One of the things that I love most about the blogosphere is that the conversation never ends. We deepen understanding when we revisit and reflect on our words and they way in which they are heard by another. It is exciting to see how the conversation evolves as it journeys across and within Twitter, blogs, and face-to-face encounters. As Jeff Utech and Will Richardson describe, this is network literacy in action.
I have been closely watching the conversation that emerged from my Reading WITHOUT meaning series. Sara Bennett, author of The Case Against Homework and the passionate educators at The Camp Creek Blog has created quite a dialogue with their readers. As I explored the 150+ comments, many powerful themes jumped out to me:
Fear:
- This is my greatest fear. It happened this winter to my 7 year old.
- “While I haven't asked because I’m afraid of the answers I’ll get, I’d bet that my kids can’t stand reading. To them, reading can’t be fun. It’s just another pressure-packed opportunity to be assessed. There’s always a wrong answer when it comes to reading — and wrong answers never feel good.”
Concern:
- How can educators do a better job of nurturing curiosity, creativity and learning?
- There's that one little word in Angela's son's response that tips us off to the problem: do. As in, "I dream of the day when I will never have to do reading again." You don't *do* reading. You read. Unless someone has stolen reading from you and made it something to do for him or her. So sad!
Uncertainty:
- What do we do? More parents and teachers need to speak up on this, but how? Will the schools listen to our concerns?
Disconnect:
- The constant grading, testing, “reading comprehension strategy” nonsense is a million miles away from reading as the pleasurable, basic human activity it’s been for the last few centuries
- This seems all the more ironic considering that, in the UK, our right to allow our children to learn to love reading at their own pace (and learn to love learning for that matter) is about to be ripped away from us. I am left wondering how the evidence of repeated studies into how children learn can be ignored and called progress.
- It makes me think about something that happened with one of my son's closest friends last week. We were at the pool, and the little boy's father told him that he (the boy) knows what will happen: either he chooses to join the swim team and go to practice, or he sits with his father beside the pool and works on his reading. For 45 minutes. Well he doesn't want to swim on the team, so he has to work on his reading! This little boy has just turned four years old! And he has one of the gentlest families I know of. I could not believe it. They were using reading as a punishment!
Empathy:
- As a teacher, I understand both sides of this debate. I also think some of the people posting messages on here should be aware that (in my case) with 5 classes of 30-35 students (that’s over 150 students that I see every day for only about 48 minutes).. It seems that some of the people posting here are forgetting to look at things both ways. Yes, you want what’s best for YOUR student…but maybe you’re failing to consider the fact that that’s exactly what the teachers are trying to do…for ALL their students.
Passion:
- Hold me back!! One of my favorite soapboxes!! How mandated "excellence" and "accountability" is robbing kids of a love of reading! aka the Accelerated Reading test and the death of reading. Kids are forced to stay at a level of "points" that they [and the teacher] know they can "pass" the AR test for. Hence their interest level and their "testing" level end up out-of-whack and they hate reading "baby books" just to pass the damned test. No one bothers to teach them how to pass the test for "harder" more enjoyable books.Reading is also mandated for X amount of time. We've all sat there looking at a book and getting no where with it. We put it aside and it becomes a great read another day. This is not allowed. You must pick a book and stick with it during silent reading time. After all the big AR test is looming. You will never create readers by doing this to them. Kids who have not learned the love of reading by being read to are missing out on such a huge part of emotional development.It’s become a cliche, but more people need to reconsider how they think about education: Can you tell this is a hot subject for me!!
- Very Simply! We need to change the culture. The bottom line is not allowing arbitrary assignments with no basis in sound practice to hurt children’s curiosity and love of learning and reading. Like doctors, educators need to think seriously about their role and, first, do no harm.
I am encouraged and hopeful that dialogue like this will continue to move the issue to the forefront of the conversations about the future direction of reading and reading instruction. There is more to be said, so share your thoughts!
Photo on Flickr by DoBSoN77
Related Posts:
- Reading WITHOUT MEANING – Part 1 of 4
- Reading WITHOUT MEANING – Part 2 of 4
- Reading WITHOUT MEANING – Part 3 of 4
- Reading WITHOUT MEANING- Part 4 of 4
Reading WITHOUT Meaning – The entire series white paper can be downloaded here.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d652eda3-b83a-4ea7-af5f-2fe57d002d9d)
