my wife and i worked so hard to instill a love of reading into our daughter. i would read to her every night (also doing the voices), we'd sit and help her decode texts when she was an emergent and early reader, we always made sure to enroll her in the library's summer reading program and that there was money when a schoolastic book fair came to her school. it only took one teacher to ruin all of that. this teacher said she couldn't possibly read the books she loved to read and reading turned into a struggle. i am still furious.
Well that definitely tops my example of the professor I had that actually decreased my interest in Solar Systems and Astronomy. It was taught in the planetarium. I'd find myself reading chapters in the text that weren't on the syllabus. Should have been an easy win, but the prof just made it so tedious... Ugh. The ultimate sin for a teacher has to be decreasing your student's interest in a subject.
I had teachers like that. I was reading well beyond my grade level (I read the third pandemic and sphere in 5th grade, both roughly college-level, I just had a dictionary with me).
Fifth grade teacher said I couldn’t understand them, they were beyond my level. I mouthed off to her and told her they might be beyond her level, but not mine. I got detention.
I told my mom what happened, who then went in and laid into that teacher. She bought me the books for my birthday, and gave me the dictionary so I could understand them, because teen and young adult stuff was no longer long enough, I’d burn through the books in a few hours, tops. Big complicated books were the only thing that kept me occupied. She was not willing to allow some rando to fuck that up. Needless to say that teacher never said shit to me about it again.
Did have that detention. I brought my book and didn’t even care about being sat there for an hour. So that backfired.
I hope your daughter gets that love back sooner or later, maybe just need a cooling down period. For me it never faded, I just lost all reapect for that teacher because even then I knew it was stupid to judge someone for doing something they enjoyed.
I wonder sometimes how the world winds up with teachers like that. There's not any money in teaching so it's not likely that, but just sniping a kid from out of the blue at something they're actively proud of (assuming the teacher found out from the kid) and enjoys makes no sense unless you hate kids and learning enough to go be a teacher. Maybe the teacher is stuck there, or just doing the job for the insurance, but come on.
I understand that there are industries where compliance to a slow, crummy (but approved) process saves money over someone working a problem in a better, faster way that nobody else can duplicate (and therefore not process approved), but I don't see how that would ever apply to children reading. They're not going to run out of books to read.
From my experience most teachers shouldn't be teaching. Some downright hate kids. I had one who admitted she didn't manage to get into medicine, so teaching biology was the second best. She definitely shouldn't have gone into teaching.
My elementary school literature teacher loved my creative writing and always left a note on my assignments, encouraging me to continue. Then in high school my literature teacher consistently gave me lower grades because she didn't like my wiriting. Completely killed it for me. To be honest, I don't know how she could even be a literature teacher, because the creative writing she loved from other students my friends and I agreed was unimaginative garbage.
In the 12 years of mandatory education, I can count on one hand the good teachers who made me interested in the subject. And I've had well over 24 teachers in a wide range of subjects.
I can count on one hand the good teachers who made me interested in the subject
I had some very good ones that I consider myself lucky to have had.
I'm not sure that the bad teachers really understand how much they stand out even to schoolkids. There are so many commonalities between people once they get out of school and start swapping teacher stories that you'd almost think there was a class on how to most effectively derail a kid's ambition.
I always bring up this story when talking about (bad) teachers. Once on my way back from school on public transit, I saw a teacher grading essays. They give this one essey an A, then close the notebook, check the name, open the notebook again, cross out A and write a B. Obviously I don't know the backstory, but I was still looking at it in disbelief. I'd definitely been graded lower based on how the teacher liked me. Even on things that should be objective, like science subjects.
Yeah, I'd be pretty curious why I had an A on something that got lowered to a B. Not exactly the implementation of "inspire curiosity in kids" part of teaching that I think anyone had in mind.
Yeah, but to my mom it was another excuse to pretend my siblings and I didn’t have it. We’re just like every little boy, just like Calvin.
We were kids at the same time Calvin and Hobbs was publishing. So adhd treatment was fairly new and only done to the worst of us, or kids who couldn’t get good enough grades like we could.
I would so much wish for those younger people that do not read anymore, or that have never been told to read by their parents or school, to realize they're the ones getting screwed here.
By being spared the effort (as it is an effort, that is true) to make reading into a real habit, they're the ones that are not getting prepared as well as they could be for their adult life... while other kids (oftentimes form wealthier families) are getting very well prepared... to compete against them and to screw them (like our billionaire friends arr already doing today). Those richer kids are reading, a lot more.
As a child, I hated reading (it was a pain in the ass) but I was still required to read books, daily (thx to my grandfather and dad). I hated that until i realized the leverage all what I was reading gave me onto other people. And then, I started realizing there were indeed books I liked to read, for fun mind you, and some I loved reading! And loved them so much I would be reading them over and over again all my life.
Reading is a weapon. I would have though this idea would be quite obvious to US citizens (hi from France), more than anyone else, as they already have the constitutional right to bear weapons, right? Why don't they exercise said right to learn to use the most powerful of those weapons: books.
And of the rant, back to Calvin... but if you aren't already start reading, now. And make it into a habit.
