The Reading Experience

I feel like my students are missing the reading experience. I just finished reading Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler's Life Lessons, and I feel a bit transformed, renewed and refreshed. Something is different about me because I have read this book.

Are our kids getting that?

I admit that I am worried about what's happening in our classrooms. I don't often see the "look." The look that you have when an ending has left you in pieces. When the main character has failed you and ripped out a piece of your heart. When you suddenly realize that the plot has forced you to look at yourself, and you feel reprimanded, challenged, exposed...

What happened to that kind of reading?

Have we allowed mediocre passage review and surface reading skills teaching to remove the whole of experiencing reading?

Are we afraid to horrify our children, to shock them, to rebuke them, to expose them?

Yes, we want them to experience reading for entertainment. However, the power of reading is being able to observe the need for change, learn from the past and make necessary changes.

What happened to us teaching reading as reflection, as introspection?

I have made it my goal to return the reading experience to my classes, the discovery of truth, the uncovering of social ills, the reality of life.

Perhaps when we teach our children the importance of knowing what is in print, they will understand more how abstract choices become concrete realities.

There is a record of foolishness behind us. There is no reason to repeat such idiocy in the present.