Teaching is not always exciting and stimulating in class,with great intellectual ideas and perspectives bouncing back and forth. There are times when a professor can be quite exasperated at having to face the reality that many students, even graduate students,simply do not read. On the first day of class, it has been my practice to ask students what they have been reading, as a way of self-introduction. By knowing what they are reading, I would be able to gauge what levels of abstractions their minds are capable of, or perhaps simply check their English and literary proficiency. Strangely, silence. Well,either they are not reading at all or they are not too proud of what they have been reading. I sometimes wonder if I should just give up asking what students have been reading to avoid being disappointed.BUt how will my students be able to give lectures on life and learning if they do not even know one book written by LEo TOlstoy or Fyodor Dostoyyevsky, CHarles DIckens or THomas Hardy, John Steinsbeck or Ernest HEmingway, if they have nit read one book by John Dewey,Howard Gardner or EDward de Bono? Because I feel it is my duty to harp on the importance of reading for my students, it is common to hear me say: Reading deepens our thoughts and widens our points of view.Without words at the back of our minds,thinking is limited.Vocabulary development is a sign of cognitive growth.Theres not much to play with in our minds without words,stories,facts and fiction.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 04:19:49 +0000
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