The Power of Reading

 

The Power of Reading 

During my teaching career, I taught hundreds of students to read. Some dove in easily. Some waded in slowly, learning alphabet sounds, adding a few words, taking the plunge into easy-readers, finally arriving at the shore of chapter books — the holy grail of elementary school students. 

While teaching my students the mechanics of reading, I also taught them the joys and purposes of reading. We shared many adventures, real and imaginary, with picture books. We traveled the world with maps and stories of faraway places. We painted pictures in our minds through poetry. We journeyed back in time (and into the future) with historical texts and speculative fiction. We put on our imaginary white coats to become scientists, our hiking boots to climb mountains, our space suits to land on Mars, and our scuba gear to explore the bottom of the sea.

Joy and information are important reasons for reading but there was one more reason to read that I wanted to impress upon my students — the power to find out for yourself. 

In the distant past, few people could read. Information came from others whose agendas might benefit by keeping people in ignorance. People who don’t know their rights cannot ask for them. At one time in the United States, it was a crime to teach enslaved people to read. Enslavers had truths they would rather keep hidden. They engaged preachers who read passages from the Bible that seemed to condone slavery. Denying people the right to find out for themselves kept them enslaved.  

Booker T. Washington was born in 1856 when slaves were denied the right to read. Freed from bondage by the Emancipation Proclamation when he was nine years old, Booker wanted to read. In her picture book, More Than Anything Else,” Marie Bradby tells the story of Booker’s striving to learn to read while working from dawn to dark shoveling salt into barrels. Seeking out traveling teachers and books, Booker taught himself to read. He put his skills to good use, working his way through school and earning college degrees. He then founded schools to teach others to read and much more. 

When freed from the bondage of having to find out from others, new readers made great strides. Washington wrote: “The Negro worshipped books. We wanted books, more books. The larger the books were the better we like[d] them. We thought the mere possession and the mere handling and the mere worship of books was going, in some inexplicable way, to make great and strong and useful men of our race.” 

Being able to read gives people the right to find out for themselves. The agendas of others can no longer color what you learn. Reading frees you from pundits’ opinions, the narrowing of knowledge propaganda promotes, the spin of politicians, and entrapment by conspiracy theorists. Readers can check sources, research further, weigh information, and judge for themselves.

The ability to find out for yourself should not be wasted. If you can read, you can find out more. Reading makes people “great and strong and useful.” More than anything else, knowing how to read gives you power. Use your power well. 

Principles for Leading

 

Principles for Leading

During my teaching career, I had the privilege of mentoring student teachers leading them from learning about teaching to actually teaching children. After a classroom tour and explaining the curriculum and the needs of the students, we’d focus on the nitty-gritty of teaching. 

Teachers are leaders. Teaching is a big responsibility. 

I offered three guiding principles. 

1. Be worthy of respect. Model good values. Act with dignity. 

2. Plan all the way through. Be prepared for the unexpected. 

3. Maintain control. Plan for it. Never start something you can’t stop.

Teachers lead their students. No matter how exciting your lessons are, no matter how much your students love you (and they will) if a teacher forgets these three rules, the lesson of what it means to be a good student, a good citizen, and a good person will be lost. 

These rules came back to me during this election season. Leaders, like teachers, hold great responsibility. Are they worthy of respect? Do they model good values? Do they act with dignity? Leaders teach lessons. Do they plan them all the way through? Are they prepared for the unexpected? Leaders have control. Words spur people to action. Can they stop what they start? 

Responsible leaders earn the respect of their followers. Act with dignity. Think all the way through. Maintain control — of yourself and your followers. Teachers who fail in these three rules should not teach. Leaders who fail in these three rules should not lead.

Student teachers receive a grade that determines their teaching future. Our leaders must also be graded. Are they worthy of respect? Do they act responsibly? The grades we give them determine our future. 

Leading is a big responsibility. Following is a big responsibility. Think all the way through. Hold to your principles. Act with dignity. 

Little Pitchers

 

A reprint of an article from 1998 in memory of my dear Aunt Nina who joined our family in heaven this week.

Little Pitchers

October 1998

Scrambling to prepare a treat for my class, I asked my student-teacher to take the students to the lavatory while I continued to fill little paper cups with frosted cereal. As they exited, I lined up fifty cups and began to pour cereal. Rushing to finish before the children returned, I bumped one cup causing several others to spill over domino-style. 

“Oh, sugar,” I grumped aloud and then laughed at my apt curse at the little frosted Os. Just then, I heard a chair shuffle and looked up to so one student sitting in his seat.

Startled, I asked, “Whey didn’t you go to the bathroom with the class?” Well, it turned out that the student-teacher had sent him back early for some hall misbehavior. I went back to filling my cups giving silent thanks for having a clean mouth.

An old saying goes, “Little pitchers have big ears.” While I don’t know the origin of this saying, I do understand its meaning. Children learn by seeing and hearing what the adults around them do and say. A tragedy had been averted because my student did not hear an unsavory word come out of my mouth. No expletives to explain. Just an innocent child hearing a silly teacher wonder at her clumsiness.

A tragedy you say? How could a casual curse hurt a child? After all, “They hear worse every day on the bus.” Maybe they do, but they won’t hear it from me. Impolite speech hurts others. I am in the business of teaching children to help and encourage one another. I try to model these virtues at all times. It’s hard, but it helps.

Years ago, I began a “pick up what you didn’t drop” policy in my class. Having heard, “I didn’t drop it,” enough after asking students to pick up a piece of paper or a pencil, I modeled bending over and picking them up myself, subtly pointing out to students that I was picking up what I had not dropped. It worked. My students now happily pick up dropped items and return them. 

My aunt Nina taught high school students who had been removed from other classes for behavior issues. Aunt Nina (all 4’11 of her) commanded respect from those tough guys. I asked her how she did it. She explained that she always and everywhere remembered that she was the example of an upstanding citizen for her students to emulate. She acted the part of a no-nonsense, to-be-respected teacher everywhere she went too.

“It’s just as important to be respectable outside of school as inside,” she taught them. “Respect yourself and others will respect you.”

A parent’s life is a child’s guidebook. Our children watch us. They see what we do and hear what we say in all circumstances. They hear us curse out the inconsiderate driver. They see us drop trash on the sidewalk. They listen when we disparage our neighbors. And they learn, oh, how they learn. Just ride that bus.

No one is perfect. When we stumble in our roles as models, we can stop and tell our children that we are sorry. I have had to apologize many times for exercising my “jumping to conclusions,” muscles in class. But a sincere apology coming from someone you expect to do the right thing outweighs a compulsory, “Hey, I’m sorry,” from someone you’ve seen tripping over the same obstacles time and again.

Remember those little pitchers. Big eyes and ears are everywhere. 

Reviewed in 2022 in memory of Aunt Nina who was a model for us all. 

Respectable and respected her whole life.