Richard Miller

I feel that these videos were extremely difficult to watch. It was hard to follow and pay attention to his words when there was so much going on onscreen. I wish he would have been visible (physically) on the screen and not just audible. I didn't think that things that were being shown on screen related well to what the words were saying. I also didn't like how his voice was so incredibly monotone. He used no inflection in his monologue thus making it more boring.
With that said, he makes a strong point about reading and writing not holding their place in society as they once did. I don't think that they are not important, but they aren't held in the same regard that they once were. I think that teachers should put as much pressure on students to be great writers as they once did. I think that writing is the most influential tool in communication and just because a student does not like to write, does not mean that he shouldn't be good at it.
I feel that one of the main reasons reading and writing are not as "important" as they once were is because many times writing and reading are used as punishment in schools. I was recently volunteering in a 5th grade class in Pascagoula and students that could not behave were handed page long "motivators" to copy by hand. This was their punishment. Also students that could not keep quiet were forced to sit silently in the corner and read their text book and then write summaries of the chapters. If teachers would stop making these things bad, then kids opinions would change about them.