A ‘cybrary’ is a good investment
“The general precipitating factor leading youth to crime, live on the streets and become involved in the sex trade, is the ‘lack of’ in their lives”… ‘Kids N Crime’ report, 2006.
Would it be a stretch to suggest the same is true for illiteracy and school failure, since many come from low-literacy environments with a poverty connection?
They enter the school system with deficits, struggle through the learn-to-read Grades [P-3], hit the grade 4 reading bump, and their lack of knowledge begins to show. Later testing shows they don’t meet Grade 4 and Grade 7 test standards. The school system obviously didn’t counter those deficits.
What will happen to those students? Almost 34,000, aged 12 to 17, were admitted to Canada’s correctional services in 2004-05. About half were taken into secure or open custody while the rest were placed under the watch of a probation officer.
Consider the cruel reality of this statement by Cheryl James-Ward, principal in Long Beach, Calif.: “The number of jail cells we need in the future is determined by the number of kids who aren’t reading at the end of third grade.”
States like California that operate state prisons, use Grade 3 reading scores to predict the number of jail cells it will need 9 to 10 years later. The news is especially bad for males who have 70 percent of the learning disabilities and receive the majority of the D’s and F’s. Sadly, those jail cells will be filled by 70 per cent of the males, who were born without a chance, and fail those reading tests. Their most common age will be 15.5 years; the last grade they attended will be Ggrade 9; but, their average reading level will be Grade 4, with one-third of them reading below a Grade 4 level.
Their choices are simple: the welfare system, justice system, gangs/drugs, or all of the above. Many will drop out and develop a dependency; most adolescent alcoholics and drug addicts are males. Depression and drugs will shorten the lives of others. Most of our homeless will be males suffering from drug addiction and mental illness.
Police chiefs surveyed by the ‘Kids-N-Crime’ group listed more before and after school programs as the greatest deterrent to youth crime. Couldn’t the same be said for illiteracy? Brain research shows that a child’s interaction with other members of his/her community has a positive effect on his/her early brain development. The more a community invests in its children the healthier will be that community.
That ‘lack of’ syndrome raised its ugly head a couple of weeks ago when we tried to find a program or activity for our granddaughter but came up empty. Shouldn’t citizens in this area, especially young people, have the same opportunities to learn and develop as do those in other areas?
Modern libraries like those in Halifax and Antigonish and the one planned for Pictou County provide positive environments that stimulate the social, emotional, literacy and cognitive domains for all ages.
Is there a better community investment to help break that ugly, self-destructive cycle, than a cybrary [a modern library]; an inviting, interactive, open facility that incorporates a 21st century cyber culture and learning styles, and is available to all citizens? Perhaps it might include a coffee shop or play-café to increase the appeal, frequency of use, and provide some revenue.