I think we frequently label kids -- especially boys -- as "hating to read."
It's kind of like assuming a kid "hates to eat" because he doesn't like brussels sprouts.
Kids naturally do love to read. Remember how exciting it was when you first started reading words and turning pages on your own? Remember the thrill of those three-word-long sentences?
If you're a parent, chances are, you can also remember how your own kids came home from school -- thrilled to be carrying a little, frayed, Golden Book (or some such thing) that they could read on their own; and how proud they were to show off the rickety first words they could scrawl?
Kids do love reading (and writing).
So why do kids (boys, especially) come to "hate" reading and writing when they get into their teens?
Here's why:
SCHOOL MENU:
BREAKFAST - BRUSSELS SPROUTS
LUNCH - BRUSSELS SPROUTS
DINNER - BRUSSELS SPROUTS
Ah... variety.
But brussels sprouts are good for you. And we know what kinds of things are "good for you" to read, too.
There are no more choices for kids in schools. We've taken them away. We're even beginning to take away choices for kids at universities (yes, I'm talking about YOU, SUNY).
There are lots of reasons why this is happening, prominent among them financial concerns, but the result is that we end up compressing all our brilliant young minds into the center -- creating a mass of uncreative, uninspired mediocrity.
Kids do love to read, and write, and be creative. And I can prove it.
But it's a secret that schools don't want anyone to talk about.
7 comments:
So, what's the solution?
Oh, there are lots of things we can do.
If we look at education as a business, it is painfully clear that the focus of outraged attention has most recently been on teachers. But that's like blaming assembly-line workers at GM for the company going bankrupt.
We need to get rid of the all-powerful educational-managerial structures and data-driven centralized standardization that lump all our kids into the mindless middle -- in the holy name of increased efficiency and accountability.
We need to give kids choices again (especially boys, when it comes to reading).
They're trying to kill creativity and wonder in kids at school. It may not be intentional, but it is definitely the result with all this hand-wringing about staying ahead of China, or whatever the latest goblin happens to be.
I've written a lot of articles about literacy among teens and boys specifically, and I'll be revisiting some of those thoughts over the coming week.
Andrew:
Have you watched this?
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/modernizing-education/
Its more than having more choices in the schools and I think that's really important. Reading and caring HAVE to start in the home.
Don't forget we need to educate parents - which unfortunately seems impossible. I can't tell you how many of my kids I tutor have no input or help at home and above all the parents don't care. Over half of my students tell me their parents have no interest in their homework or how they perform in school. One student actually told me his parents and siblings continue to tell him he's stupid. And before you can ask, no I'm not working in a inner city school but out in the suburbs, where the yards are manicured and the picture looks pretty. I blame selfish parents.
If we can't grab the attention of children with the desire of reading while they are in elementary school and nurture them through middle school then we have possibly forever lost readers by their teen years.
Yes. It is brilliant.
I'd also like to add a scary thing that a lot of people don't know, or don't pay attention to, that Sir Ken touches on briefly: All this we hear nowadays about schools' performance, indexes like "API" or "AYP" or "school report cards -- all these scores emphasize what is done to bring the lowest-achieving kids into the not-so-low categories.
Let me say that again: ALL school accountability and performance figures focus almost exclusively on the lowest-achieving kids.
The result is that mid-level managers (those completely worthless cogs-in-the-wheel we nicely call administrators), whose job performance reviews begin and end with test results, only care about making the score.
The result is that schools DO NOT CARE about the top-achieving, most creative, most curious kids (like Jake, for example).
They only care about making their score.
And their score depends entirely on compressing every child into the middle.
Connie,
The sad truth is that it doesn't have to always come back to home and the parents. Sure, the role of the parent can be monumentally significant in a kid's life and the development of their creative and inquisitive intellect.
But schools can do better. Right now, though, schools are being destroyed by this mindless, non-creative regimentation that people have bought into simply because it's data-driven and has a (Yay!!!) NUMERICAL SCORE attached to it.
The casualties involved are all our children.
On a positive note I will set the balloons off for Mason's 3rd grade teacher. Beside having to worry about if and how many will do well on the standardize test this year she has taken the "normal" plain just list your book title 3rd grade reading log and expanded it so the students have to write a short summary about the book - their like or dislike, give us something exciting about it kind of thing and each 9 weeks the student has a Bluebonnet project to complete. Mason is making a book poster for his project. I really wanted to make a mini commercial with him "selling" the book to his brother to read but due to his shyness he won't go along with that idea ... this time. ;)
She believes in the idea of children reading and doing things different in class. One of the many reasons I requested her for him.
I'm harder on the parents of the children at our school because we have an extraordinary librarian (and teachers) that go out of their way to get the kids excited about reading. This year our library is a kingdom equiped with a castle and many days you will see her highness with a crown and cape on so students may read to the queen and be part of the Royal Readers.
You would like her - she gave me The Marbury Lens.
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