The decline of literacy

Interesting incident on the way in to work today. I had the misfortune to be walking in just before nine. Misfortune because all the students are making their way to their first lectures of the day at this time and they literally take over. Fill up the entire pavement by walking in large groups. Whizz along the road on bikes, skipping red lights and almost causing accidents left, right and centre.

Anyway, I was walking along next to one such large group when one of the young men piped up with ‘What does “panache” mean?...Only I want to be able to describe myself that way.' Sounds a bit risky, if you ask me, wanting to describe yourself with a word for which you don’t know the meaning. But the really interesting thing was that not one of his colleagues was able to answer his question. I helpfully obliged, which was met with thanks and comments along the lines of ‘Oh, so that’s what it means!’, rolled around on the tongue as if discovering a new and interesting vintage.

Now, this was a group of Oxford University students. It is natural to assume that such people will be bright, be educated and, quite frankly, know the meaning of a word such as ‘panache’. I could settle for one student in the group not knowing the meaning—but all of them? Come on!

And it’s not the first time that I’ve come across this kind of deficit. I work with a group of Oxbridge-educated postdocs who frequently don’t seem to know the meaning of words that I would consider commonplace. They also seem to lack the ability to spell.

So why is this? Is it that these people are scientists and so don’t have a bent for language? Language is my first love and I read and write all the time, so it makes sense that I have a wide vocabulary and know how to spell. Or is it an age thing? Perhaps young people aren’t taught English in the way that I was back in the 70s and 80s. Yet both my children are good writers, can spell, and seem to me to have large vocabularies (they are both voracious readers). Or maybe it’s genetic—my father was a writer, I am a writer, and my children appear to be following the family tradition.

Call me old fashioned (and, believe me, I often feel old fashioned when writing my blog articles!), but I think that the whole language package (writing, spelling, words) is undervalued and has become increasingly undervalued in the years since I was a child. You only have to look at the UK higher education landscape these days to realise that the areas most strongly supported and funded are the sciences (particularly those perceived as leading to human health benefits) and vocational subjects. Education no longer appears to be valued for its own sake, which means that the humanities in general are being systematically eroded. And it tends to be in the humanities that language—the ability to communicate, to express oneself well in writing, to be vividly descriptive as well as analytic—really thrives.

Yet, in my opinion, education should be about something more than a narrow-minded learning of one’s subject—whether that subject is scientific, artistic or vocational. It should be about awareness of the wider world, having an appreciation of culture and literature, and—yes—being able to write, spell, and use words correctly.

Religion and biblical fables

Last week, the media reported on some research carried out by the Bible Society, which indicated a number of things:

• almost three out of ten children did not know that the story of the birth of Jesus comes from the Bible;
• a similar number had never heard stories about Adam and Eve or the Crucifixion;
• more than a third did not know that the tales of the Good Samaritan and David and Goliath come from the Bible;
• many of the parents in the study considered the Bible to be a good source of values for their children AND YET almost half of them did not recognise that the story of Noah's Ark comes from the Bible, and many muddled up biblical stories with the plot lines of well know films such as the Harry Potter series.

I was surprised by these findings -- and the fact that parents were confusing biblical stories with film plots struck me as laughable. How was this possible, I asked myself?

In a bid to understand, I asked my children about the stories listed above and where they come from. They knew the answers and, it turns out, they know a lot more detail about these stories that I do. Our family is not religious (I don't remember having told my children biblical stories), but we do have a good level of general knowledge and my children do attend Church of England schools. Maybe that's the answer, then.

Even though I'm not religious, it strikes me as 'a good thing' to know a bit about the Bible, the stories and morals contained within it, and religion in general. Why? Well, first off because religion is an important part of the history and culture of this country, and is worth learning about for that reason alone. Second, because religion has shaped and affected many of the events and thought processes in British culture (the Crusades, divorce, dissolution of the monasteries, ordination of women, to name but a few). And third because whatever one might think of the Bible (or indeed religion in general) it does impart some significant messages. The importance of putting sectarian differences aside in order to help an individual in need (aka the tale of the Good Samaritan), for example.

Granted the plot lines of the Harry Potter films do highlight some thought-provoking issues, but  for some reason I find myself baulking at according them the same level of historical, cultural and moral significance as our religious and biblical fables.

A Life in Time

Anyone who reads my blog regularly will know that I am a Penelope Lively fan. I was lucky enough to receive her latest book as a Christmas gift from my children, and recently finished reading it.

This book is called "Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time". Unlike most of Lively's other books (the ones I've read, anyway), this is not a work of fiction. Rather it is is something like a memoir, but not quite--perhaps it is best described as an extended essay on the topic of old age.

