Good Readers

The following isn't really about teaching, but I would be remiss if I as an English teacher didn't at least once talk about reading.

Lately, I have been daydreaming about opening a tutoring center. Just me. In a house down the street and to the right. It's blue. I was thinking about teaching kids how to read properly. I don't mean how to read properly, like, "See Spot run." No, no, no, I mean, like translate Shakespeare and Tolstoy, and understand their context. But then, I don't know that parents would want to pay me just to let their kids read in cozy corners, they can do that at a library. But they don't. It's just, you know, parents sometimes already pay the stores in the mall for their kids so why should paying me to teach their kids to read a bad way to spend your money.

Because reading isn't passive. Reading consumes (or should consume) a person's entire being.

Reading won't develop your biceps any time soon (unless you're bench-pressing encyclopedias), please don't expect them to, but the ability to read well doesn't mean you can read 950 words a minute, or can discover the solution 30 pages before; the ability to read well, however, does mean that no matter what you read you allow yourself to be challenged by its theories, themes, conclusions, insights; etc.

Good readers appreciate a good plot, but crave a challenge, a statement, a purpose that requires more than me just turning the page. Good readers don't just want to find out what's next, they want to participate in what happens next for more than just experience, but for empathy. In books they may come across ogres, but in real life they'll be prepared to meet bullies.

Of course, all this has been said, but I should like to keep saying it: read, and read well.




Here's the teaching (-ish) bit!

Though I enjoy teaching English grammar (some phonetics), and literature, sometimes I feel those things futile when I don't have enough time to tell my students to use the tools I give them to read well because, I'll just be honest, having the tools to write and read well is very different from actually using those tools. Sure, I want them to know the difference between a question and a statement; sarcasm versus sincerity; a noun and an adverb; passive and active voice,, but if only there were an explicit, easy way to connect the two seemingly separate things.

Why should they be separate?! Working out is a vital part of any sports game, right? So why isn't the homework and in-class assignment I assign a vital part? Oh, that's right...because our educational system is more screwy than helpful. Man, I really need to learn how to make the system work for me.