The problem is that we teachers are hurried usurers,
lending out the knowledge we possess and charging interest. It has to show a
profit, and the quicker the better! If not, we might start losing faith in our
own methods.
Daniel
Pennac, Better Than Life
In
contemporary society, if things don’t happen quickly, we see a need to change
them, to hurry them along. For example, fast food restaurants, drive-up dry
cleaners and convenient stores have thrived on the basis of providing fast
service, not necessarily quality service. In public education, if current
school reform efforts don’t show measurable gains on standardized tests in a
matter of minutes, they are often discarded in our fervor to locate the next
“silver bullet” reading program that will solve the literacy crisis, engage all
students, calm the nerves of concerned parents, raise standardized test scores
and win someone the next school board election.
In
the opening quote, Pennac refers to the need for teaching methods to show a
profit quickly or else face elimination. In today’s political climate, profit
equates with increased test scores. Although we believe, and
scientifically-based research supports, reading aloud with children increases
tests scores, that is not the sole reason we read aloud with children.
Activities designed
to mimic standardized test experiences are being forced upon students with
greater and greater tenacity. Because of the pressure from federal and state
legislatures to raise test scores, public school classrooms may become places
where children learn to read well enough to score higher on standardized tests,
but may not be places where you learn to love to read, discover great authors
and pieces of literature or learn how to read in order to succeed in the “real”
world. If we make reading in schools so boring, so sanitized, that children
refuse to engage in reading have we, in fact, educated them at all? Reading
instruction in schools should develop students’ passion to read, support their
engagements with text of all sorts and encourage them to become life-long
readers capable of fully participating in a democratic society.
In
order to ensure that teacher candidates (pre-service, education students) come
to see the value in reading aloud and learn strategies for incorporating
reading aloud into their curriculum once they have a class of their own, they
need to be exposed to reading aloud and literature discussions in their
university coursework. If college professors do not demonstrate the importance
of reading aloud, support teacher candidates as they practice this important
instructional strategy and explain how they use read alouds as the foundation
for reading instruction, chances are that teacher candidates will not value
these learning experiences once they become certified teachers themselves.