15 replies
my wife and i worked so hard to instill a love of reading into our daughter. i would read to her every night (also doing the voices), we'd sit and help her decode texts when she was an emergent and early reader, we always made sure to enroll her in the library's summer reading program and that there was money when a schoolastic book fair came to her school. it only took one teacher to ruin all of that. this teacher said she couldn't possibly read the books she loved to read and reading turned into a struggle. i am still furious.
Well that definitely tops my example of the professor I had that actually decreased my interest in Solar Systems and Astronomy. It was taught in the planetarium. I'd find myself reading chapters in the text that weren't on the syllabus. Should have been an easy win, but the prof just made it so tedious... Ugh. The ultimate sin for a teacher has to be decreasing your student's interest in a subject.
I had teachers like that. I was reading well beyond my grade level (I read the third pandemic and sphere in 5th grade, both roughly college-level, I just had a dictionary with me).
Fifth grade teacher said I couldn’t understand them, they were beyond my level. I mouthed off to her and told her they might be beyond her level, but not mine. I got detention.
I told my mom what happened, who then went in and laid into that teacher. She bought me the books for my birthday, and gave me the dictionary so I could understand them, because teen and young adult stuff was no longer long enough, I’d burn through the books in a few hours, tops. Big complicated books were the only thing that kept me occupied. She was not willing to allow some rando to fuck that up. Needless to say that teacher never said shit to me about it again.
Did have that detention. I brought my book and didn’t even care about being sat there for an hour. So that backfired.
I hope your daughter gets that love back sooner or later, maybe just need a cooling down period. For me it never faded, I just lost all reapect for that teacher because even then I knew it was stupid to judge someone for doing something they enjoyed.
Man, if they let kids read books in detention at my school, I'd have gotten it deliberately instead of reluctantly.
Genuinely LOLd at this, ha ha! 😁
I wonder sometimes how the world winds up with teachers like that. There's not any money in teaching so it's not likely that, but just sniping a kid from out of the blue at something they're actively proud of (assuming the teacher found out from the kid) and enjoys makes no sense unless you hate kids and learning enough to go be a teacher. Maybe the teacher is stuck there, or just doing the job for the insurance, but come on.
I understand that there are industries where compliance to a slow, crummy (but approved) process saves money over someone working a problem in a better, faster way that nobody else can duplicate (and therefore not process approved), but I don't see how that would ever apply to children reading. They're not going to run out of books to read.
From my experience most teachers shouldn't be teaching. Some downright hate kids. I had one who admitted she didn't manage to get into medicine, so teaching biology was the second best. She definitely shouldn't have gone into teaching.
My elementary school literature teacher loved my creative writing and always left a note on my assignments, encouraging me to continue. Then in high school my literature teacher consistently gave me lower grades because she didn't like my wiriting. Completely killed it for me. To be honest, I don't know how she could even be a literature teacher, because the creative writing she loved from other students my friends and I agreed was unimaginative garbage.
In the 12 years of mandatory education, I can count on one hand the good teachers who made me interested in the subject. And I've had well over 24 teachers in a wide range of subjects.
I had some very good ones that I consider myself lucky to have had.
I'm not sure that the bad teachers really understand how much they stand out even to schoolkids. There are so many commonalities between people once they get out of school and start swapping teacher stories that you'd almost think there was a class on how to most effectively derail a kid's ambition.
I always bring up this story when talking about (bad) teachers. Once on my way back from school on public transit, I saw a teacher grading essays. They give this one essey an A, then close the notebook, check the name, open the notebook again, cross out A and write a B. Obviously I don't know the backstory, but I was still looking at it in disbelief. I'd definitely been graded lower based on how the teacher liked me. Even on things that should be objective, like science subjects.
Yeah, I'd be pretty curious why I had an A on something that got lowered to a B. Not exactly the implementation of "inspire curiosity in kids" part of teaching that I think anyone had in mind.
one invests a lot of time and money into a field and then sunk cost takes over is my guess.
I guess that teacher gets to go down in history as example of how not to be.
Also, at least I'm not as burned out as that person.
Calvin was always a comic about ADHD
Yeah, but to my mom it was another excuse to pretend my siblings and I didn’t have it. We’re just like every little boy, just like Calvin.
We were kids at the same time Calvin and Hobbs was publishing. So adhd treatment was fairly new and only done to the worst of us, or kids who couldn’t get good enough grades like we could.
Reading crisis among young people? Solved :)
I would so much wish for those younger people that do not read anymore, or that have never been told to read by their parents or school, to realize they're the ones getting screwed here.
By being spared the effort (as it is an effort, that is true) to make reading into a real habit, they're the ones that are not getting prepared as well as they could be for their adult life... while other kids (oftentimes form wealthier families) are getting very well prepared... to compete against them and to screw them (like our billionaire friends arr already doing today). Those richer kids are reading, a lot more.
As a child, I hated reading (it was a pain in the ass) but I was still required to read books, daily (thx to my grandfather and dad). I hated that until i realized the leverage all what I was reading gave me onto other people. And then, I started realizing there were indeed books I liked to read, for fun mind you, and some I loved reading! And loved them so much I would be reading them over and over again all my life.
Reading is a weapon. I would have though this idea would be quite obvious to US citizens (hi from France), more than anyone else, as they already have the constitutional right to bear weapons, right? Why don't they exercise said right to learn to use the most powerful of those weapons: books.
And of the rant, back to Calvin... but if you aren't already start reading, now. And make it into a habit.
Edit: clarifications.