Okay this might be slightly-off topic but I feel it relates enough to put here: you also need to be comfortable with letting other people read books that might make them feel stupid.
You’re never going to grow as a reader if you don’t encounter books that are challenging or frustrating.
My mom works as a librarian at an elementary school. Recently, she had a problem with this teacher who won’t let kids read above their grade level.
Today, she had a boy come into the library with said teacher. This boy has a low reading level, something that both my mom and his teacher know.
The kid picks out books that he wants to read—keeping in compliance with his teacher’s rule that he must choose one fiction and one non-fiction—and brings them to my mom, ready to check them out. His teacher intercepts him and, in an extremely loud and dismissive voice, says, “That’s above your reading level. You won’t be able to read or understand that.”
Now, they’re not the only ones in the library. The boy’s entire class is there, his teacher, and my mom. So, as the teacher continues to loudly deprecate him in the SILENT LIBRARY, his entire class can hear.
My mom, attempting to run damage control, tries to intervene and help the kid pick out new books—but she’s the only librarian, and other kids need help checking stuff out. So instead she’s forced to watch from across the room as the kid, under his teacher’s unkind eye, goes to the corner of the room where the books with low reading levels are kept at. It is an extremely small section, shoved in the corner, and on the ground. My mother, who has only recently gotten this job, hadn’t had time to move it yet (she did immediately after this interaction). So, in all honesty, the kid is being publicly humiliated here—he’s pretty tall and being forced to kneel in the corner in order to very obviously grab the low-level books, his entire class is there as his teacher is yelling at him, and my mom can’t do shit because she’s the only one there, she’s new, and she has no real authority over the kids, only the books.
Now, this interaction ended with my mom asking the teacher, as the class was leaving, “what would help him find books he likes better?” Her way of trying to mediate, point out that other books would be beneficial. The teacher, however, just responds with, “well, he’s my only Special Ed kid.”
Genuinely, what the fuck.
1. That kid is never going to become a better reader if you belittle him, publicly humiliate him, and force him to believe that the only thing he is CAPABLE OF READING is something low-level.
2. This will not foster a love for reading in this child. If he does not ENJOY reading, and if he learns to associate it only with your dismissive nature and cruel words, then he is going to grow up to HATE it.
3. Insinuating that a Special Ed kid is incapable of gaining a love for and proficiency at reading simply because he is Special Ed is quite literally one of the cruelest things I’ve heard in a long time.
4. Fuck this teacher, fuck all other teachers like her, and I hope they all quit their jobs before they ruin a kid’s life with their thoughtless actions and dismissive natures. If you don’t love kids, then why are you even here in the first place?
5. That kid wanted to challenge himself, and you took that choice away from him. When he doesn’t grow as a reader, that will be YOUR fault because you told him that he couldn’t and he will believe you, because you’re his teacher and he trusts you. So fuck you once again.
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