I started a Reading Club for grades 6-8, once a week, at my house, for this term, where we get together and read a chapter book. I’ve wanted to do this here since I came, and I guess it’s with the end in sight that I actually made it happen. Mom has always said when things get too difficult here, go back to the kids, and interact with the kids. It feels like things are at the point now where I have done all I can in the long run (more or less) and so now – to the kids!
With this reading club, I envisioned a small group of kids, sitting in a circle, reading, understanding, enjoying and discussing an entire chapter book, collectively revelling in the joys of novels. Though these may be too lofty of expectations, we do have a good amount of kids borrowing chapter books, though I am unable to assess their completion or comprehension levels on them. I wanted the kids to get a sense of pride in accomplishment at soaking up an entire novel, so I picked James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl and Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt for them to choose from. I chose those for two reasons: because they ARE a great example of how fun and easy reading/writing can be. That and - there were three copies of each of these books in the village and it just made sense.
Roald Dahl is a literary hero of mine, and I’ve had the kids read a lot of his books, including The Fantastic Mr. Fox, George’s Marvelous Medicine and Esio Trot. Tuck Everlasting… I read this novel when I was in gr. 6, in the Accelerated Readers Club that met after school. We read novels together in the afternoons, while drinking a can of pop and eating a little bag of chips with our English teachers; it felt very intellectual. I re-read the book as an adult and fell in love with it, as Babbitt writes so descriptively beautiful and the events that transpire around Winnie (main character) that force her to begin to see the world in new ways are so perceptively written. It is such a wonderful example of how words can be turned into written symphonies… If I can get the kids to only see how the same words they learn to spell by rote memorization can be used in context...
On the first day, three girls showed up, and they selected Tuck Everlasting to read, and so we began, each with her own book, taking turns to read a page or two. Merisa read with such intonation, Helen stumbled a bit but remembered all the details with great clarity. The second meeting, 6 came, and we got into a routine, sharing the reading, speaking up when they didn’t understand and helping each other pronounce words. We’ve had three meetings now, and none of the kids have openly declared a new love affair for novels, but neither have they shown a disinterest in the plot or in taking turns reading. We’ve discussed the book a bit: the positives and negatives of immortality, the grey area of kidnapping for a good reason, and what some of those eloquently described sceneries are trying to tell us.
I think the kids enjoy hanging out at my house; they’ll go through my collection of books and pictures, and will linger after the afternoon finishes. I reflect on the fact that it’s not as structured as my reading club when I was a kid (and the fact that they may not get as much out of the book as I’d fantasize them to), but I realized that I may not ever have a chance to have such an exceptional time with the kids if we were back home, either, as in having kids over to my house, having the floor open to any kind of candid discussion.
With this reading club and in other instances, these kids, with their direct openness in topics, have brought up many different subjects of delicate natures or personal natures with me, and it is difficult to shy away from then. I prefer to be quite frank with kids, of any age, in general. (I wonder how that would fit in with education systems back in the States? Teachers must restrict the topics they discuss with their students, must be politically correct... certain things should be left for the parents.) But here, it can be assumed that topics of a mature nature are not necessarily being discussed between parents and children, and so the need for open disclosure from any role model form overrides the sense of scholastic propriety.
I’ve loved having kids come over to my house; there’s a set who’ve become quite comfortable spending time with me – a quartet of boys: Jason, Ronson, Brendon and Savio. Jason and Ronson, especially, will come by themselves, and spend a couple hours with me. We will talk about any variety of things, they will ask me questions about the States, we will read a book together or they will read on their own as I clean or do whatever task I was doing when they stopped by. It is a relaxed quiet time where I believe they feel comfortable and safe, and I feel happy and content to be one to provide that for them. And it is an added bonus, that I am friends with their parents.
Here in the village, you basically live with who you work with, you live with who you teach. Professional life, school life and home life are all intimately intertwined. There are positives and negatives to this, but one of the positives is that I feel I’ve been able to be a considerable mentor, to put it technically, to so many of the kids. And on the flip side – I’ve had a considerable set of buddies around to have fun learning together and gain life lessons from. I just love the kids, them and their individual personalities, their potential.
Books have become one medium of connection between us, one way for any student to come into the library or my house and get individual attention. As I look around as the pre-teens in my house every Wednesday afternoon, for example, I see a substantial moment; not one with pressure to fill up the time with substance, but one with the grounds for a spark to ignite a richer future – for all of us.
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