"Take A Look," You Said. "It's In A BOOK," You Said.

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Freethinker's Day
Birthday - President William McKinley (25th President)
Anniversary - Seeing Eye (guide dogs)
Admission Day (Kansas)

 

When I was in school, developing one’s reading skills was, to put it mildly, encouraged. From first grade onward, we were greeted everywhere with posters of celebrities holding books—everyone from Alec Baldwin to Xena: Warrior Princess was there to inform us reading was a very useful skill.  Our teachers demanded constant book reports, and every week we would have Library Time. Scholastic ran rampant through our schools like a horde of Vikings through a thatched village, leaving in its wake catalogs, a weird little newspaper, and periodic book fairs. Reading made you smart, everyone told us.  It is cool to read!  For god’s sake, put down those video games and—are you listening?  Please? Animorphs has a plot and cuddly animals and everything! Goosebumps is scary! Well, you like that Power Rangers show, can you at least read a novelization of the episodes?  Okay, just read the blurb under this photo of the rabbit.  Anything? Dammit, kids these days are dumb as blocks.

 

And then there was Read-Aloud Class Time.

 

Now, to understand why I hated Read-Aloud Time so much, you have to understand that all this seemed a little redundant to me, because I was that reading kid. The one in the corner reading while the rest of the class harassed the substitute teacher. The one with the book under my desk during the instructional videos. The one who found a corner of the playground and read through recess.  The one who spent the recesses of sixth grade shelving books in the school library, and then settling down with a book.* To me, book reports were an unnecessary nuisance, taking up time that I could have spent reading another book.

 

And Read-Aloud Time was a nightmare.

 

You may have had something similar in your school.  It went like this: each student had a copy of their Reading Comprehension Book, full of sometimes great and sometimes deadly boring stories designed to impart some literary goodness while honing our sharp skills, and with questions at the end like “Why do you think Reynolds waited until Mom had her back turned before he stole all the cookies she had baked for Mrs. Cratchit?”** That was simple enough—it was yet another of those incomprehensible school things people made you do, and it wasn’t very hard.

 

But the catch to Read-Aloud Time was that you got these books out, and then everyone in the class took turns reading the story aloud.

 

Were you a fast reader in school? Do you remember—do you have any idea—how mind numbingly boring that was?  I didn’t mind that others weren’t as fast readers as I was, but reading aloud forced everyone to go at the pace of the slow readers.  And I frankly would get bored and lose track of the story.

 

So I read ahead. I would often finish the story while the rest of the class was on page two.  I would have understood it all, and it wouldn’t have been at the interminable pace we went at.  But the whole time I was reading, while one of the eight or so Ryans in the class was struggling over the word “through,” I lived in fear. Because I never knew when the teacher would call on me to read the next paragraph.

 

Oh, I tried to pay attention. I kept my finger on the page everyone was on, and frequently paused to listen and see which paragraph they were on.  But inevitably, at some point during Read-Aloud Time, the following conversation would occur:

 

Teacher: Amelia, will you read next?

Amelia: … Uh, hang on.

Amelia: … *goes back to the page they were on*

Teacher: Perhaps somebody who has been paying attention would like to help Amelia out? (Optional) Amelia, I’m going to put your name on the board.

 

And she would, punishing me by embarrassment for “not paying attention” when I was simply reading fast. I tried a few times to protest that I’d been reading ahead, but that got me no sympathy at all. My teacher simply told me to try to stay with the rest of the class, and reiterated that I should pay attention.

 

I could never quite get over that last part.

 

What did I learn in school? I learned that grownups are hypocrites.  And jerks. And they don’t actually value good behavior or reading skills, because when I would finish an assignment before everyone else, I quickly learned that sitting back quietly and pulling out my book would be rewarded with the teacher finding me more busywork while the rest of the class finished the assignment. I got in trouble for being fast.***  And I once wound up in the school psychiatrist’s office because my teachers decided I read too much.

 

And I couldn’t do anything about it, because they knew what was best for me.

 

Something about the injustice of it keeps the anger quietly festering in me until this day.  It’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder how kids stay sane with grownups running the world.

 

 

*It was a legitimate excuse to get out of recess.  I spent years trying to convince my teachers that it was freaking cold and slushy outside and I wanted to stay inside and read, and nobody would let me until I found that the nice librarian didn’t know it was The Rules that I had to go out and get fresh air and socialize with the kids, and let me shelve the books or put contact paper on the new ones and then read until the bell rang. Once again, we see that reading was apparently not as valued as everyone said it was.

 

**If it were a math story problem about cookies it would have also involved two people named Ahmed and Yoshimi.

 

***I’m a pretty fast reader, but I’d just like to point out here that I’m definitely not on par with gondolinchick01, the Human Scanner.  She looks at a page and she’s read it. It’s creepy. I bet she had some run-ins when she was still in public school.

Comments

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

From first grade onward, we were greeted everywhere with posters of celebrities holding books—everyone from Alec Baldwin to Xena: Warrior Princess were there to inform us reading was a very useful skill.

And the AG Girls! Yay for the AG Girls!

