High School Reading

I currently have four students in my High School First Grade NELP class. Three of the students are in the Life Science Course. One student is in the Humanities Course. This has caused me to rethink my reading policy in high school. There are two problems here. The first problem is that high school NELP students do not study reading with me. We only have oral communication. The main problem, however, is that the Life Science Course students have a special reading class while the Humanities Course students do not. This creates an unfair situation because the Life Science Course students will have class time to read books, but the Humanities Course students will have to do it for homework outside of school hours. In addition, the high school students are very busy with other subjects, so reading is not their highest priority.

For these reasons, I've decided to waive the reading quota in high school. High School NELP students may still check out books from the library, and may still read library books ... in fact, I will strongly encourage them to do so for their own educational development, however, I will no longer tell them how much to read, it will no longer be a part of their grade, and they will no longer have to write book reports for me. This sets an important transition for the high school students in several ways.

First: It establishes a pattern of reading for enjoyment rather than reading as part of a curriculum. Many adults read for enjoyment or to get information, and I think it's important at some point for students to begin reading, not because they have to, but because they CHOOSE to do so. This brings me to my next point.

Second: This again returns to each individual student responsibility for her own education and development. As adults, they will no longer have a teacher or adviser standing behind them every moment, setting tasks and goals and requirements. As adults, they must be responsible for their own goals.

Helping each student to see that she is individually and solely responsible for her own education is an important part of what I aim to teach, so while my high school students may undoubtedly reduce the amount they read (I sincerely hope they will not stop reading altogether) they will, I hope, come closer to understanding this more fundamental lesson that I'm hoping to help them learn.

Date: 2008⁄07⁄02 10:28｜Permalink｜Author：nelp

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