Why Raising The Standards Won’t Make Kids Read
I recently sat in on a class in which none of the students had done the reading. It was an 11th grade English class; they were reading a fat canonical American novel, maybe 350 pages long. And none of them had read it—at least not the chapter they were supposed to have read the night before.
The teacher, a smart, dedicated older man, stood in front of the class trying to lead a class discussion. Crickets.
As the teacher stood lobbing question after question, the kids sat at their desks making eye contact with no one, shifting uneasily in their seats and waiting for the time to pass so they could leave.
Reader, I’ve been there. Maybe not in a situation where all of my students didn’t do the reading, but often when a very substantial number did not, a situation that would inevitably put me into a panic of misery, shame and frustration. What should I have done? What was I doing wrong? If the kids didn’t read the book, how could they write an essay that meant anything?
So as I sat in the back of that incredibly awkward class, I emailed a friend of mine who teaches in South L.A., one of the best English teachers I know, asking her what percentage of her students usually did the reading. “Half,” she emailed back. “Less if the reading is especially challenging.”
I recently asked another friend, an exceptionally dedicated and motivated English teacher, how many of her 35 students in the class I’m watching probably did the reading every night. She thought a moment, counting in her head. “About nine,” she said finally.
Here’s something I’ve seen over and over and have personally experienced: if you teach in a community where kids didn’t get the enrichment of preschool, may have attended terrible elementary schools, may have stressful or chaotic home lives and often live in very crowded situations where they have no space to themselves and sometimes have to Why Raising The Standards Won’t Make Kids Read | Gatsby In L.A.: