra Mayberry was a child, she struggled with reading. Feeling embarrassed and ashamed, she did her best to hide it. And she was pretty good at hiding it. As her family moved around a lot, due to her parents' military career, she adapted and kept hiding it — making it all the way through school without anyone really noticing.

After graduating from high school, she started looking for support to improve her reading skills.

"I was turned away because I was over the age of 17, and other private options like one-on-one tutoring were financially out of reach for me."

Deidra promised that one day she'd do something to fix it. After struggling for years, and eventually finding support, she started a nonprofit to help other adults facing their own challenges with literacy. Now she's striving to help the almost 43,000,000 adults who still are struggling. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), 21 percent of adults in the United States (about 43 million) fall into the illiterate/functionally illiterate category.

For Deidra, college was the first time she experienced and understood what functional illiteracy was. Someone who is illiterate is unable to read or write at all, but someone who is functionally illiterate has some reading skills — they're just not strong enough to manage daily living and employment tasks.

She was able to graduate by taking extra summer semesters, spending long nights studying, changing her major when it got too hard, and getting help from her dad.

"I was so proud that I actually made it through college and graduated," Deidra says. "But once I started to apply for jobs, reality kicked in fast. I never truly fixed my literacy problems. Instead, I found ways to work around them in order to spare myself the embarrassment and shame that I already felt daily."

"I relied heavily on movies to teach me and give me exposure to things in life that would help me relate to others," she says. "This caused me to live a life of fear, limitations, and hopelessness."

"I felt unworthy because I knew I had this big secret — and thought if people knew, they would see that I had no value."

Deidra continued to live like this for years until she had a lightbulb moment.

"I was working so hard to hide my literacy struggle in order to make it work, but I asked myself, 'What if I worked just as hard to fix it?'"

She found the courage to tell a friend, who began tutoring her. "The hope, courage, and confidence she helped me find was the beautiful moment of empowerment that reminded me to create and provide a resource for people just like me."

That's exactly what she did. On March 12, 2020, she and another friend decided to start a nonprofit to help other adults that were functionally illiterate. And even though COVID-19 shut down businesses and sent people into lockdown the very next day, she didn't let it stop her.

"I just believed God was with me and the time was still now because people have been waiting for this," she says.

She launched Reading to New Heights, an organization that teaches adults the fundamentals of reading with one-on-one, confidential and virtual tutoring sessions with certified educators.

"The curriculum that our educators teach from allows our adult learners to revisit the fundamentals of reading and comprehension as if they are learning them for the first time," Deidra says. "Basic reading foundations such as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, spelling, vocabulary and comprehension are exactly what adults struggling with illiteracy need in order to build competent literacy skills and fill the gaps that illiteracy causes in education."

And most importantly, these services are provided at no cost, so that anyone who needs them has access.

"Though illiteracy and functional illiteracy can affect anyone, people in low-income and underserved communities of color are more likely to be limited in education, income, and workplace advancement opportunities because of it."

"Illiteracy and functional illiteracy can be directly linked to higher prison populations, lower household incomes, and inaccessibility to quality healthcare," Deidra explains. "By committing to developing the fundamentals of reading, our adult learners overcome both the psychological and environmental limitations of illiteracy."

Since they launched, the nonprofit has been featured on Fox 4 News, which gave them the exposure they needed to grow from three adult program participants to 20 — and they hope to continue growing. They have also been accepted into an Incubator Program with the United Way, which is designed to support them while they build their business.

Deidra is one of Tory Burch's Empowered Women this year. The donation she receives as a nominee is being awarded to her new and growing nonprofit.

"It's kind of ironic, the very thing I was ashamed of and thought I had to hide for years was the one thing that, once I shared it, not only freed me but gave me hope and provided a way to help others," Deidra says. "I love that my story has been about helping others find the courage to share and take the first step to start their literacy journey."

To learn more about Tory Burch and Upworthy's Empowered Women program visit https://www.toryburch.com/empoweredwomen. Do you know an inspiring woman like Deidra? Nominate her today!

