Bad school memory- from light to heavy

Marian
Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:36:48 +0000

In the middle of fourth grade, I discovered the Childhoods of Famous Americans biography series in the school library. I took out a book from that series each week for the rest of the year. I missed the books over the summer (our public library didn’t have them), and I was greatly looking forward to the beginning of fifth grade, so that I could read the rest of the books in the series.

On our first trip to the school library in fifth grade, I eagerly brought my Childhoods of Famous Americans book to the check-out desk, only to be told that I was no longer allowed to take out those books. They were considered “too easy” for fifth graders; we were supposed to read books that were more of a challenge.

It’s hard to think of a better way in which a school could discourage a child’s genuine interest in reading.

I saw similar situations with my own kids throughout their school years. A child’s genuine enthusiasm for learning could be an asset to a teacher, yet often, such enthusiasm is discouraged because it doesn’t fit the “program.”

For my son, it wasn’t reading that was discouraged; it was writing. Toward the end of kindergarten, he had started to write things on his own initiative as part of everyday play, labeling his drawings and making little notes to himself on pieces of paper. Then his teacher insisted that he switch from the way he was holding a pencil to the “correct” position, which he found physically painful, and told him that he could not be promoted to first grade unless he made the switch. He switched, all right, because he didn’t want to repeat kindergarten, but it was more than two years before he wrote a single word outside of required school assignments.