Not everything going on in our nation's classrooms is missing the mark. Read this post from a teacher we work with in the Kansas City, Mo., area, about how she's helping her high school students develop the reading skills they'll need in the real world. What's making this work is that she's letting kids choose to read across the curriculum in subject areas they enjoy. Sad that kids have been conditioned to believe they can't learn AND enjoy it at the same time.
This is the kind of thing I'd love to see more teachers doing. Why? 1) Kids are learning AND experiencing success with reading and 2) because non-fiction is what most of us read at work and yet it's woefully under-represented in school.
by Suzanne Forman
As part of our non-fiction stuff this semester I brought in six NCAA football coaches' contracts. All the boys thought that was the coolest thing; everyone seemed to enjoy actually reading something "real". That's what they said: the contract was real, not like reading articles or biographies or editorials. When I asked them what those things were, they said "fluffy". It was a very interesting conversation.
In their history class they're heading towards WWII, so today I read to them from "Farewell to Manzanar" about Japanese internment camps and then they read a couple journals from Japanese internees. They didn't know anything like that had happened in the US.
So then I asked them if those pieces were real or fluff. They said real, but it's history stuff and that doesn't really count because we read something that linked to what they were doing in history. Come hell or high water I'm going to get them to see how it's all connected.
This semester I asked that they start off with a non-fiction book. I think 80% of them had never read a non-fiction book. Our library has a HUGE non-fiction section there isn't a subject or person they don't have a book on - we spent forever in the library with they looked for a book. They shared today and I think they were surprised how much they are "getting into" their books. As we were leaving on of my boys, who really struggles came up to me and said, "Mrs. Forman, you tricked us."
"What do you mean Jay?"
"Well, we aren't just reading, we're learning stuff too and that's not fair."
"What's not fair?"
"Well, Courtney is learning about inter-racial relationships, you know she's dating Zach, and JP is learning a lot about that Crips leader. Tasha is all happy about learning about emotions. Everyone's learning something. But you didn't tell us that would happen. That's not fair."
"Jay, are you learning something?"
"Oh yea!" he said. Then he talked about all this mythology stuff.
It's been fun!
Steve Peha says:
As she does so well, Suzanne is challenging her kids' assumptions about reading in school and leading them slowly but surely to important realizations about the value of reading in their lives. Her kids are natural learners, of course; they all have things they want to know more about. But the traditional approach to reading that they've been exposed to has left them with some strange attitudes about non-fiction. Fortunately, Suzanne is helping them stumble into the simple reality that reading non-fiction is a great way to learn more about things you actually want to learn about. As we have seen time and time again, giving kids the choice to read what interests them is the key to reshaping their values around reading. When we take away kids' choices, we take away their sense of purpose, we take away their desire, and we take away their interest in anything we might want them to learn.
Posted by: teachingthatmakessense | January 14, 2008 at 10:41 PM