The Joy of Reading
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

I don't think I've ever been more pleased to see such a mess. Darby was around two years old when I traipsed into her room. I knew she liked books. She spent most of her time with a nose buried in one of the hundreds we'd acquired for her. It looked and sounded like she was reading, but she was just reciting the words she had memorized. She sat amidst a mountain of her books. They were strewn all over her room. Not one sat on her bookshelf. She was having a grand time. None of the books had bells or whistles. There were no dancing letters, no giggling voices coming from the tomes. They were just books, words and pictures on the page.

Though there are a thousand things on which we have erred, Denise and I have done well in instilling in our children a love of books. First and foremost, we read to them. (And we still read to Darby, though she is quite capable on her own.) I try not to take it personally when my children request a reading of Scottish Seas, rather than a story told by daddy. Second we have modeled for them the joy of reading. When our children wander from their beds in the evening on their way to the potty, more often than not they find Mommy and/or Daddy engrossed in a book. This comes naturally. We don't call them out of their beds and pose with prose. But perhaps the most important thing we did was what we didn't do. We never used the idiot box as a babysitter. Nor did we use it as a tutor. We have never plunked

our kids down in front of Sesame Street. We haven't allowed them to watch any 'Phonics the Phun Way' video. We have never taught them to play computer games like "Follow the Bouncing Vowel." We have never cluttered up the joyful pleasure of reading with the insidious pleasure of eye candy.

I first knew the television was a dangerous thing when Darby was about eighteen months old. She waddled into the room where we kept our TV, looking for a toy. (It may have been her copy of Walt Disney's video Sleeping Beauty, a gift she received from a friend. She had not, and still hasn't seen it, but she loved to carry the tape around.) Her eyes caught the glowing screen. Or rather the glowing screen caught her eyes and held them. She was utterly transfixed, not watching a cartoon, not watching a football game, not watching some ad for the latest thing your children have to have. She stared at the screen as William F. Buckley decimated his liberal opponent on Firing Line. For those of you who have never watched this aberration of government TV, Firing Line is not what you would call an invigorating ride. It's less Space Mountain, more The Hall of Presidents. Three men sit very still and discuss in calm tones (and convoluted verbiage) political and cultural issues. One is smart (Buckley), one is annoying (moderator and king weenie Michael Kinsley) and one guy is wearing the red Star Trek shirt that lets you know he won't be beaming back up (the guest). Camera angles switch at a glacial pace. It was scary

Video or computer games suffer from the same silly assumption, that the only and best way to get kids to learn is to make sure they're having fun. Now don't get me wrong. It's not as though as my children are learning I'm walking before them like some drill sergeant, "Get that grin off your face soldier. What do you think this is, kindergarten?" Neither am I desperate to blur the difference between work and play. There is pleasure in work, even in hard work. But we rob our children of that pleasure if we take all the work out of the work. (We also rob our grandchildren who will suffer the economic consequences of parents who aren't diligent unless their work is fun. Few people climb the corporate ladder, nor reap abundant crops, playing video games.)

One of the fruits of the dominion mandate is to eat the fruit of our hands, though our hands may be blistered from hacking through the thorns and thistle. "Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting. To eat and drink and enjoy oneself in all one's labor" that old pessimist Solomon wrote (Ecclesiastes 5:18). Even as I write I enjoy the pleasure of sore muscles brought on by splitting wood. It is a simple pleasure, but one earned the hard way.

That's what our friends at the Children's Television Workshop have so missed. Having Big Bird teach kids to read doesn't teach kids to love reading, it teaches them to love television. And playing non-stop games at school in like manner teaches children to love games, not the learning that supposedly comes from the games. I'm not suggesting that Darby is only permitted to read the phone book. I don't want her to lose the pleasure of reading Little House on the Prairie. But I want the fruit to come from the appropriate tree. It is good for my children to take pleasure in what they are learning. It is bad for me to cover that pleasure with the scent of some- thing disconnected to the work, no matter how pleasant it might be. A spoonful of sugar either announces that what's coming is medicine, and they're not supposed to like it, or it leads to a face buried in the sugar bowl. I will enjoy my sore muscles more when I stop looking at this computer screen and start watching the flames dance in my fireplace.

Education is a joy. And it is a joy to behold. Denise's pleasure is multiplied in knowing that it is because of her work, not the electronic babysitter, that Darby is able to experience the pleasure of reading. It need not be drudgery, but it must be work.