Mourning the lost art of reading...
Today I was telling my students in Beirut about an article I read which suggests that American college students are reading now “for the test” instead of “for class”–i.e. they put off all the reading until a “binge” reading session the night before a mid-term or final, instead of doing the reading each week ahead of class.
“What about here in Lebanon, do you think students do that too?” I asked my students.
“No, Professor, here it’s different,” one of my Lebanese students said, “because here we don’t do the reading for class–or for the test.”
His answer reminded me of a story about a legendary jokester from the Middle East and Central Asia, which I’ll share in my next post…
