On Reading

Good morning all,

I hope you're all cozy and warm, safe from the snowstorm which is changing to an ice storm in the Northeast.  I'm currently reading a book called "World Without Mind" by Franklin Foer.  It was a choice for my  book club, which frequently picks books I wouldn't otherwise try, and provides an academic outlet for me in times when I can't or won't take college classes. 

Finding good books used to be really difficult for me, as I sort of dropped off the reading for pleasure radar around 8th grade.  I became a 3 season athlete in high school, taking all the hardest courses with no study halls, and reading all the books my teachers mandated I read.  Before that, I was a bookish, nerdy middle school kid with a thirst for anything fantasy.  I loved the dragonlance series, and before that the Mossflower and Redwall series, and before that Rhoald Dahl and Shel Silverstein.  I was extremely fortunate in having my Aunt Gail, who worked in an elementary school, and loved to find new books for me to read at all of her book fairs.  My parents, grandparents, and others in my life always encouraged me to read, so I kept doing so.

However, once I started reading only what was assigned, because I didn't have time to do otherwise, I stopped reading for pleasure.  I spent my whole high school career reading things other people told me to read, and consequently losing much of the joy in it.  My teachers didn't make bad recommendations - I just didn't choose them, so I read them because I had to, not because I wanted to. 

In college, I remember one of my most rebellious acts.  I skipped a class I didn't feel like going to, and read George Orwell's 1984 cover to cover in one sitting.  Later, I figured out what it cost per class to go to Bates, and I never skipped another class.  However, the joy of reading resurfaced in my soul, and I started picking books I wanted to read again, and choosing classes based upon reading lists I liked and topics I enjoyed reading about.  I read all of Steven King's books, because my library had them and they were based in Maine, close to my college.  I remember "The Fog" being especially chilling as we took a trip to a foggy storage unit shortly thereafter, and it took place in the neighboring town.

For my students, I always try to foment in them a love for reading.  It's anathema to their natural impulses, but we have a Tempus Legendo period every day, which encourages them to read for about a half hour every day.  It is supposed to be pleasure reading, with no homework to be done, no reading for classes, no cell phones out, etc.  The only way I accomplish this is with strict oversight, which sort of defeats the purpose.  In the first place, I can't read myself because I have to enforce their reading, and in the second place, they usually only pretend to read a book to keep me from bothering them. 

It's a difficult philosophical problem - how to make someone love to do something.  I try to curate my classroom library such that there are things that are of their lexile level and interest, but I find it hard to do.  Whenever my teachers in high school asked me to read something, I did it, but not because I loved it.  Rather, I did it because there would be a test.  How, as an educator, can I approach this in such a way as to help students find the love of reading that I have rediscovered as a college student and been lucky enough to keep as an adult?  I can, and do model it, but they don't want to be like me when they grow up (or they'd never admit that to their peers).  I can grade it, which I've done in the past, but this is artificial and keeps me from reading myself.  I can ask them what they care about and give them books I think they'd like.  This has been by far the most effective method. 

I suppose the best thing I have done is to share my story with the students I teach.  Sometimes they recognize themselves in the above - especially the overachievers.  They are fluent in the ways of success, and sometimes success means the choice to read what is required instead of what is desired.  I hope that I can do both throughout my life, and inspire others to do the same.

Happy Reading!

~Mark