by Roshan Richards

Created on: September 16, 2008

"I hate reading." Man, if I had a quarter for every time I heard that in the few short years I was a secondary English and At-Risk youth teacher, I could have retired after two. Yet, I understand why the myriads of teenagers, from all walks of life, are making this their mantra. I get it. What do you expect the reaction to be when so much of the educational system serves reading up like over-boiled broccoli with no butter or salt? Too many teenagers don't read regularly simply because reading has not been presented to them in an appetizing manner so they have not learned to love it.

At the risk of turning this article into a rant about the foibles of our of nation's educational system, it is one of the legitimate concerns here. I keenly remember sitting in a college classroom and being instructed briefly on the crisis our nation is facing due to our children not reading, and then in the next breath being given directions on the extra education (and money) it would require for me to get endorsed just to teach a class that had the word "reading" in the title. I agree with needing additional education to teach those students who have disabilities in reading, but I also thought that simply having a class which exposed students to all of the wonderful types of writings that are out there and letting them choose what piqued their interest would be a good way to foster a "life-long love of reading," which type of class also happens falls under that special endorsement. I guess it is supposed to be hard. Silly me.

Fast forward a few years to when I am an English and At-Risk teacher. The school has a mandatory 15-minute reading break every day, called "free-reading time." One of the students whips out a comic book during the scheduled read-fest, and another English teacher promptly walks up and tells him to put the comic book away as "it is not suitable reading material." Never mind that 15 minutes is a cruel amount of time to require one to read, as you can rarely get thoroughly enough involved in a plot to make it worthwhile, and if you are lucky enough to do that anyway, you wouldn't want to because you only have 15 minutes! The main concern here, however, is who is to say what is appropriate reading. Granted, comic books are not War and Peace. I personally would prefer to have everyone well versed in James Henry and Shakespeare, but to say that my genre of literature is more appropriate than another's is close-minded and proud, especially when dealing with "free-reading

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>