READING TO LEARN

I must admit I’ve been a little taken aback by two articles I read recently about the trend for teachers to encourage “free reading” instead of even some books on a recommended reading list, especially in middle school. One article discussed the new metrics which a private company has developed in order to encourage kids to compete for points. One Harry Potter is worth three To Kill a Mockingbird.

I do believe that reading anything with pleasure has to precede learning to love reading. Stories come before novels; comics are good stories, so are movies and even some video games, just as songs come before poetry.

Nevertheless, why there should be any “all or nothing.” “classics or bestsellers,” in a classroom I have no idea. And giving 50 points to the child who reads three long bestsellers but fewer to a student who reads three short books by Jane Austen, Ernest Hemmingway, or J.D. Salinger makes no sense.

I don’t believe that we all have to read in lock step the same “classics” in order to be educated Americans. I do, however, think that John Grisham is more interesting when you have already read Harper Lee. Twilight should not replace The Telltale Heart. Lots of romance readers would agree having read Pride and Prejudice makes Sex in the City funnier.

Most importantly, I think that teachers should encourage students to read the books they find hard to read as well as the ones they read for fun. Thinking is often hard.

I taught Mrs. Dalloway twice to when I was a Freshman Comp Teaching Assistant at UCLA. I know that very few kids came away even liking Virginia Woolf as a result. But everyone of them was pleased with having learned to read a “hard” writer, and by virtue of having learned that, they were better writers too.

Learning that reading and writing require work but that hard work is also rewarded is the lesson that makes sitting in a classroom interesting, worthwhile, and valuable.

That tackling challenges is part of going to school, that’s what I’m afraid we may be losing. I know most people will not be “English majors,” much less professors, editors, or even teachers. Some will be watch more movies in a year than they read books in a decade. Some will spend more time coaching basketball or being volunteer EMS medics than they will reading.

But everyone needs to be able to tackle a challenge, and a good lesson in hw to do that is reading a book you do not know you will like; reading a book because people you like (assuming you don't hate all your teachers) tell you it’s a good book; reading a book because stories written in another time and place help us learn to live better in the here and now.

That's what I don't want to lose.