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Re: The missing issue
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From: Lynn Rutan <lynnrutan_at_charter.net>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:44:00 -0400
Interesting new thread with much to think about. I'm going to veer off just a bit but I think it is still related to the topic. In my professional years I was a middle school librarian. Just a few weeks ago I had worked at a middle school as a substitute librarian and came home that night and was kvetching to my husband. I hate sounding like an old lady but the subject of my complaint was - for want of a better term - the curiosity factor. That day a teacher was bringing in students to select topics and check out books for a research project. That is the sort of thing I love to do but that day it was almost painful. I couldn't seem to get anyone excited about anything. Despite my enthusiastic efforts the students mostly wandered off and looked bored. Now it could be that the teacher had not laid the groundwork, or that my booktalking skills are rusty but I have to say that I've noticed over the last few years that a larger and larger number of students seem to lack that wonderful motivating curiousity. What happens to teens that the curiosity that so marks younger children seems almost absent? What do we do to them in education or culture that knocks this out of them? Is it just not cool to show it? Have our current educational practices drowned it? Has technology shortened their attention spans to the point that they don't know how to be curious anymore?
My grown sons and now my 7-year old grandsons have high levels of that curiosity factor. They eagerly jump into books on a wide variety of topics. Because I write a blog I get boxes and boxes of enticing donations from publishers and I let my grandsons open the boxes and choose what we will read first. At 5, 6 and 7 years of age, they have loved nonfiction. They are as likely to select it as any of the tempting fiction books. My sons and my husband are equally fond of nonfiction, in fact one of my sons favors it over most fiction. I've watched my students at school over the years select books and while many students select nonfiction, the amount of non-assignment nonfiction reading seems to drop off as the students get older.
I think there is real truth in the notion that we as teachers and librarians do value different topics more than others and that there are some real gender differences. (OK - I am ducking now) As an aside - the older members of my male-dominated family love books about history, warfare, battles, weapons, science of all disciplines and technology while the younger two will read almost anything but especially love books about nature and living creatures, science, history, ancient peoples, architecture, myths and legends, construction and invention. But I think there is more to it than that. I work with a large group of teens in a book club that reads books eligible for the current year selection and awards committees. The teens who participate are excellent passionate readers but it takes booktalking on the part of me and the other librarian to get them to select the nonfiction. I have always loved nonfiction and I have been so excited about the really outstanding nonfiction that is being published recently fo r teens. I am usually someone who tends to look on the bright side perhaps a bit more than is rational but I admit to scratching my head and wondering what is happening. I know I am guilty of generalizing here and perhaps others are seeing something completely different.
My current purely personal theory is that current practices have played a large role in caging teens' curiosity exacerbated by our current anti-intellectual culture. I'm really excited about the new core standards and I hope with all my heart that these may lead to liberating changes in educational practices that may allow curiosity to flourish again for wider number of teens.
Lynn Rutan Librarian Bookends: BooklistOnline Youth Blog Holland, MI lynnrutan_at_charter.net
Received on Thu 14 Oct 2010 08:44:00 PM CDT
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:44:00 -0400
Interesting new thread with much to think about. I'm going to veer off just a bit but I think it is still related to the topic. In my professional years I was a middle school librarian. Just a few weeks ago I had worked at a middle school as a substitute librarian and came home that night and was kvetching to my husband. I hate sounding like an old lady but the subject of my complaint was - for want of a better term - the curiosity factor. That day a teacher was bringing in students to select topics and check out books for a research project. That is the sort of thing I love to do but that day it was almost painful. I couldn't seem to get anyone excited about anything. Despite my enthusiastic efforts the students mostly wandered off and looked bored. Now it could be that the teacher had not laid the groundwork, or that my booktalking skills are rusty but I have to say that I've noticed over the last few years that a larger and larger number of students seem to lack that wonderful motivating curiousity. What happens to teens that the curiosity that so marks younger children seems almost absent? What do we do to them in education or culture that knocks this out of them? Is it just not cool to show it? Have our current educational practices drowned it? Has technology shortened their attention spans to the point that they don't know how to be curious anymore?
My grown sons and now my 7-year old grandsons have high levels of that curiosity factor. They eagerly jump into books on a wide variety of topics. Because I write a blog I get boxes and boxes of enticing donations from publishers and I let my grandsons open the boxes and choose what we will read first. At 5, 6 and 7 years of age, they have loved nonfiction. They are as likely to select it as any of the tempting fiction books. My sons and my husband are equally fond of nonfiction, in fact one of my sons favors it over most fiction. I've watched my students at school over the years select books and while many students select nonfiction, the amount of non-assignment nonfiction reading seems to drop off as the students get older.
I think there is real truth in the notion that we as teachers and librarians do value different topics more than others and that there are some real gender differences. (OK - I am ducking now) As an aside - the older members of my male-dominated family love books about history, warfare, battles, weapons, science of all disciplines and technology while the younger two will read almost anything but especially love books about nature and living creatures, science, history, ancient peoples, architecture, myths and legends, construction and invention. But I think there is more to it than that. I work with a large group of teens in a book club that reads books eligible for the current year selection and awards committees. The teens who participate are excellent passionate readers but it takes booktalking on the part of me and the other librarian to get them to select the nonfiction. I have always loved nonfiction and I have been so excited about the really outstanding nonfiction that is being published recently fo r teens. I am usually someone who tends to look on the bright side perhaps a bit more than is rational but I admit to scratching my head and wondering what is happening. I know I am guilty of generalizing here and perhaps others are seeing something completely different.
My current purely personal theory is that current practices have played a large role in caging teens' curiosity exacerbated by our current anti-intellectual culture. I'm really excited about the new core standards and I hope with all my heart that these may lead to liberating changes in educational practices that may allow curiosity to flourish again for wider number of teens.
Lynn Rutan Librarian Bookends: BooklistOnline Youth Blog Holland, MI lynnrutan_at_charter.net
Received on Thu 14 Oct 2010 08:44:00 PM CDT