When parents ask children's author Kate Messner about what kids should be reading, she always says the same thing.

Messner is an award-winning author who has written more than 30 books, including the juvenile fiction series "Ranger in Time." She was also a middle school teacher for 15 years.

In a Twitter thread, Messner shared that parents often approach her to express concern about the kinds of the books their kids read.


"Sometimes, adults worry that summer reading isn't hard enough or challenging enough or academic enough," she wrote.

Her advice? Let them read what they love: "If they love it and want to read?" That is enough."

Messner also offered comfort to parents whose kids only want to read graphic novels.

She assures parents that comic books and graphic novels are still great reading choices.

She told the story of a dad who stopped her in the grocery store one day to say that his son kept reading graphic novels and ask her what he should do about it. Messner replied, "Buy him more graphic novels. And go to the library because they have some great ones."

Messner pointed out that she grew up reading "Archie" comics, which made her a reader. "Comics and graphic novels of today are smart and sophisticated," she wrote, "and they create readers in a big way."

That endorsement of graphic novels is a balm to parents who worry their kids aren't "really reading" when they indulge in comic-style books. But reading can be done in a variety of ways, books come in a variety of formats, and if a kid is enamored with stories being told a specific way, there's nothing wrong with that.

Reading graphic novels is a good "in" to the reading world for some kids, and when they are ready for something different, they'll already have the reading habit established.

Forcing kids to read books they don't like or aren't interested in is a quick way to make kids hate reading.

In our eagerness to create readers, parents and educators can do some unintentional damage. For example, mandatory reading logs, where kids are required to read for a certain number of minutes and keep track of it each day, have been shown in at least one study to diminish a child's interest in reading.

"When reading is portrayed as something one has to be forced to do," the authors of one such study wrote, "students may draw the conclusion that it is not the kind of activity they want to engage in when given free time."

Since 1 in 4 American adults don't read any books, helping kids love reading is important.

According to a Pew report, about 24% of adults in the U.S. haven't read any books — in whole or in part — in the past year. That includes, print, electronic, and audio formats. One might assume that those numbers are a product of the digital generation, but the report found that Americans under 50 years of age are more likely to have read a book than those over 50.

Books don't have to be long or difficult to be valuable. And considering the research that shows how reading increases intelligence, empathy, mental health, and more, developing a habit of devouring books is more important than fretting over specific kinds.

And way to do that, according to Messner, is simple: "Let your kids read what they love. The End."

It's an undeniable fact that Dolly Parton is America's sweetheart.

Don't believe me? Twitter is full of evidence.

First of all, she's a hilarious meme queen.

Dolly's able to take any old photo of herself (or even an animated GIF!) and find a way to make people laugh.


She's also not afraid to poke a little fun at herself.

It's no wonder she's got some pretty famous friends.

Like fellow southern gal Reese Witherspoon.

Supermodel Tyra Banks.

Grammy-winning singer Adele.

The one and only, Oprah Winfrey.

Not to mention she's the (fairy) godmother to the one and only Miley Cyrus.

They've even recorded a song together: "Rainbowland."

And it's not all about glitz and glamour. For decades, Dolly has been using her platform to give back to her community.

She's most well-known for her efforts to support early childhood literacy. In 1995, Dolly launched her Imagination Library, a free book gifting program, to ensure that every child in her Tennessee hometown had the opportunity to grow up in a home with books.

Since then, the organization has gone international. In February 2018, Dolly's Library donated its 100 millionth book.

Her generosity and passion for children extend far beyond literacy. She recently pledged $1,000,000 to the children's hospital that successfully treated her niece's leukemia.

And she even wrote a song to help encourage kids undergoing chemotherapy treatment.

She's also quick to support natural disaster victims — and she encourages others to do the same.

Dolly's even won two Emmys for her outstanding public service efforts.

But beyond her humor, her A-list friends, and her generous spirit, Dolly is a G*DDAMN inspiration.

Seriously. If you're in need some motivation (or just general life advice), follow Dolly on Twitter. Let her words wash over you.

Here's to you, Dolly. And here's to many more years of making us smile.