The book falls into five parts. The first examines what it is actually like to be old (Lively is now eighty)--the pleasures and the pitfalls; what old age feels like. The second examines the overarching backdrop to Lively's life--the political, social and archaeological era that has contextualised her existence. The third examines memory--why people remember as they do and how memory deteriorates with age. The fourth focuses on books and writing--Lively discusses some of the books that have made the greatest impression on her, and how they have have influenced her own writing. And the final part talks about six objects that Lively owns and which, in different ways, represent and define different parts of her life.

The quality of Lively's writing is, as usual, first class. When reading her prose, I always feel as if I am listening to a good friend. Her writing instils that kind of intimacy, while at the same time touching on profound, deeply meaningful matters. Quite a feat, but then that is her gift.

As with all of Lively's work, this book comes highly recommended, particularly the sections on old age and memory. (I found the section on the political and social context informative, but a little dull--although I suspect that someone of Lively's own generation would find the material here much more interesting.)

My only complaint is that this book has a touch of finality about it--memoirs, old age and so on are all suggestive of the end of an era. I just hope that this isn't so quite yet and that this won't be the last book that Lively writes.

The religious life

We were out on a family walk recently and our route took us past a monastery. This prompted our youngest daughter, always hungry for information, to ask what is the point of monasteries; what are monks and nuns, what do they actually do.

That's an interesting set of questions, especially these days. In years gone by, the answer to these questions was much more clear cut. The religious life could provide refuge from disgrace (inability to find a husband, birth outside wedlock, homosexuality), from poverty, from ill health. And once there, a religious house could provide opportunities that were perhaps not available to such people in the outside world--board and lodging for a start, a good education, a structured life, even a career for the ambitious. Of course, some degree of religious faith was also required--or at least the ability and willingness to go along with a religious life.

Yet nowadays, these kinds of advantages are widely available on the outside. Unmarried women are able to support themselves. Birth out of wedlock and sexual orientation are no longer an issue. The state keeps its people out of abject poverty.

So why do people become monks and nuns in the twenty-first century? The short answer is that far fewer do. According to a Guardian article, in 2000 there were roughly 710 nuns and 230 monks in Anglican religious orders in Britain and Ireland, but by 2008 those numbers had dropped by over a third--to 470 nuns and 135 monks. Some religious houses have even taken to running 'taster weekends' in an attempt to attract new recruits. One assumes that, for those who do take the habit, one of the overriding motivators must be religious faith, given that the other advantages of religious life are no longer apparent. Yet, as we all know, religiosity is on a downward spiral (in the UK, at least), with secularism being the order of the day.

I have some experience in this area. I grew up as a vicar's daughter and, when I was travelling with my father, we often used to stay in the guesthouse of the local nunnery. My overriding memories are of large gardens in which fruit and vegetables were grown, of meals eaten in companionable silence, of a quiet and slow moving life. I haven't stayed in one of those guesthouses for over three decades now--in fact, I have no idea whether such facilities still exist--but it seems a pity that they might not due to the lack of a religious 'workforce'.

Of course, the tables may turn again, I suppose. I am currently reading a book by Penelope Lively in which she points out that although we in the UK now live in a very open society in which all manner of things are talked about and done quite freely, social mores have changed more than once throughout history. The eighteenth century was similarly unfettered (debauched, some might say), yet the Victorian age of modesty was a direct reaction to the liberality of that time. And now we have come full circle.

Perhaps the religious tables will similarly turn, and ours will revert to a a much more spiritual society in which the youth are falling over one another to make it to the front of the religious order entrance queue. That's hard to imagine, though, from where we currently stand.

Before Midnight

I recently wrote a blog post about two of my favourite films -- "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset", starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. I mentioned there that I was looking forward to the next film in the 'series' --"Before Midnight", which I had put on my LoveFilm list.

Luckily for me, it turned out that I didn't have to wait for "Before Midnight" to appear on LoveFilm, because my lovely husband bought me the DVD for Christmas. We've now found time to watch the film, and here are my thoughts.

True to formula, "Before Midnight" takes place (both in the film and in reality) roughly ten years after the previous film, "Before Sunset". "Before Sunset" closed on a cliffhanger with Delpy and Hawke having just met for the first time after their initial encounter ten years previously. They are still strongly attracted to one another, but Hawke is now trapped in a loveless marriage and has a son. At the end of "Before Sunset" it was entirely unclear whether Hawke would return to his unhappy life in the US or remain with Delpy in Paris.

