Dave Irvine

Summarizing: The concern isn't my (actually heroic) student, but the trend that student is tackling under her own steam... I routinely here professors complaining about students who: 1.) Can't or won't read at levels we have never seen. 2.) When they do, their ability to connect between texts and evaluate is poor. Indeed, grasping the text is not great. It's increasingly the norm, and it used to be the opposite. 3.) They struggle to reason, honestly. 4.) Most weirdly, we struggle to talk about 'reflecting on ones ideas'. They often struggle to understand *what that means*. This suddenly started where student's didn't understand what this meant. 5.) They have declining writing skills. 6.) They have lower interest in ideas 7.) They are less sophisticated in their ability to manipulate ideas 8.) They are much worse on many of the metrics associated with high level reading ability. At the same time 1.) Study times have declined. 2.) Assigned workloads have declined a great deal 2.) Hiring employer complaints about graduate quality has declined continually. 3.) Grades have remained the same or gone up. ... in the past decades, but particularly the last decade to an alarming degree. This is not about one student's situation, or whether or not one should be 'readmaxxing' in college, reading 500 pages plus. ... and just look at the examples cited in this thread. We have a major issue to address here, folks. Civilizational level issues. And, I genuinely don't feel we are having the conversation we need to be having yet.

Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes is an interesting figure in my life. On the one hand, Calvin and Hobbes is, for my money, the greatest newspaper strip of all time. I wish I had one tenth of this man's talent. I still think back on how the stories he told got me through some of the rough patches in my childhood by giving me this example of another kid with a vivid imagination who was a bit of a loner (depending on what your views on Hobbes are) who I could identify with. On the other hand, I'm on the complete opposite side of the scale from him when it comes to our views on licensing and comics as a business. He had in his mind the notion that seeing a comic book character made into a toy and put on a store shelf cheapens it somehow. I think that's idiotic. Seeing a character in different contexts is what makes it into an enduring part of the culture. Watterson was inspired greatly in his work by Peanuts, which was extensively licensed out. I, as someone born decades later than Watterson, wouldn't have any connection to Peanuts at all if not for the holiday specials. Licensing keeps characters alive. Meanwhile, I'm worried that Calvin and Hobbes is starting to fade away as a new generation grows up without it. But maybe I'm also just salty that my childhood wish to see a Calvin and Hobbes movie about "the noodle incident" never came true.

A Little Life in his top five of the greatest novels ever written…