Beyond the brain: Reading is a cultural activity
This post was written by Michael Ben-Chaim, a teacher at Eagle Hill School in Massachusetts, and a fellow of the Eagle Hill School Institute. He is a regular contributor to LearningDiversity.org. By Michael Ben-Chaim Reading is a cultural activity. This statement may seem obvious, and yet in recent decades an increasing number of educators have considered reading from psychological and even neurological perspectives, as if reading were a process that happens in the agent’s mind and is ultimately regulated by brain mechanisms. By restating that reading is a cultural activity, I assume that it requires a functioning brain, but I also draw attention to the nature of reading as a self-regulated behavior carried out by the reader as a social agent in light of his or her values, concerns, and interests. Psychological and neurological perspectives that ignore the cultural qualities of reading are likely to address non-specific and relatively trivial
