Is Childhood Disappearing?

Abstract

Cleverly, Postman theorizes that the concept of childhood emerged only with the printing press. Before that, adults and children were equally ignorant. With the onset of reading, adults developed an educational system to lead children toward mastery of this new skill. By doing so, they ushered in childhood as a distinct stage. He also insists that without a well-developed idea of shame, childhood cannot exist.) Today, television has reduced everyone to the same shameless age. Parents and children sit together in the living room and watch scenes of violence, murder, and sexual explicitness. There is nothing the adults need to pass on to children anymore, because by the age of seven they've seen it all. This is an ingenious interpretation of history and the electronic age. It is also extraordinarily bleak. Writers like Postman, John Holt (How Children Fail, New York: Pitman, 1969), and Ivan Illich (Deschooling Society, New York: Holt, 1972) have long predicted the demise of the schools. They believe public schools have failed dismally. Engaging 16-year-olds in a close reading of Thoreau and Mark Twain, I've known it was all a sham. Watching my students develop skillful writing styles, I had to accept that this was a futile anachronism. Hadn't I been told again and again that high school students could not compose a literate sentence?