First Line Friday #32: Hollowed Out by Jeremy S. Adams

Thanks to Carrie at
Reading is My Superpower
for the Link-up

 

 

Title:  Hollowed Out
Author:  Jeremy S. Adams
Genre:  Current Events/Education
Category:  Recommended Reads

 

  〰First Line〰

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The first day of school.

I teach Advanced Placement United States Government to high school seniors and introductory political science to university undergraduates.

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Synopsis:  (From Goodreads) 

Do teachers have a front row seat to America’s decline?  Jeremy S. Adams, a teacher at both the high school and college levels, thinks so.

Adams has spent decades trying to instill wisdom, ambition, and a love of learning in his students. And yet, as he notes, when teachers get together, they often share an arresting conclusion.  Something has gone terribly wrong. Something essential is missing in our young people. Their curiosity seems stunted, their reason undeveloped, their values uninformed, their knowledge lacking, and most worrying of all, their humanity diminished. Digital hermits of a sort unfamiliar to an older generation, they have little interest in marriage and family. They largely dismiss—and are shockingly ignorant of—religion. They sneer at patriotism, sympathize with riots and vandalism, and regard American society and civilization as so radically flawed that it must be dismantled. Often friendless and depressed, they eat alone, study alone, and even “socialize” alone.

Educators like Adams see a generation slipping away. The problems that have hollowed out our young people have been festering for years. A year of COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing have magnified them. The result could be a generation—and our nation’s future—lost in a miasma of alienation and stupefaction.

In his stunning new book, Hollowed Out , Jeremy S. Adams reveals why students have rejected the wisdom, culture, and institutions of Western civilization—and what we can do to win them back. Poignant, frightening, and yet inspiring, this is a book for every parent, teacher, and patriot concerned for our young people and our country

  〰First Thoughts〰

First, a caveat:  The president of the university recommended this book as a campus-wide group study and offered a free copy of the book to a limited number of faculty and staff.  If the author was not coming to campus to speak, I most likely wouldn't have chosen to read this volume.  Subject matter like this reminds me of my hateful Home Economics teacher in high school.  Instead of teaching us to cook and sew, she spent much of our valuable class time yelling at us about how much she hated us, our clothes, our music, our TV shows, our smell, etc.  If her hateful self is still alive, I imagine she's spending her golden years yelling at kids to get off her lawn and drowning cats in a cauldron in her back yard.

So let''s just say I'm not thrilled with the prospect of reading this.

Yes, I know that I'm in my 50s and I'm not too keen on most modern music and media.  However, after the experience with the aforementioned teacher and others like her, I vowed to never be prejudiced against the younger generation or write them off as incorrigible.  I'm afraid that this may be what this author is going to do while blaming teachers--rather than parents--for the state of the children.  I've never been a parent, but I'm on my second career of being a teacher, and I can tell you that no matter how good a teacher is, most students have an extremely difficult time overcoming inattentive and/or immoral parental influence.

So, what's the first line of the book you're currently reading?