A Swarm of Lemmings:Writers' Passive Suicide and the Crisis in K-12 Literacy – Implications for Western Civilization

James Robinson • March 7, 2026

A swarm of lemmings continues their march to the proverbial sea, attracted by a temporary vision of sun and beauty, but ultimately distracted by that vision—thus, they fall off the cliff in a passive suicide.          It wasn’t a conscious decision. Their deaths were the consequence of distraction alone.


In this allegory, the lemmings are writers (and many in publishing) who ignore the erosion in elementary schools and K-12 education. Writers may create brilliant work, but if students graduate without the skills to engage deeply, our audience vanishes. From a cultural perspective, this is alarming—and the stakes extend to the health of Western civilization itself.


In my day job, as Executive Director of a small non-profit, I oversee a pre-K program, a charter school, and our efforts to revitalize a publishing company re-dedicated to high-quality children's books, which we're strongly considering. These trends hit close to home: we're building foundations early because the data shows the stakes are high—not just for individuals, but for the shared knowledge, critical reasoning, and civic discourse that have sustained Western democratic traditions for centuries.


Key trends:


  1. Average Grade Level of Books Sold Now vs. 1950: Decline Toward Grade 5–7
    Bestsellers today often score 5th–7th grade on Flesch-Kincaid (many 4th–6th for broad appeal), with simpler sentences and vocabulary to match declining adult reading stamina. Mid-20th-century works frequently demanded more (closer to 7th–9th in analyses), reflecting a market shift toward accessibility amid falling literacy.
  2. Didactic vs. Non-Didactic vs. Classics: Effects on Brain Development
    Narrative-driven reading (non-didactic stories or classics) sustains broader brain activation—engaging language, empathy, memory, and connectivity regions more effectively than passive or overly didactic methods. Neuroscience shows immersive storytelling promotes neuroplasticity and deeper neural pathways, while fragmented/instructional approaches may limit sustained engagement and cognitive depth needed for complex literature.
  3. If Trends Continue: What Will Texts Look Like in the Future—4th Grade?
    Pleasure reading has plummeted ~40% over 20 years (daily readers from 28% peak in 2004 to 16% in 2023); adult literacy scores dropped sharply (many below 6th grade); NAEP reading scores remain at historic lows. Unchecked, popular texts could simplify to 4th-grade or lower: basic vocabulary, short sentences, reduced nuance—eroding space for sophisticated writing.


These declines threaten more than literacy: they undermine the foundations of Western civilization. Deep reading fosters critical thinking, empathy, and shared cultural references essential to informed citizenship and democratic debate. As reading wanes, societies risk shallower discourse, greater susceptibility to manipulation, weakened civic engagement, and a fraying of the reflective reasoning that has driven progress, innovation, and self-governance in the West.


This isn't inevitable. Writers and creators bring storytelling, imagination, and engagement that schools and early programs need most.


Call to Action: Get involved in schools and early education. Ask kids about the books you remember reading when you were a kid– The Oddyssey, Of Mice and Men, Leaves of Grass. Advocate for narrative-rich curricula, or support initiatives like ours in pre-K and charter settings.

Or send me an email, I'd love to chat.


When we relaunch our website in the summer, we'll have some exciting news. We have a lot of work to do-- and we're all learning from it.




Precious Metal Notes

Venturing into the Courage Gap, #1

By James Robinson • February 21, 2026
Pushing and Pulling The "push" connotes aggression whereas the "pull" connotes invitation. The "push" is a criticism, and the "pull" is coffee and advice at a nice cafe selected just for the advisee. Both are needed in different measures, at different times and often towards the same ends. In 2024, I engaged in a sabbatical to step back, read, study, think, and reflect about schools and leading through the pandemic. It was a very prolific period. However, what made it prolific was the "push"-- spending days reviewing data and learning to criticize the sector I worked in. The Courage Gap Talks document those learnings, in the most lo-fi way. They're ugly, but they inform the work and solutions we're imlpementing at the park, where our goal is to "pull" folks into a transformative educational envioronment. Originally, they were called "Career-Suicide Notebooks", the original plan being to walk away from education all together. Instead, what I learned will inform my work for years. It's been said that Buddhist monks can see the world in a grain of rice. After being immersed in education for several years, I see the world in a school ecosystem. Thus, schools enter my creative work and the way I think about creativity enters my work in schools. The first video is called 33% and it looks at the proficiency scores of 4th grade students on the NAEP Assessment. Additionally, it looks at the broad economy that works to maintain the status quo.

Lettuce Entertain You: Why Fluency Matters

By James Robinson • February 21, 2026
Lettuce Entertain You “Lettuce entertain you” is a classic line from an old reading assessment passage. When kids read it aloud, assessors listened for more than just smooth delivery—they hoped for laughter, or at least a chuckle, as a sign the pun landed. Too often, though, the reading was fluent but flat. No chuckle meant the joke flew right over their heads; students weren't picking up on the playful language. In one district, coaches and a principal were so eager for better results that they printed t-shirts featuring “Lettuce entertain you” with a cartoon head of lettuce. The goal? Prime students to spot the pun. It backfired into a perfect illustration of two broader lessons that apply far beyond reading: Fluency goes beyond word-calling and prosody—it's also about the fluency of ideas, vocabulary, and real understanding. Outcomes aren't a competition; chasing short-term wins can undermine genuine mastery. Fluency In reading instruction, we often emphasize how smoothly words flow from a student's mouth—rate, accuracy, expression. But we under-discuss the clearest marker of comprehension: real-time emotional responses. A laugh at a pun, a gasp at a twist, or a puzzled frown when something doesn't add up—these are the tells that a reader is truly processing and connecting with the text. Genre knowledge matters too. In a mystery or whodunit, fluent readers adjust tone for foreshadowing or suspense. True fluency integrates decoding, word knowledge, genre conventions, and quick comprehension. This isn't unique to reading. Fluency of ideas—the ability to recall and apply mounds of knowledge fluidly, under pressure, with little time to look things up—is a universal hallmark of expertise. A doctor in the ER doesn't have minutes to Google symptoms; they need instant recall of anatomy, pharmacology, differentials, and protocols to make life-saving calls. That's fluency in medical knowledge. A chef in a busy kitchen doesn't pause to consult recipes mid-service; they fluidly combine ingredients, techniques, flavors, and timing to plate perfect dishes under the heat of the line. That's fluency in culinary craft. An artist doesn't deliberate over every brushstroke in isolation; in flow state, they draw on a deep reservoir of techniques, composition principles, color theory, and intuition to create without hesitation. That's fluency in creative expression. States have experimented with measuring aspects of this in reading. Tennessee came close around 2020 with a foundational literacy fluency component on the TCAP ELA assessment (especially in Grade 2). It was a simple yet powerful timed task: students read short, grade-level statements and quickly marked YES or NO to indicate if each was true. In a minute or so, it gauged decoding speed, basic vocabulary, and instant comprehension—exposing gaps that many elementary programs overlook . See the snippet below: