Language, or Lack Thereof (from the book, Endangered Minds: Why Our Children Don't Think by Jane Healy)

What distinguishes humans from lower forms of life? Is it the capacity for emotion, community, or motor skills? Can a chimp convince his fellow ape as well as any orator or lawyer? Do the gorillas have their own Cicero or Demosthenes?

My seriously pointed questions simply serve to alleviate the tendency that we have as individuals in a thoroughly modern society to continue to kick our own language to the curb, so to speak. Speaking as one guilty of this practice more than I'd care to admit, what is the point of listening to our iPods for hours? What does it create but monotonous rhythms and, for the most part, some of the most simplistic uses of the English language I've ever heard. Though any pop music today could be victimized for the purpose of illuminating my point, I'd rather speak to the heart of what this tendency creates.

Have you ever had that feeling that you're just not able to get your point across? I might say that I've met people who live their whole existences not having the capacity to communicate well. Is this yet so strange? A life of being taught by our televisions or society's rock stars can produce nothing but such a grasp on the English language.

I'm aware by taking this stance that there are those that would seek to defend this supposed unrighteous victimization of that which they hold dear. Why shouldn't they? I would too if my life was bent around the things which these individuals have chosen to influence their minds(and I would say that at some times my mind has indeed been wrapped around simplistic pursuits). Hear me out. The brain is separated into two halves, right and left. The left is in control of the logical/analytical concepts and the right in control of imagination/emotion. Music and television, that simply serve to entertain or grasp your attention, rarely engage the left side of the brain. Because we as children were opened up to the world of such media at such an early age, it remains that much harder for adults to enforce good learning/education habits that will last longer than the classroom. How can teachers or parents fight against the juggernauts of pop music or the action movie? A song with a completely repetitive chorus edges itself into the now right-emphasized brain of a teen/college student much easier than a quality book or an important thesis.

So what can we do? Well, this is a message to anyone in charge of younger kids, who have this chance to make a difference. Because only so much can be done for older children who've already made up their minds on matters of the mind. Let's not make the intellectual an endangered species before their time.