September
12, 2001
I
remember being in a 1st grade classroom when one of the students
came up to me and began telling me about a beautiful book he had just
read. As he returned the book to the
book table he told me that the story was so interesting that he would love to
read the book again. I told him that was OK and he could keep the book for as
long as he wanted. He said he couldn’t
do that because his parents expected him to read five new books every day and
that was only his second book of the day.
That
was a few years ago and I was hoping that the emphasis on how many books a
child reads would go away. But I don’t
think so. It seems like there is so
much more emphasis now on “how many” instead of “how well.”
School
personnel are feeling a tremendous pressure to produce numbers. And some schools are going to some very
silly extremes to encourage kids to read a lot of books and get the numbers up.
This
week in some school there is a surprise assembly program for the entire
school. And the kids have been promised
a mystery guest. And who comes out from
behind the curtains but their school principal. But something is very different.
This is not our dignified, respected principal. This is a man dressed in a clown suit with
his face painted and he is wearing those big floppy shoes. And when the kids find out that it really is
their principal, the kids go nuts.
When
the kids finally calm down, our principal tells the kids about the reason for
the assembly program. He talks about
his goal of getting the kids to read 10,000 books by the end of the school
year. And if the kids can do that he
will put his clown suit on again. And
to top it off, he will climb to the roof of the school library and jump into a
pool filled with jello and whipped cream.
And now the kids really go nuts.
And they are into this challenge.
Later
each teacher issues a goal for the number of books to be read in her
class. And at the end of each day the
tally is taken and the huge bar graph in the cafeteria is updated. And for the first few weeks the numbers are
pouring in. But as the novelty wears
off, the numbers begin to slow down. And
now we see some cracks in our plan.
One
teacher begins to talk with her students about the books they have read. She asks them if they have enjoyed the books
and they seem very cool about it. Then
she begins to ask them questions about the books and she is surprised to find
out that most of the kids can’t seem to remember much about the content of the
books.
But
I guess that’s not very important now. Quotas
need to be met. Numbers need to go up.
And we need to get a top rating for our school.
So
the numbers game goes on and that boy I spoke with in the first grade probably
has his quota doubled to keep up with the competition. And it looks like the time for reading for pleasure
and reading for enjoyment is about over.
And that’s so sad.
My
2 year-old granddaughter, Sarah, loves those Elmo books. And every time I visit she insists that we
sit down and read the same Elmo book in the same chair. We go over the same pages. We talk about the same pictures and she
points to all her favorite characters.
And
the next time we open the Elmo book nothing has changed. The same words and the same pictures are
right there again. And she loves it. She seems so happy to find her characters on
the same page doing the very same thing every time she opens the book.
After
reading that Elmo book so many times, it has become a friend to Sarah. When she enters school I hope she will be
allowed to take the time to develop some friendships with some special books. And not have to rush thru her books and worry
about the numbers game.
I
remember a few years ago I spent the summer reading only one book by Bruno
Bettleheim called “The Uses of Enchantment.”
It was so powerful. But it was
very deep so I had to constantly read and re-read the book to try to understand
it. At the end of the summer I was way
behind with my book numbers but I had learned so much from that one very special
book..
As
adults we are trying very hard to get our kids to read. And we usually tell them how important reading
is. But kids usually say that talk is cheap.
And the best way to show kids about the importance of reading is to read
ourselves. When kids see adults reading they will know that reading is so important
that even big people like to read.
I
remember when I used to visit Mr. Jim Burke’s first grade class at snack
time. The kids would be hanging out and
Jim would be having his snack and reading his newspaper. And when I chatted
with him a lot of the time we would talk about something he had just read in
his newspaper. The kids saw Jim read his
newspaper every day for 180 days. And the
kids saw us going over some of the interesting stories in that newspaper.
And I think Jim really encouraged his kids to read by reading his newspaper every day –even more than someone dressed as a clown jumping off the school library roof into a bowl of jello.