Why kids don't like to read, and what I hope I'm doing about it...

I'm not going to rant today. I'm not. 

What I am going to do is tell you about my Brit Lit class again. They are rocking through Julius Caesar with few hesitations. There are only six students, but among them (and with me included) we are managing the large cast of characters pretty well. I'm really proud of them, actually. They are sophomores-- usually pretty goofy, sometimes serious, and so willing to give this their best effort. I've missed teaching both Brit Lit and sophomores! This is the fourth Shakespeare play in a series that we've worked with, and while that tends to go against what every other dang teacher does, I think it's great. It's also necessary. We watched two and now we've read through two; one common theme among the plays is the nature of leadership, but I don't want to run to the pedantic, at least not that much. I want the kids to enjoy the plays. That's a goal, right? Not everything has to serve a purpose that is entirely dry and defensible. 

And I think they are enjoying the plays now. They were leery at first, mostly due to language barriers: the not knowing how to say the words is a real stumbling block, and the blank verse can be a challenge at times. But as one of the kids said to me, doing several plays in a row makes it easier-- this total immersion approach works wonders. The language is now familiar, the stock characters and common themes emerge, and wow! The play's the thing! (Okay, that's from Hamlet, but you know what I mean.)

They do see why these plays are timeless, too, which has been my "academic" focus. But to be honest, I just want them to enjoy them. Where did that go, in modern schooling? I mean, the enjoying of things? Why does everything seem to have to fit a competency, a test, a practical purpose? While what I'm doing does, in fact, fit those requirements, it's not how I approach the work. I know I'm right. Thirty-six plus years of working with literature, writing, and students gives me a bit of credibility, and I'm cashing in on it. 

I'm not a huge fan of making everything in the classroom a game-- sometimes, you have to work at things, to engage in a serious, academic manner. But a play is entertainment; it is so weird, really, to have inserted plays into the capital-C Canon, and to have forced them to be something they were not intended to be. If you really think about it, the only literature that was ever meant to "teach" are documents and sermons. Ewww. Anything else we use in the classroom has a different-- and more personal (higher?) purpose. It feels disrespectful to suck the life out of a piece of writing that reflects someone's inner thoughts and hack it up into testable bits. 

I don't make lists of vocabulary, or give questions that have facile answers, or make a chart of characters to match to their descriptions. I certainly don't make crossword puzzles for literature we study. All of that demeans the work. We read, we talk, we re-read, we make connections. I want the kids to see what's great about what we are reading, to see how those things fit with other works, and to --I hope-- carry this curiosity forward with them into their own personal reading. IF they read outside of school-- by the time I get kids in the classroom, almost all of them have stopped reading for pleasure. I suspect the reason is that they were schooled out of it. I want to give it back to them. 

Have a good day, and grab a book to read (and the kids tell me they don't really like audio books, either-- they prefer a physical one!)--

C