When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in the heart. This is the seed sown along the path (Matt 13:19).
The difference between hearing and understanding has been pondered by educators since long before Jesus and ever afterward. It is not limited to the word of God. It is current in our demand for “rigor” and “college readiness.” It is inherent in the notion of literacy as a structure built on a foundation–each year new standards are added to the structure, which ascends toward the gates of the college of your choice.
The notion of “cultural literacy,” that we are what we have read, supports the edifice metaphor of literacy. Our knowledge is sequentially built upon classical authors, like Hawthorne, Shakespeare, and Ben Franklin, and we are judged illiterate in proportion to the texts we have not read. Sometimes we mock those who claim to be educated, yet have not read our honored texts. What, you call yourself a high school graduate, but never read Hamlet?
Literacy is more like an organic process, like the body absorbing food for growth. Readers and writers process language selectively, and turn it into living tissue. It is not like we absorb protein at a certain age and vitamins later on. We absorb them as our body requires them and turn them into something living and functional. The body’s demand for iron and calcium very much depends on our age and gender.
“Understanding” a text is the kind of rigor we should advocate. “Understanding” means that we assimilate what we read, as the body assimilates nutrients from food. You know what happens to the food we don’t assimilate. In cases where understanding is not part of the reading experience, nothing is assimilated. It is all waste.
The point is not what we hear, as Jesus said, or what we “decode,” as cognitive theorists currently say, but of “understanding.” You can read Animal Farm in sixth grade or Romeo and Juliet in eighth grade, but what do you get out of them? Perhaps a good story and certainly “exposure” to a canonical text, but what about “understanding”? In many cases you get a lifetime of alienation from allegory and Shakespeare, because the reading was so distant from the understanding.
Many adolescents hate reading, not because they are addicted to visual and social media, but because their understanding of assigned texts is so cloudy. They would give up on video games as well, if their computer monitor lost its resolution or if the enjoyment of the game relied on an extensive background in the canonical games of yore. They can be seduced by reading that addresses developmentally appropriate issues and that challenges their thinking at their own level.
Why do we now have a version of Huckleberry Finn that purges the “N-word?” Because we treat reading as though it were hearing. I am offended by those who use that word in my hearing, and I would demand that they restrain themselves, regardless of their cultural background. But in a book the “N-word” is a portrayal, not an actual event. It is fiction, where characters may display their ignorance with impunity. If we are offended, we consider the source and learn more about people we might not otherwise associate with. The same rule should apply to other offensive literary texts, the portrayal of the Jew in Merchant of Venice, the portrayal of the clergy in The Scarlet Letter. We can read without sanctioning the behavior of literary characters or being corrupted by it.
The problem often arises from adult texts being forced on the young. Maybe Huckleberry Finn shouldn’t be assigned in ninth grade. Maybe Lord of the Flies should not be required reading in middle school. In our relentless pursuit of rigor, we assume that more difficult reading is also appropriate reading for adolescents and pre-adolescents. Even a young adult text like The Giver can be assigned prematurely, because adults love the notion of collective memory, but young children may not. Yes, they can read it. But understand it?
As the “Parable of the Sower” teaches us, not all seed takes root and grows to full stature. So it will be with the scattered seed of the “rigorous” curriculum and the treasured fruit of “college readiness.”