Why don’t they read? Why don’t they dream?

about reading

— Do you read according to the school curriculum? I asked Lisa.

— Certainly. And many more.

“More” is from the Internet, and I don’t talk about quality at all,” the girl’s mother said. — From the last, imagine: a girl fell in love with a vampire. He also fell in love with her, but he cannot sleep with her, as he is afraid that he will bite her in the process. And now, for almost a dozen volumes, this problem is procrastinated in a completely impossible language …

— Did this problem bother you as a teenager?

— Which? Love for a vampire?!

— Not. Desires and impossibilities in love. Including in the carnal aspect.

The woman blushed very nicely (she must have remembered something specific), and at exactly that moment Liza became interested in what was happening in the office.

“Tell me, please,” I turned to Lisa’s mother. — You yourself read a lot in childhood, and it will be easy for you to remember. Did you love school classics?

— Oh, No! That is, well… I liked Lermontov, then Byron, and also Griboedov for some reason… And so we read children’s stuff about adventures, science fiction…

— And what exactly did you look for and find in the books of your childhood? .. Only be honest, please …

Mother had already opened her mouth for an answer, but my last phrase stopped the maxim that was about to break out of her tongue. She thought for a long time, then slowly said:

— Answers to some children’s and teenage questions. Children, teenagers, like me, and vice versa, are not like me at all. How they act, think, feel… Other worlds in science fiction, how they work, some bold scientific hypotheses…

— Thank you. Your daughter and her friends are looking for exactly the same thing. And our culture is indeed still predominantly textual. But as for “children don’t write, don’t read”… You see, a certain process has taken place here, which for some reason zealots of children’s and teenage reading categorically refuse to notice: children have gone inside the text. We became equal with him… And, solving their problems, they read and even write not less, but more than we once did. Imagine an ordinary young man in the late 80s. Not the humanities, not a journalist. In the previous five years, had he written anything but school essays under duress? Wrote. Greeting cards to my grandmother in Taganrog for the New Year and November 7 until the seventh grade (then he flatly refused, no matter how shamed) and a note in the eighth grade: “Liza, let’s go to the cinema today.”And the same modern boy or girl?They write and read almost constantly, dozens and hundreds of pages. Emails, sms, twitter, friends feed, news…Each of them, by the age of fifteen, had already composed more than a dozen “as if stories” (all about himself, his beloved, and about his friends) in LiveJournal or Vkontakte, invented and described a dozen heroes and biographies in computer games …

— Yes Yes! Lisa turned on. — Do you and Mila know how we came up with it? Bertha is from Twilight, you know? — wants to be with Edward, but she has a beloved friend who decides to leave her in the world of living people at any cost, and Berta does not know what to do …

“Very interesting,” I agreed sincerely. — And what happened?

“We haven’t finished writing yet,” Lisa said and added with pride: “We have 148 friends in the group who are also waiting for how everything will end!”

“Well, write me down as one hundred and forty-ninth…” I chuckled. — And think about this move: what if a friend also fell in love, but a person, and now they are comparing this and that love — from the world of the living and from the world of the dead …

— O! Lisa said. — Thank you … Can I go out now?

“Mile went to call,” her mother sighed. «So you think it’s no big deal?»

“Nothing, I think,” I nodded. — Their way of working with texts and images is different from ours. They do not look upwards at the “block of Tolstoy”, they simply live inside their own and other people’s texts, splashing in them like a fish in the ocean, supplementing the written language with emoticons and interactive, reworking it on the go… Are you sure that this is a step backwards compared to your «bookish» childhood?

about dreams

I have a diagnostic game in my professional arsenal: a wizard and three wishes. This is when I ask children or teenagers to imagine meeting a wizard and making any three wishes that he can grant with a wave of a magic wand.

And before starting the game, I let the children know that this is not about an imaginary trip to the supermarket, but about dreams. “Understand the language of animals”, “be able to fly” — all this can also be guessed, this is a wizard.

And it was in recent years that something disturbing for me was discovered: more and more children answer the question “So what would you ask a magician for?” After thinking honestly, they answer: “Nothing. I wouldn’t ask him for anything.» At this moment, both of us (both me and the child) sharply spoil the mood. We both understand that something is wrong! But what?

Maybe it’s all about the clothing and information redundancy of the modern world? After all, in our childhood we could dream of branded jeans (which we couldn’t buy in stores and which were too expensive from black marketers), and about an interesting book that we only heard about, but couldn’t find to read. And few could even dream of a trip to Paris (there were quite enough dreams of how we would go to the sea in the summer — to the Baltic states or to the Crimea).

Or maybe a modern person simply does not have time for dreams? After all compared to today’s children, we had just sensory deprivation: on TV they showed one movie a night, and even «Goodnight, kids.» Ordinary parents practically did not engage in any special development of children, and we occupied ourselves: playing in the yard and at home, reading, drawing, talking, completely meditative observation of the world around us, dreams … Now everything is not so: many children are busy with a program carefully designed for them by their parents, just “to the eyeballs”. What dreams are there if a child, together with his parents, has been rushing for years between a serious school, useful circles, preparing lessons and tutors who help him with this!

And then he enters the institute to study as a marketer, then he becomes this same marketer and, like a young man I know, he no longer dreams, but simply sets goals …

But I still have doubts: after all, childhood and youthful dreams are, after all, nothing more than building a personal long-term plan with the capture of new, magical horizons by the imagination … Where would we be now if many millennia ago one of our did not dream of ancestors, wrapped in a smelly skin, in a cold damp cave? If children stop dreaming about outer space, what will happen to us tomorrow?

Tell me, reader, do you remember your childhood dreams? Are you dreaming now? Do your children and grandchildren dream? And if so, about what?

I would like to tell another story about magical desires from my own childhood.

I was 11 years old, and my yard friend Grishka and I were collecting acorns in the Nevsky Forest Park on the banks of the Neva (I needed them for crafts, and Grishka, as the eldest — he was 13, agreed to take me there). It gets dark very early in autumn in Leningrad (the other side of the famous white nights). We walked through the park with pockets full of elastic cool acorns to the bus stop to go home. Golden stars kept falling from the dark blue sky into the Neva.

— Did you make a wish? Grisha asked.

“Yes, I can’t do it,” I complained. — I’m just starting to talk, and she has already fallen …

— You need a short desire, then you will have time, — said Grishka.

— What is the short one?

— Peace to the world! The shortest and most important. So that there is no war. Do not you know?

— Peace to the world! Exactly! I rejoiced, stopped among the dark, damp moving oaks, squeezed Grishkin’s hand with my hand, raised my head to the starry sky and, waiting for a swift stroke, I was convinced: I really have time! Thanks, Grishka!

“Not at all,” he replied condescendingly. Everyone does it…

Years later, I told this story to my husband:

— Later I taught many more about this, in the classroom, in the pioneer camp and everywhere … And did you think like that?

“I don’t remember well, but it seems that something like that really happened,” he answered and smiled. “But now I know for sure why the atomic war, which everyone was afraid of, didn’t happen then. Imagine: millions of children look at the sky and think of shooting stars: “Peace to the world!” It just had to come true!

Please, everyone who can and everyone who still believes in good magic: look at the sky this evening, wait for a shooting star (or at least a passing satellite or plane) and guess: peace to the world! Today it is again very relevant.

Read more in the book by E. Murashova «We all come from childhood» (Samokat, 2015).