reading

do you remember when you were in high school and the teacher would ask, "who wants to read?"

Which were you - the reader or the listener? Were you shy and felt self-conscious about reading out loud, so you never put up your hand? Or were you super confident and everyone loved it when you read? Or were you the one who sucked ass at reading and always put up your hand anyway?

In school we were taught that everyone should read - it gives them practice and blah blah blah.

Over here - not so much.

As last period loomed over us near the end of lunch, I was musing whether or not I should read TO the kids, or if they should take turns. Richard, our token male teacher in the english dept, commented that most of the crap readers are the ones to read, and then class gets chaotic and things slide from there. "Much better to read yourself, Pipkins," he said. He then made the comment that so many teachers here think but never say...

"You can't read, put your fookin' hand down."

I never say that. I always let my stutterers and slurers and i-mix-up-every-other-word readers read. But let me tell you - it gets very very tedious sometimes.

The thing is, is that most teachers don't let their kids read - they read to them, or the students read along while a CD plays in the background.

At any rate, I laughed my way down the corridor to my lesson where I allowed them all to read and then wished I hadn't. Chaos ensued.

current location: my room
current mood: exhausted/worn out/tired/ready for a drink
current music: birds outside my window