Reading histories...

One of my favorite assignments to give at the beginning of the year is a 1-2 page essay on the students' personal reading histories. How did you learn to read? What do you like to read? It serves a couple of purposes. One, I learn more about the students themselves so I get to know them better, and two, I can see where they are in their writing mechanics. (The second part tends to be somewhat depressing. Next to nobody can properly punctuate titles!)

They run the gamut from "I love to read and I read every single chance I get" to "Reading is really hard for me and I don't like it very much" to "I got made fun of by my classmates or my teachers because of my reading" to "I don't get a chance to read anymore because I'm too busy."

Some of them are hysterically funny; others make me want to cry, like the student who locked himself in the bathroom and cried for an hour on the first day of kindergarten because he didn't know the alphabet. His classmates teased him and his teacher thought he was defiant. It's a marvel to me that kids like that don't end up just hating school and giving up.

It reminds me every year of how strong the human element is in teaching. Every person in the room brings something different to the class.

The other beginning-of-the-year assignment is an essay on a summer reading book of the student's choice. I had one student bring hers by during tutorial yesterday so that she could get feedback on it before turning it in on Monday. Mechanically, it was well-written. Content-wise, the student had obviously written what she thought I wanted to hear. I told her that she needed to give herself permission to take a risk and write what she wanted to write, not what she thought I wanted. She squirmed a bit, then said, "I played around for my first couple of years here until I learned how to play the game -- tell the teachers exactly what they want to hear and make the grade."

I told her she had my permission not to do that in my class, but it still disturbed me. How many of the students who graduate from here look at their educational experience as "playing the game" for grades instead of investing in themselves and cultivating curiosity about the world?