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EDITORIAL: Read: Read Read Read Read: Read Read Read Read

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

Mar. 28--AS a black kid in a crime-ridden Detroit slum, Ben Carson seemed destined for failure. His mother had dropped out of school after third grade and was raising him and his brother in a squalid tenement. By the fifth grade, Ben was an inferior student who disrupted class by clowning and misbehaving. He got poor grades and had dim prospects.

But his mother did something unusual: She demanded that her sons realize they were intelligent. She cut off TV and made them read two books a week. Not only that, they had to write a report on each book, which the family discussed.

"It dawned on me that I wasn't a dummy at all," Carson recounts. "From that moment, no book was safe in my grasp."

He read so fervently that his grades skyrocketed. In high school, he earned scholarships to Yale and the University of Michigan medical school. He performed his surgery residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, then became chief of pediatric neurosurgery there. In 1997, he made medical history by leading a team in the first successful separation of twins conjoined at the back of the head.

Today, Dr. Benjamin Carson gives talks around America promoting reading. He spoke recently at the yearly Love of Literacy luncheon at Palm Beach, Fla. He warned that America will decline because people squander their attention on "sports, entertainment and the lifestyles of the rich and famous." He scoffed at cities spending millions on stadiums while schoolchildren have out-of-date textbooks.

Amen. Shallowness and raucous distractions blight America's culture, preventing the young from gaining mental skills needed for success in the Information Age. True learning comes the old-fashioned way: from reading, reading, reading.

Dr. Carson's message should be heard by all. Maybe he should be invited to talk at Charleston's next literacy event.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

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Source: The Charleston Gazette

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