Why Read The Book If You Can Watch The Movie? by Robbie Cheadle

Today I am pleased to share a wonderful blog post by children’s author Robbie Cheadle. In this increasingly interconnected world it can be difficult for parents to explain to their children why basic math and writing skills are important. I know I am shocked by how much my six-year-old already knows about iPads, Kindle readers and desktops. Why should he bother to learn to write neatly if everything is sent via computer anyway? Robbie has an eloquent answer for us all!

Why read the book if you can watch the movie?
We live in a world of technology. Television, movies, computers, laptops, iphones, ipads and even ipods. Nothing in my children’s lives is as it was when I was growing up. Everything is fast and instant. My oldest son started high school this year. I hear about the exciting and innovative learning topics and methods he is enjoying and I feel quite envious of his learning experience. Information and research is at his fingertips at the click of a Google button. Not for him, riding his bicycle to the library and searching through a pile of books for information on a given topic and then standing in a queue to photocopy pages from said books to take home and work on. Homework assignments are made available to learners in a virtual classroom and are completed on-line and resubmitted to the teacher electronically. If he forgets a book at school, never fear, technology is here. He will reach out to his contemporaries on the school Whats App group and, very soon, someone will send through the forgotten material in a digital form. If an unexpected soccer match crops up, my son merely reaches for his iphone and sends me a text informing me of the change of plan and the updated collection time. I shudder as I think back to my time of standing in a long queue to use the one and only payphone at the school to convey any such changes to my mother. Most of the time I would have to try and reverse the changes of the call as I rarely had any money....

Read the rest on my blog: http://jennifersalderson.com/2017/07/...