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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (46140)	7/20/1999 12:18:00 AM
From: Edwarda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Christine, I have said it repeatedly before here, so I shall refrain from going through the whole rigmarole again: Children who grow up in a household where reading good books is a normal way of life are miles ahead in learning to read and learning to love reading. My mother took me to the library when I was "too young" to have a library card, even though I could sign one, and took out books that she enjoyed as a girl. All of Louisa May Alcott, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and L.M. Montgomery; "Treasure Island" and all of the "color" fairy books; loads of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and those lousy Bobbsey Twins; lots of geography and "Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare" and even some Bulfinch--I had read this stuff before I walked into the first-grade classroom. "See Spot run. Run, Spot, run." could not break the joy I had already learned. The Jesuits were onto something when they said, if you can get a child before he/she is seven, you have a chance to set the mold of the life. I don't have any experience with the current pre-pre-pre-school world, not having any young children of my own. I am getting mixed reports from the parents who are friends. However, I do know that my parents made all the difference in making "reading more joyous and meaningful," in creating a hunger for reading, as you put it. They read a great deal and obviously enjoyed it. The place was full of books, from the classics to fun mysteries. It was their obvious pleasure that made me want to read and want to learn as early as I did.

To: Grainne who wrote (46140)	7/20/1999 12:21:00 AM
From: jbe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Well, that SOUNDS like a more democratic approach, Christine, but I think it really works out to be the opposite. Let me tell you a story from my own experience. I once attended -- very briefly -- a public school near Oneonta, New York. It was farming country at the time, and although the students struck me as basically bright enough, no more than one or two of them per year went on to college. So somebody, somewhere, decided not to educate them "beyond their station." All they (we) were given to read in English class was The Saturday Evening Post. I was outraged, needless to say. I felt the students were getting a really raw deal. And to my mind, educating "down" to disadvantaged students is a raw deal for them, in the long run. (I am assuming -- perhaps wrongly -- that when you speak of "blacks" and "browns," you mean disadvantaged students.) My own solution to the problem, I have to admit, would not be acceptable to most people in this country. It would be to commit as many of our resources as possible (including, yes, taxpayers' money) to schools that the disadvantaged attend. The best teachers should be attracted, and given the highest salaries. There should be all kinds of extra free after-school "enrichment" programs. This should be a major national effort. I know; it is not going to happen. We'd rather pour the money into jails. But I think that it should happen, because it would benefit society as a whole. On another point: I am surprised that you think all the "classics" were written by dead Europeans. I was under the impression that quite a few dead Chinese, Japanese, etc. had produced "classics," too. And they are generally included in World Literature courses. But if you have no guiding principle at all of selection, you will not be providing your students with the "road map" I spoke of in my last post. In other words, once you have awakened the love of reading in your students, I feel you owe it to them to give them some sort of map to help guide them through the vast and often confusing World of Literature out there, once they are out of your class. Joan