In "Before Midnight", we learn that Hawke did indeed remain with Delpy in Paris--we catch up with them at the end of a summer spent in Greece with their twin girls, aged six, and Hawke's son, now about to start high school. Seeing his son off at the airport, Hawke begins to question the life that he is now living. He may be living with the woman he loves, but he is missing out on his son's youth entirely.

Hawke and Delpy spend their last evening in Greece together without their children--courtesy of the friends with whom they are staying, who have booked a hotel room for them and are providing babysitting. Instead of being a romantic getaway, though, the evening turns into a full-scale row, with Hawke's fears about his son coming to the fore, and the couple's dissatisfaction with their lives and with one another emerging.

The themes that this film covers will be familiar to any long-term couple with kids--loss of romance over the years, how to combine career and family, how difficult it is for both partners to be fulfilled career-wise, the division of domestic labour, loss of identity, ageing, the 'rational' partner versus the 'emotional' partner...

Needless to say, the tone of "Before Midnight" is quite different from the first two films, which are romantic, focussing on the hopes and aspirations of a couple meeting for the first (and second!) time. In "Before Midnight" the romance is gone and reality has set in. It is not a feelgood film, but it does accurately reflect reality--the reality of an established relationship with children.

And that's exactly what I enjoyed about this film--the reality, something with which we can all identify. It's what I enjoyed about the other two films, as well--I could identify with them since they reflected my own experience and thoughts in my twenties, and then my thirties.

If you're looking for something interesting, provocative and conversation-worthy, the "Before..." trilogy comes highly recommended.

Giving up seats on buses

I travel into work and back on the bus three days a week, so am very used to observing people’s behaviour when travelling on public transport.

As a girl I was brought up to believe that, on a crowded bus, it was the right thing to give my seat up to those less able to stand than myself, i.e. elderly people, pregnant women, people coping with young children, etc., etc. And I still adhere to that belief, even though I am now middle aged (although still, of course, perfectly able to stand on a bus).

It appears, however, that the majority of young people nowadays have not been brought up that way. I have often observed someone elderly and frail board the bus, and not a single young  person has offered their seat, even though they are often taking up spaces at the front of the bus that are expressly labelled as being for the less able or infirm. Usually it falls to someone older (like me) to accommodate.

This morning, a lady made her way to the back of the bus, announcing that she was pregnant and asking whether anyone would like to give up their seat. Someone immediately did.

When I was pregnant with my two children, I travelled to and from work every day on the bus. On the occasions when there were no free seats, I don’t recall anyone offering theirs to me. I certainly  wouldn’t have asked, and, to be honest, I was perfectly fit during both my pregnancies and able to stand fine, even at full term.

It seems a shame, though, that things have changed so much since my childhood and that these kinds of small courtesies have disappeared amongst the young. People are so absorbed in their ipods and themselves that they are apparently oblivious to the world around them. Or perhaps that’s just a convenient excuse...

Family frustrations

Although I love my kids to bits and love my family life, I sometimes feel frustrated by these things. Trapped, even.

One good example of this is when it comes to jobs. I work part time and I want to do this so that I can reserve some time for my family. So that I can be around when the kids come home from school, so that I can be there when they want a lift to an activity or an event. So that they are not always in after school care rather than at home.

However, I want to continue developing my career as well as offering support to my family. I don't just want to abandon my career, only to find that once the kids are sufficiently grown up, I'm too old and it's too late.

If you are working part time, career development is difficult, as so few roles come up that are both senior and part time. I sometimes feel envious of people who don't have my family ties. People who can move anywhere in the country (or beyond) to take up an opportunity, and who can work full time without feeling that they are short changing another area of their lives.

I have briefly considered working full time again. Focusing on my career rather than my family. But I quickly realise that this is not really what I want. Consider, for example, the recent news article about the woman who juggled a top job in the City with raising a large family. One of her children ended up as a young teenager running amok, mixing with a bad crowd and taking recreational drugs. The woman had to resort to sending her daughter to a US 'boot camp' in order to get her back on the straight and narrow.

That is emphatically not the outcome I want for my children. I want to provide them with time and attention and a steady home life so that, when they leave home, they are equipped to cope in the world and to succeed. I don't want to devolve that responsibility to someone else. And so I continue to work part time and to develop my career as far as I can within those parameters.

Having it all is not about quantity -- having everything, but in fact only focusing on one thing to the detriment of all the others. Having it all (in my opinion) should rather be about quality. About finding the right balance so that you can succeed in all of the areas that you have taken on. After all, what's the point of having it all if half of what you have is, in effect, broken?