Response to Gallagher's "Readicide"

I think one of the most important ideas here is that American readers are not poor, or substandard readers, it is more that they are reluctant readers.  When I was in school, I didn’t enjoy it.  I didn’t dislike it, per se, I was just bored.  Often I stayed up hours into the night reading books and writing stories. I was into religious fiction, something that schools never would/could put forth in their classes.

As we have become a society that is geared more towards numbers, there is less concern for the individualized student experiences.  Even when a school might say that they give their students options for their educational experience, their funding still depends on achieving a level of achievement.  Why would funds be made available to schools that do not perform?

That question does not necessarily need answered, for it can not necessarily be solved.  This education thing is supposed to be all about students.  One of my personal reasons for explaining that I want to teach is because I want to affect young person’s minds.

This is not to say that reading isn’t taught, or that what is presented to the students is something that they cannot understand or latch on to.  The problem that has been happening is that students’ appetite for reading is not being fed.  This comes to my mind the image of a cat.  As soon as a can opener is clicked onto a can and the can is opened, the cat’s appetite is sparked.  This is how I have been with reading for my entire life.  There has never been a time when I was not reading something or looking for the next something to read.  The problem is that most of this reading had nothing to do with school or the grades being offered there.

The discussion can be centered around teachers over- or under-teaching reading selections.  How to fix this “readicide?” My idea is to allow students more leeway in reading, allowing them to digest how it best serves their abilities. Of course this means less free time for teachers, and more work, in the long term, for them.  It is hard to believe that my religious fiction could be part of a school atmosphere, for there is the known belief of a separation between “church and state.”  I am just saying that there could have been/be now, more leeway in how my education proceeds.