Two
years ago, I was sitting in church, before service started, listening to the
organ music and doing my best not to make eye contact with the many little old
ladies whose names I do not know, that would inevitably ask me how college was
going and inquire as to why I wasn’t married yet. Through the babble of the other members of
the congregation, I heard a pair of sisters discussing how difficult it was to
find the fifth Harry Potter book. I whipped
around, and found the girls two pews behind my family. I moved to get up, but the music changed and
I sat back down to attend service.
Afterwards, I hunted the girls
down by the donuts, and told them I had heard them mention the book. The older girl, Hannah, nodded solemnly. She explained that the public library had a
single copy, and that her younger sister was fifth on the list. The likelihood of both sisters being able to
finish the book in two weeks was nonexistent, and it was there that the dilemma
lies.
Now, my mom’s hobby is rescuing and collecting
children’s classics from yard sales for a quarter apiece, and as a result, we’ve
created a small library downstairs over the years. She had 3 copies of the book in question, in
addition to her personal set. I checked
with her, and picked a new looking paperback from the shelf.
The next week I brought the
book in to church with me, carrying it under my coat. I waited until after the service, so the
girls weren’t distracted during service.
I found Hannah and her sister after service (before they reached the
donuts and had sticky fingers) and asked them if they knew how to treat a book.
The younger sister rattled off
the rules she had learned in the library at school, you shouldn’t eat food with
the book, get it wet, or fold the pages etc.
I then pulled the book out from under my folded coat, and presented it
to the pair of them. Hannah asked when I
needed the book back. I smiled, and
shook my head.
“This is your book, for you
two, your parents, and your sister when she gets old enough to read it. You can have it forever, or until you get
tired of it and want to pass it along to another child who wants to read it.”
Hannah’s sister took the book
and rushed off to tell her parents the news.
Hannah stayed behind for an additional moment, tilted her head to the
side and said “Thank you, we’ll take good care of it”.
This
moment changed my outlook on literacy, and instilled the drive to encourage
other’s reading abilities at young ages.
I appreciated my own literacy, and began to read again after 3-4 years
of looking at reading as something for children and English class. I re-discovered the joy to be found in books
that I picked out, and the love of older classics.
This
will change the way in which I teach literacy in a small but important
way. Particularly in high school,
students tend to wander the halls when they’re free to, and seek out teachers
for various reasons. It doesn’t matter
if the teacher is planning, eating lunch, or grading papers, students have the
tendency to wander in. I want to keep a
visible book on my desk that I’m reading for the thrill of it, something that
has nothing to do with work or teaching.
I want to lead by example and re-kindle the love of reading that
children have, the voluntary choices that encourage daily literacy beyond the
content area.
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