Chapter Five: Jennifer Bull

Saving Face?

I am a reader. A fast reader. A voracious reader. In fact, I used to sneak books into the bathroom because that was the one place I felt that my mother would not hurry me away from my books. She tells stories of having to hide books from me before summer vacation so I would not read them all before our beach trip. Even now, there are stacks of books on my bedside table because I just need to know about things.

I thought everyone was like me - with a thirst for knowledge that could only be quenched by reading the words on a (or several hundred) page(s).

Honestly, how naive am I? I have assumed, pretty much most of my life, that everyone loved to read and that those who didn't were just lazy. It took getting into the classroom to discover that some people really aren't readers and that (worse! gasp!) some people hate reading. In Readicide, Kelly Gallagher explains why.

We are failing our students. We, the very adults entrusted with inspiring a lifelong passion for learning, are failing to teach exactly what we want productive students to do: be deep, insightful, eager readers who can make connections between subjects and can use that knowledge to creatively solve the world's problems. We say it's because the kids don't want to learn. We say it's because they have too much going on. We say it's because our kids are apathetic, they've given up, or they're just plain dumb. But really we've failed them. Why? We're saving face.

Let me take an aside here and say that the "we" I'm talking about is not just the teachers in the classrooms. I'm mostly talking about the policy-makers, the ones who decided that we should impose - and keep - No Child Left Behind and the mass of standardized testing it produced. However, we the teachers are implementing these policies because we have to in order to keep everything running smoothly, keep our School Improvement rating, keep our jobs. In reading Gallagher's book though, it all made me mad.

Why in the world would we keep educational practices that kill the very thing that make Americans, well, American? Why would we kill the qualities that made us forerunners in the global marketplace in the first place? Why aren't we more interested in serving our kids than keeping a program running that we're hoping will be the magic bullet? Because we're saving face.

Policy-makers are saving face by refusing to revamp - and stop implementing - NCLB and its drill-and-kill practices. The money tied to their decisions leaves states and districts in the lurch; if they don't buy into the program, they lose funding - or worse, creditability. The apples-to-oranges comparison that's happening as state testing is compared across the nation is unfair to our kids and our teachers. It strikes fear in the hearts of administrators and teachers and they are threatened with loss of jobs and pushes them more toward the drill-and-kill approach, which produces students who would rather drop out and end their daily suffering than continue in an educational system that's failing them.

Classroom teachers need to save face - and save students - by making students into life-long readers. Readers who understand the value of literacy. Readers who turn to books as sources of information but also as cultural markers and sources of artistic merit. We need to, as Gallagher says, "find our courage to recognize the difference between the political words and the authentic worlds in which we teach, to swim against those current educational practices that are killing young readers, to step up and do what is right for our students" (118). We need to make learning relevant and necessary for our students. We need to help them find the sweet spot and learn - if not to love - than to appreciate reading.

I, for one, will be purchasing some of Gallagher's recommendations for reluctant readers, just to have on hand for SSR or other reading opportunities. In re-vamping the dance curriculum next year, Ellen and I have discussed having an article of the week that makes the learning personal for students. I love the process that Gallagher uses to help students make sense of the articles in his class and will definitely be implementing that process. I will be finding more cultural themes in works that my Drama students study, in order to show them that these works have relevance in their lives now.

I will be saving face by changing what I do in order to save my students from Readicide. Will you?