The Private Diary of an Idealistic English Teacher

October 9, 2008

Articles, Nu Magazine - October 9, 2008

Note: The following document was obtained through subterfuge. Names have been removed to protect the innocent.

Dear Diary:

Today I spent the afternoon at Borders, picking out the summer reading for my classes. I am so excited — I think the two I chose have the right combination of categories: not too long but not too short; not too loaded down with literary elements that the kids won’t finish it; a fast-moving plot (perhaps even the threat of violence — they seem to enjoy that); and maybe even a genre of book, type of author, or time period under-represented in the texts we use throughout the year.

I remember an old mentor of mine once said, “our job as English teachers is to hook ’em — to get them to love just one book. Then we’ve got ’em.”

Sometimes it makes me sad to see the kids loaded down with those scoliosis-machines — otherwise known as backpacks — I know that with five subjects, plus a myriad of activities, many of them never experience the pleasure of hiding under the bedclothes with a flashlight, reading past their bedtimes.

I hope beyond hope that some of their parents have discovered that their days of reading aloud to their children do not have to be over — everyone loves to be read to, at any age! I worry that we are putting far too much emphasis on visual learning, and that listening to stories has become as commonplace to family life as cave-painting or hunting saber-toothed tigers.

Stories are at the heart of what it means to be human; we must increase the chance of kids finding that one book that will “hook ’em” by any means necessary.

Teachers cling to a sepia-toned image of bygone summers: our Northern-New-Jersey versions of Huck and Tom fishing barefoot.

We forget that today’s kids spend their summers zipping from international travel to community service to tutoring to sports camps to sleep-away camps, and therefore assign books that are lengthy, thinking kids have weeks on end filled with placid water and sunsets. I wish we could tell the kids that what we hope for them is that peace that can only be found in solitude, a great book, and unstructured free time.

Elizabeth H. Barbato teaches English at Newark Academy.