When Jared joined the English department at our school nearly six years ago, little did I know that this young man only a few years out of graduate school would change the way I taught and the way I looked at learning overall. Jared is small framed and an admitted introvert. He is not one to raise his voice to his students or in a heated staff meeting. Rather, he has a way introducing a possibility then walking away and patiently waiting for the idea to catch, much the way people supposedly put out mousetraps and cheese (I have never seen such a thing, but they were in all the old cartoons, hence it must be true).
On more than one occasion, Jared would slide a book across a table to me and ask, “Have you ever read this? It is by a educator for whom I have a great deal of respect.” At first, I would leave the “cheese,” telling myself that I did not have time to hear one more educator telling me that students need to read more. After all, I was shoveling as many literary classics at my students as possible. You know, the kind of books that teenagers can’t help but get excited about like Shakespeare and Chaucer: really easily understood and relatable stuff.
Jared started me out with the philosophy of Kelly Gallagher, his personal guru. In his book, Readicide, Gallagher pointed a finger at the well-intentioned, literature loving teacher who assigned those books by long dead white guys who believed that if they had to read them for class, well, then, the rest would take care of itself. The result was that the students instead read the Sparknotes (21st century version of Cliff Notes. Cliff moved on to protein bars?) or did not read at all. Worse yet, they learned that all reading was a torturous, tedious exercise better left to masochists without smartphones. Instagram is much more interesting and is designed to eliminate verbosity (and deep thinking).
Gallagher and his protégés, such as Penny Kittle (Book Love, Write Beside Them), suggested that students need to read about things that interest them, at a level that is appropriate to them personally, and that every student will read if given the “right” book. Teach them to love reading and they will eventually find their way back to the books that change lives, maybe those books will be classics.
Jared converted me. Not that I needed to be convinced that reading is important. Most folks will easily buy into the logic that a poor reader will struggle with all subjects, not the least of which writing. What shook me were the dire consequences of unintentionally killing the love of reading in young people (hence the title, Readicide). Reading creates empathy for people who have different life experiences than we do. It reminds us that we are not the only ones to feel a certain way or endure a specific thing. People argue that the Internet makes the world smaller because it brings together people of similar interests and beliefs. I suggest that books make the world smaller because it brings together human beings of vastly different interests and beliefs. In a world of billions, which is more plentiful?
In the midst of Jared’s quiet English department revolution, he declared that because our school had virtually no library and the books that the “tech lab” did have were doing little more than muffling the sounds of keyboard chatter, that he was going to start his own classroom library. His research told him that all students should have close access to the kind of books that they want to read. A book that is only an arms length away is much more likely to be picked up than one that is behind the closed door of a far away room. Within two years, both of our classrooms contained IKEA shelves, bearing the bound fruits of library book sales and parent donations.
This shift also rekindled my own love of reading (and writing, hence this blog). The way that avid reading creates a web of discussion fascinates me. One book references another book or writer, so we might seek out that book or essay. We happen upon a topic that gets a grip on us, so we read everything by a certain author or related to that subject, making ourselves de facto experts. It may even be many years or books down the proverbial road before we stumble upon the connection.
D. Watkins is a native of East Baltimore. He escaped violence, drugs and prison, becoming a teacher and writer, more importantly a voice for his community. One of the essays in his collection, The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America, contains an essay entitled, My Neighborhood Revolution. D. Watkins’ revolution is the very same revolution that Jared is fighting, albeit in a much more dire situation. His college students tell him that reading is boring too, but when he provides the “right material” they read and they change.
Watkins states “I know that literacy plays a key role in communication, and our failure to communicate is evident in the crowded jails, the trash pigeon wings we eat, the multiple police shootings and the many racial divides in America in general.” We do not have a problem in this country with telling people what we think (the internet is likely the greatest medium known to mankind for expressing unsupported opinions). We do have a problem speaking in an informed, intellectual and sensitive manner about other people’s experiences. The best (but not the only) solution to that problem is reading. In the last sentence of the essay, Watkins opines, “if we can help create readers, and writers, thinkers will be birthed, people will be better communicators, social relation will enhance drastically, and [Baltimore] will be a less violent place.” Sounds like a plan, Mr. Watkins. Sounds like a plan.
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