It's a sensitive topic for me, an English teacher. I get sick to my stomach when I hear people say that they hate to read because of what they were forced to swallow (read) and spit back out (write) in school. Sometimes, the fault lies with the parental example or with peer pressure and the stigma of bookworms. Unfortunately, some struggled and were never helped...and who wants to keep doing something that is difficult and seemingly pointless?...
As a new teacher, I taught standards and tested plot and themes--and probably filled some precious minds with material they quickly flushed out afterward. For that, I am sorry. As I matured in my thinking and in my teaching methods, I began to teach why we study literature and how to read independently. This change in my focus yielded a different type of classroom--and hopefully a different type of student too: one that loves literature. Even if not every student loves to read, each one should respect it after having sat under a teacher's instruction. If not, that teacher has failed, regardless of the test scores.
Here are a few articles that deal with the positives of reading fiction. You can certainly google more.
- Why Read Fiction? in Psychology Today
- Why Christians Should Read Fiction
- Why Read Fiction? (And How?)
Possibly, I will outline my reasons for reading, critiquing, teaching, and writing fiction in a later post...but my focus here is the failure of teachers and parents to allow young eyes to see beauty, young ears to hear rhythm, young hearts to feel passion, young minds to consider truth. This is art; this is literature. How dare teachers toss it about as blah blah blah. How shameful that some educators don't consider the weight of their actions--the impact of a lackadaisical approach to a lifelong skill.
I am sad for those who are grown and feel there is no value in reading. And while I believe it's never too late, it's a giant challenge to change how one learns: the fundamentals, the essentials, the basics, the classics.
