Prompt: Do you believe the education system needs to change its approach to teaching reading and literature to students?
This is a tricky one. I don’t remember being taught to read, really, because it was an unspecified amount of (a lot of) time ago. I do feel like reading was always a chore, always something that we had to do for our edification, not something that was really presented to us as something that was wonderful and that we could love doing. Luckily I found a love of reading outside of school – my parents both read a lot, particularly my mom, and I spent a lot of time at the library exploring the books and finding a quiet corner to look through a stack that was probably as tall as I was.
I hope that how reading is taught and presented in school nowadays has already changed. I know when my kid was in kindergarten it seemed like there was enthusiasm for reading, and there were some great books that came home from the school library. I know that there is a benefit to reading classic literature, and that sometimes we don’t pick it up by choice and might miss out without assigned reading. But I think there are ways to make this less rote and dull. Shakespeare could be taught by reading, yes, but also comparing classic and contemporary films based on his works. Poetry could be taught using song and rap lyrics – even making use of the quizzes where you try to figure out if an excerpt is from a classic poet or hip hop could make it very interesting. And I think there should be space for kids to make choices. Give them an assignment that has them reading a classic book, but let them choose which one based on their own interests. Open up the curriculum to contemporary books – books about racism, disability, identity – there are so many important issues that are being written about for younger audiences now, and they’re a wonderful way for kids and teens to find books that relate to things they’re going through, to open up discussion, and to help them find books that will make them want to keep reading.
So yeah, I think how reading is taught needs to be different from how it was when I was a kid, because I’d like more people to grow up thinking of reading as something that offers new ways of looking at the world and a way to understand the things you’re going through by seeing how characters in books deal with them. It can help us understand what life is like for people who are different from us, but also gives us a way to escape our day-to-day reality and expand the scope of our imaginary landscape. It’s magic, pure and simple.
What about you guys? Do you feel like reading wasn’t taught to you in a way that made it fun when you were at school? For those of you who work in schools or have/work with kids, do you feel like this has changed since you were in school?
The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly blog link-up that gives participants a different book-related question to ponder each week, and allows them to share their thoughts, find new blogs to follow and connect with new readers. The Hop was originally created by Jennifer at Crazy for Books and is now hosted by Billy at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. To see a list of upcoming prompts go here.