The question is, will we continue to fight what may be a rearguard action to defend universal literacy as a central goal of our education system, or are we bold enough to see what’s actually happening to our culture? Hugh Mackay Read Quote
Universal literacy was a 20th-century goal. Before then, reading and writing were skills largely confined to a small, highly educated class of professional people. Hugh Mackay Read Quote
Parents should be encouraged to read to their children, and teachers should be equipped with all available techniques for teaching literacy, so the varying needs and capacities of individual kids can be taken into account. Hugh Mackay Read Quote
Obviously, every child should be given the best possible opportunity to acquire literacy skills. Hugh Mackay Read Quote
Still, most of those effects occur in the context of harmless play and it is patently obvious that children are not normally turned into aggressive little monsters by TV or video games, since most children do not become aggressive little monsters. Hugh Mackay Read Quote
The copycat effects of media violence, similar to those previously attributed to westerns, radio serials and comic books, are easy to exaggerate. Hugh Mackay Read Quote
Perhaps it’s the people whose lives have taken sudden new twists – people who have learned to embrace the creative possibilities of change – who stand the best chance of penetrating life’s mysteries. Hugh Mackay Read Quote
Recounting their histories, people often sound like interested bystanders to their own lives. Hugh Mackay Read Quote
The underlying message of the Lancet article is that if you want to understand aggressive behaviour in children, look to the social and emotional environment in which they are growing up, and the values they bring to the viewing experience. Hugh Mackay Read Quote
