Ok, fellow professors, time to talk about the reading load issue.

Buckle up, take a chair and sit down because this is going to be a bit of tough love.

I started in the education field at a very young age. I was 11 (eleven) when I began tutoring adults.

My Mom, my Dad, my brothers, my auntie, my cousin, my niece... we all belong to the education guild. Several professors in the family.

I have argued before about REDUCING the reading load rather than increasing it or maintaining it, precisely because we are in the midst of a pandemic.

We all have opinions, and I have seen some contrary to my view.

That's just fine.

I use Twitter to express my opinions.

I am aware that we live in an era of a deluge of information. I love reading, and I read A LOT (books, articles, etc.).

I *do* agree that school (undergraduate and graduate) is useful in helping us develop reading skills that allow us to absorb a lot of info rather quickly.

My website is CHOCK FULL with strategies to read http://www.raulpacheco.org/resources/reading-strategies/

I even developed a few specific to undergraduates http://www.raulpacheco.org/resources/resources-for-undergraduate-students/reading-strategies-for-undergraduates/

HOWEVER, I remain unconvinced that we MUST assign the same volume of readings as we would in non-pandemic times.

I am also NOT a fan of books on "how to read strategically" that are ALMOST 400 PAGES LONG. Adler and Van Doren's book is one of the best and it's over 350 pages long. It's going to take my students forever and 3 months to finish reading A&VD http://www.raulpacheco.org/2019/08/how-to-read-a-book-the-classic-guide-to-intelligent-reading-adler-van-doren-my-reading-notes/

There's one element that a lot of you all y'all are NOT considering:

There are COMPETING DEMANDS on the time and attention of our students.

I am sure every student would love to be able to calmly sit down and read the 400 pages you assigned per class.

They probably can't.

Forget about poor internet access, lack of a quiet space to read/work/write. Their own health and that of their loved ones may potentially take a hit with COVID-19.

I very, very, very strongly believe this is a time to extend grace.

I'm still going to offer strategies...

... and provide a reading list that will look *almost like* pre-pandemic times. But I'm going to be very clear in saying "you'll benefit from reading EVERYTHING at some point when you can, but the key reading that I think you need to do is THIS ONE".

Strategic, smart reading.

I think that given the state of *gestures broadly and waves hands around* all of the sh*t we are all going through, we can be rigorous and teach well, providing structure, challenge and a learning experience that doesn't have a deleterious effect on our students' health (or ours)

I want to end by reminding us all that these are times of pain, uncertainty, stress and worry.

Let's all try to make academia and higher education more human and humane. We are, after all, only human.

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