Are you sure you don't have time to read?
In such audiovisual and stressful times, reading has become a singular and almost revolutionary act. It goes against the grain. Reading time is precious, requiring willpower and determination. "Do you have time to read? Gosh! How do you do it?" people ask me. I reply: "Don't you have time to read? Gosh! How do you do it?"
Without reading, how do you stay truly well-informed? How do you feel outside of universal wisdom? How do you avoid making a fool of yourself when you give your opinion? How do you immerse yourself in life beyond your prosaic and limited experience? How do you stimulate your imagination? How do you enrich yourself with new words and forgotten old ones? How do you think deeply about the things that happen and happen to you? Reading is talking to yourself and to the world; it's a serene and wonderful dialogue. It makes us tolerant. It's a slow pleasure, a constant discovery, an endless journey. It requires effort and habit, yes. Now, the reward is astonishing, marvelous.
The school has a reading comprehension problem with its boys and girls. They read little and, therefore, read poorly. And from this derive many other deficits that carry over throughout their student lives, and beyond. Reading doesn't necessarily make us good people, but it gives us opportunities and, of course, it does make us better students. Not knowing how to read well from the start already demotivates you; you give up more easily.
Nowadays, everyone is clear that they must take care of their body: they must exercise—go running, go to the gym, go to the pool—and they must eat well. Why do so many people not take care of their brains? Why do they exercise it so little through reading, which is the best mental gym? The syncopated and fragmented reading we do on our phones isn't enough. It's like gorging ourselves on pre-cooked fast food. I'm talking about calm, focused reading, with a book in hand and without rushing. This is the good, the healthy kind. And the pleasurable kind. When you get used to it, reading goes from being an obligation to a pleasure. A simple and cheap pleasure: libraries are full of free books. You don't have to be rich or intellectual to read. It's within everyone's reach.
How can we do it to have teenagers and young people who are readers? This is the question. The big question that will surely be debated at the Catalan Book Week, which is just starting. This is the key question for social, economic, and cultural progress, for making a better country and a better world. Do we ask ourselves this question enough? Does the government ask it? Do teachers ask it? Do parents ask it? Mr. Trump clearly hasn't read a book in decades. It shows. He is a notoriously lacking human being.
In Catalan schools and institutes, we have been dragging along a low level of reading comprehension for the past fifteen years; we are below the Spanish and European average. We rank high among the countries that have regressed the most. Shame and problems! The Bofill Foundation has produced a report on the subject, a document that should be required reading for all politicians and teachers. It makes a few obvious points. I won't go into details here. I'll just focus on an obsession I've had for years: school libraries, which in most cases are either precarious or nonexistent. We've been demanding them for decades. And nothing. In recent years, computers and iPads have been arriving in schools, while books have been disappearing. Now, mobile phones are being removed. Will books be making a comeback?
I'm told there are talks between the Ministries of Culture and Education to hire librarians from public libraries to promote reading in schools and colleges. There's even a figure on the table: 300 new professionals. Each one would be in charge of several centers. It would be a start. We want enthusiastic librarians, we need teachers who read a lot and encourage students to enjoy reading, we want politicians and journalists—and influencers and athletes and chefs...– who read and wave a flag.
Do you really not have time to read? And how do you survive so much in the open air?
