We put a lot of focus on the importance of reading these days. We test our kids on reading, we push them with leveled readers, we divide them into groups to read aloud, they must read one on one with a parent or teacher for at least thirty minutes a day. We emphasize reading, a lot.
While, I would never disagree that all our students need to be proficient readers, I would argue that when we focus too much on skill, we lose focus on passion and purpose.
The purpose of being able to read is to so we can expand our horizon of knowledge, climb new literary mountains and enjoy the Sunday comics. Yes, we need to be able to read to get a job or go to college, but this should not be the sole focus of why we learn to read. When we focus only on this, as it seems our academic culture often does, we perpetuate a feeling of desperation, of fear about not be able to provide for ourselves or our family. Instead of allowing our children to develop their interests and explore them through reading, we squash their innocence with our adult fears of debt, joblessness and a generally bleak future. Our boring leveled readers and Dick and Jane style of teaching reading removes the magical-ness that can come from reading and creates students that are left feeling that their only choice is to follow a prefabricated path through education and then life. Where did we ever get the idea that our school curriculums should be manufactured off an assembly line and handed out like manuals to a social movement? Education is a dynamic, all encompassing life long event which cannot be contained in a teaching manual.
Recently I was passed this blog post about a new volume of Brothers Grimm fairy tales from one of my favorite sites, Brainpickings. These tales have been delighting and frightening (yes, sometimes it's ok be scared) children since 1812 and this particular volume seems to capture the fancy and magic of those stories like few have done before. The book brings together fantastic illustrations of faraway lands from 27 of the most treasured Grimm tales.
I was excited to see a book that was created merely on the premise of collecting some of western cultures greatest feats of storytelling, stories that have been shared generation after generation because they inspire and relate to all those who read and retell them.
And this is one of the most profound reasons that we teach our children to read. It is so they too can experience the rich fabric of tall tales and fairy lore that decorate our human history. When we share this beauty of storytelling with them, reading takes on a new and glorious purpose beyond merely passing to the next grade. It allows them to relate to those in the past who have experienced the same human dilemmas, suffered and overcome obstacles just as we strive to do today. Though technology has changed and our governments have transformed and our societies have risen and fallen and flourished many times since these tales began their circulation, there is still something fundamentally the same for all humans. Our hearts still yearn for the wicked to be punished, the righteous to be rewarded, the children to be kept safe and when all other options are worn out, what we pray for most are a few moments of magic.
Our children should leave the nest and the classroom with a desire, a curiosity to read and learn about the past, present and future. Their education needs to make room for the vast tradition of storytelling that stretches across our globe. Instead of supplying classrooms with dry, leveled readers that lack any culture purpose or heritage, we should be tapping into the tales of our human experience. Every culture on earth has such tales. We should be making available to our students volumes like this one, that foster a respect for the past instead of projecting respect onto a future that has yet to arrive, a future that will no doubt mirror the same triumphs and tragedies that we speak of in our oral traditions.
These are not merely whimsical tales enjoyed by children. They are important pieces of our cultural history. Being in touch with such fragments of our past, passing down the beauty and sadness of these tales makes us all the wiser for it reminds us of important lessons about living in a society.
And all this begins with teaching our children to read and remembering why it is we do so. It isn't for their academic success only, but also for their life enjoyment, so they too can absorb and experience the greatness of the writers of today and from long ago.
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