Readicide

When I was 16 years old and a sophomore in high school I got in a horrible argument with a teacher. The topic of the argument was valid, but for now lets just say it wasn’t important. That week I had a counseling session with an assistant principle and I was moved to the only English class available. The class was clearly a much lower level course.

            Two things stood out to me about the course I had been moved to. First, We never had reading to do at home. We listened to Huck Finn on tape and rarely asked to write anything of any depth. Secondly, an entire week was devoted to “test taking skills” before the High School Graduation Qualification Exam (HSGQE). This week was devoted to ruling out bad test answers and trying to find clues in the text. I’m foggy on the details because my sixteen-year-old self could care less what these “low level” students were learning. One thing that is clear though, is that the most important thing to this teacher was the upcoming test. He sat at his desk while the book on tape played or he talked about the test. I really remember nothing else about him as a teacher.

            This is important because almost all the students in the class were victims of readicide. This teacher was making reading a chore. He made it so that students were looking for the answer and even if they didn’t have the answer that was okay if they had the skills to make a good guess. The diminutization of the importance of actually sitting down and reading is enormous in schools. Not only are we telling them they don’t have to, but some teachers are teaching them how to NOT READ!

            I end this post with a simple question. Why can an upper level student be handed seven interesting books and asked to chose one to their liking, while a lower level student is spoon-fed something they will inevitably hate since it’s delivery is fit for a 7 year old? Why do we not treat all students as capable readers with personality and opinion? “I only read books I got to choose in high school” is a common saying. Let us keep it that way.