Principal: ‘Quality lost on young readers’

An elite Sydney school principal has expressed alarm at the reading habits of young people, listing the books they should tackle.

Shore headmaster Tim Wright with Oliver Ferguson and Angus Molchanoff. Picture: Britta Campion

A distinguished Sydney principal has expressed alarm at the reading habits of many young people, warning that an over-reliance on social media and online news aggre­gators risked undermining their intellectual development.

Shore headmaster Timothy Wright said one of the greatest challenges facing the modern world was that people were no longer “reading well”, which was hindering their ability to think for themselves.

Dr Wright issued an ­impassioned plea this week to ­students of the independent boys school to read better-quality books.

“I fear that many of you are not reading sufficiently often, or at an intellectually challenging level,” he writes in the school newsletter, imploring students to “stretch beyond the … screen and the shallow world of the media sound bite”.

“Reading develops your imagin­ation, emotional skills and reasoning power. If I am a reader and I have chosen my reading wisely I will see through simplistic slogans, facile arguments and tinsel values. I will understand more completely the perspectives of other people and I will not believe in unidimensional solutions­ to life’s problems.”

He also urges older students to “read things they disagree with”, although “not on Reddit, but in books and longer articles”.

The long-serving headmaster, who is set to retire at the end of this year, told The Weekend Australian that he wrote the advice having become concerned about the state of public debate.

“We’ve got online fora that encourages people to make a statement but not necessarily to reason it or support it with evidence­,” he said.

“And it’s not necessarily a sophisticated (statement), because people don’t read a lot.”

Dr Wright’s comments are backed up by research into the impact of digital technology on reading habits, including a major study by the American Psychological Association last year that found 80 per cent of US teenagers used social media every day, yet one-third had not read a book for pleasure in a year.

A local survey in 2015 of stud­ents aged 12-16 revealed that reading books was the preferred leisure activity for just one-fifth of respondents. Computer and internet usage topped the list.

Dr Wright said young readers should be guided towards good books, singling out George ­Orwell’s 1984, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, as well as works by Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway and Jane Austen.

He said students should also have “a working knowledge” of the Bible.

Dr Wright said Shore had a strong focus on developing stud­ents’ reading and writing skills, setting aside 20 minutes each day for senior students to “drop everything and read”. They are also encouraged to do some non-homework-related reading each night to “build intellectual power, empathy and emotional depth”.

Linguist and author Lyn Stone said she appreciated Dr Wright’s plea to students but did not agree that one was required to read a certain type of book to develop their intellect, which could also be fostered through music, art, theatre and science.

“My view is that all children should be taught to read well, but once the mechanics are in place, it’s nobody’s business how far, wide or with what kind of gusto anyone reads,” Ms Stone said.