Stephen Colbert Shocks SC Schools by Funding All Teacher Grant Requests

[BrotherIvan]

35. When I first started, a veteran teacher said to me

"Never punish a student for stealing a book from your classroom. It may be the only book in their house and their siblings might take it down and look through it." I definitely took it to heart and went even further. I made the offer to all of my students, we're talking low income students at all reading levels going down to illiterate in two languages, if there was any book on any subject they were interested in, I would buy it for them and they could get credit for a short report. I had students who were interested in carpentry, gardening, mechanics, cosmetology, cooking, I could make a whole list. So all they had to do was tell me and I would buy a used copy of something. Not every student took me up on it, but more than a few did.

All this while the state was removing the novel from the curriculum because it wasn't on the test. I stood up at a district wide meeting one time and gave an impassioned speech for teaching long form, such as the novel or novella, because it is a very different experience than the test which is short form with question and answer. My principal almost wet himself from fear of repercussions, but I didn't care. Because novels get people to love to read, to see the benefit of enjoying a story. And novels are humanizing, in fact, that is their original intent. To cut that out of class in favor of short, meaningless paragraphs that the student then answers a few multiple choice questions is a GUARANTEE that students will HATE class.