But OH GOD I HATED READING WITH OTHERS. I once got in trouble for reading the whole story AND answering the questions afterwards while Classmate A was struggling through the third paragraph, because then the teacher didn't have 15 minutes of busy work out of me. But then again, I had a lot of drama in school and not all of it was reading. I got in trouble for everything from being left handed to doing my work first to actually reading the books used so we didn't copy off each others papers to ignoreing my busy work and getting distracted in those days before ADD to not using only four dots of glue on my paper gluing (I GOT IN TROUBLE FOR GLUE, DO YOU HEAR ME) to not wanting to do 100 damn math problems for the next hour because the teacher wanted to go have a smoke. I got in trouble for so many things it was loltastic.

Did you ever have grouped reading? Where they grouped you in three or so groups and they were always theme named like the Reds, Blues, Greens/The Blackbirds, Bluebirds, Redbirds/The Suns, Moons, Stars and this was supposed to be so no one knew who the slow kids were but you still always knew who the slow kids were? I mean, it was kind of mean, but on the other hand you were with people on your own level. And you had GIFTED classes! *sparkley eyes*

Though I did once make a bunch of first graders feel horrible when I was 5ish. My grandma was a teacher and I always went to visit her in the summers. And I got out of school long before that school did, so I got about two more weeks of "school." And my grandma stuck me in the class with one of her friends, Mrs. Jackson. Well, when the Super Good Reading group got together for thier 30 minute reading, I wanted to go too, and the teacher knew I could read damn well so she did. And the medium and slow groups were like "WTF The preschool baby is over there with the good kids why!" I tore through those pages about Pig and Dog so fast that jaws dropped. Note that I was 5. The teacher let me read for a while, then let me go sit at my desk and read to myself. I was so cute.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Man, you got in trouble for all SORTS of things I didn't. You win. (Were they seriously still doing that left-handed garbage? My siblings didn't have to put up with that--I'm the only right-hander in my family--but Mom got the full force of the Catholic School nuns.) I was always pissed when I got the extra busywork though, because the busywork was supposed to keep the noisy kids quiet, and I was BEING quiet.

TAKE THAT, FIRST GRADERS. They tried to skip me ahead to first grade once. I'm not sure why they gave up. Hell, I didn't know. I was little.

Yeah, we had the Neutral Named Groups, too. I think it was Sparrows and Robins or something, but we all knew what it really was. And I remember they kept renaming the gifted classes in junior high so that parents wouldn't realize their kids weren't in that class and complain. I think "Access" was my favorite codename.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

I got in trouble for a) not using the left handed scissors after explaining that I was ambi and that I could only use right handed scissors and b) not tilting my paper the way it was supposed to be tilted. I had a teacher who believed highly in tilting your paper A CERTAIN WAY as you wrote so the letters tilted A CERTAIN WAY and I hated doing it.

My grandma thought I should be skipped (my cousin bucktowntiger skipped a grade or so) but I was "socially backwards" so no skips for me.

We had Journeys and Encounters as the gifted programs, and Encounters meant that once a week I got to go to ANOTHER campus altogether and do AWESOME THINGS and go on SO MANY FIELD TRIPS. I swear to gods when I sprog out I am going to have to mentally teach my kids all the cool shit I got to do that they don't teach anymore thanks to effing standardized tests.

ETA: A and B or 1 and 2, Neth, don't be mixing.

[shadesofmauve]

Ours was PATS in elementary school, and we got to go to different schools and a ton of kick-ass field trips. The saving of my elementary education, that's what it was!

We had color coded reading levels...but since there were a lot of divisions, and I was the only one in mine, it didn't exactly keep anyone from knowing what was going on...

[jalendavi-lady.livejournal.com]

At least you were the only one in yours.

We only had split groups in the first grade. Firstly, they limited the level of the book they would let me enter on artificially, so they pretty much already knew my reading level was past the last page of the book for starters. Secondly, it was obvious to every other kid in the class that I was the outlier, because I was the only one who started in a reading level that had an actual book as well as the workbook.

Thirdly, after several weeks of one-on-one reading aloud bliss, they made me start over at the beginning when the next highest group of kids caught up to that book, and I was supposed to act like I didn't already know all about the dog in his house and the red and green pairs of socks ARGH!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, the sibs did have that scissors problem--neither of them can use the lefty scissors. (Once I remarked that a statistic said left-handers have a shorter lifespan than right-handers. My brother said, "Well, that's because we all keep accidently STABBING OURSELVES because we can't use either kind of scissors!")

I think I still do the paper tilt.

Yeah, "socially backwards" might have been my problem, too. But I bet you WERE damn cute.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

I kinda tilt, but I tilt to the right. My teachers wanted me to tilt to the left.

I'm weird. I can't knit/crochet left handed. I can't really sew left handed, but I embroider with BOTH hands. I used to be true ambi--and switch in the middle of a sentence if I was bored--but my kindergarden teacher told me to pick a hand and that the right hand is the one you write with.* So being the stubborn evil little shit I am, I started writing everything left handed.

http://kittikattie.livejournal.com/651455.html
Shit yeah, I was adorable.

* That's part of the reason I still mix up left and right.

[wrestlingdog.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the lefty scissors are usually 50 years old and too blunt to cut the air.

[codeman38.livejournal.com]

Gah. Same thing happened with me. I was ahead of the curve academically, but socially, I was so far behind. Not that I wasn't bullied and taken advantage of in my 'proper' grade, but it probably would've been even worse had I skipped grades...