Tanner Yocum

The more people read and talk about what they are reading with one another, the better society becomes.

Unfortunately, 52 percent of American adults did not read a single book in 2022. Kids in English classes, and even elite college students, are not reading whole books. In our screen-riddled society, it is frustrating to see that reading and discussing books have become increasingly viewed as wastes of time.

Even the new online SAT format has replaced long-form reading passages with paragraph-length excerpts, reinforcing students’ short attention spans and inability to wrestle with a text. In the past several years, reading scores nationwide have decreased across all grade levels. Constant technology in classrooms has caused Gen Z to become the first generation since cognitive development began to be measured to perform worse than their parents in every category.

America needs well-read students who embrace uncertainty rather than shy away from it, students who freely change their minds and bravely pursue the unknown, students who care deeply about the world around them. I believe that discussion-based, tech-free English and humanities classes are one of the best tools we have as a society to foster these traits and pass them on to future generations.

I took a course last spring that I consider to be an exemplary model of an effective and engaging English class, a model I believe can be applied to most grade levels due to its simplicity. In this course, we were almost singularly devoted to reading and discussing “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Stowe’s mission with her 1852 world-altering novel (which she wrote in a house just off campus later named after her) was to reveal the horrors of slavery and end the deeply dehumanizing institution once and for all. And it worked. In the 19th century, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was the second best-selling book in America, preceded only by the Bible. The novel was so influential in altering people’s moral perceptions of slavery that it has been largely credited with leading to the Civil War.

Upon reading the novel, one immediately sees the power of Stowe’s strategy: She humanizes everyone. She humanizes the slave that escapes. She humanizes the slave that stays. She humanizes the Northerner. She humanizes the Southerner. She humanizes the child. She humanizes politicians. She even humanizes the slave trader, whose complicity in the barbaric system was the status quo at that time. This sweeping humanization led to some truly difficult moments while reading, but without it, I never would have gained such a comprehensive understanding of race relations in the 1800s and how the system corrupted people on an individual level.

Evidently, literature has the power to change the world in tangible ways—but only if people are willing and able to engage with it. In today’s polarized America, this has become increasingly difficult. A 2026 Yale report highlights the rapid rise of academic echo chambers, self-censorship in the classroom and distrust of higher education.

In contrast, the freeform discussion model of the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” class allowed a truly astonishing amount of profound ideas, lying dormant within myself and my classmates’ minds, to spring to the surface. The consistent routine of intense questioning allowed us to arrive at the matter at hand, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. Our conversations served as much-needed reminders that listening to, thinking about and discussing ideas with which we do not immediately agree does not mean we endorse those ideas; rather, it empowers us to better understand them.

The U.S. urgently needs these kinds of discussion-based English classes with teachers who challenge their students and teach them to read whole books. Sadly, this vision cannot be realized as long as screens dominate classrooms. Nations like Sweden and Denmark, countries with the highest education ratings in the world, have already realized that educational technology is an oxymoron and are currently shifting back to traditional pen-and-paper classroom models.

Though countless arguments have been made for the positive impacts of computers in classrooms—they provide access to near-unlimited resources, allow for easy online collaboration and equip students with digital literacy skills—these arguments carry little weight as long as students continue to read fewer books and test scores continue to decline. The abundance of negative data surrounding Educational Technology (EdTech) makes me fearful that the U.S. is raising a generation of students whose intellectual curiosity, ability to persevere, social-emotional awareness and moral sense have not had the time nor space to properly develop.

America’s future lies in teachers who can uplift the unique humanity in their students and give them the independence, passion and confidence they need to make their marks on the world. If my English classes at Bowdoin have taught me anything, it is that we cannot change what we do not understand, and we cannot begin to understand what we refuse to read, think about or discuss.

Elan Cohen is a member of the Class of 2028.