Re: Reading & First Grade Teachers

[Victoria Rubottom <rubottom@cadvantage.com>]

Diane Chen wrote:

> Hello all, I guess this discussion of librarians loving to read is just too
> good to resist. Recently I was interviewing all 8 first grade teachers in
> my building for a bulletin board asking them about their favorite books as
> a child and now. One teacher replied very bluntly that she didn't like to
> read then and doesn't like to read now. She finds it hard to read aloud to
> her class, and never touches a book she doesn't have to.
>

    Okay it now time to wax poetic.  Reading is everything the thread has
pointed out .  A way to new places, a builder of vocabulary , grammar skills,
and a source of information.  All this is true , but no one has mentioned the
things each book ,no matter how badly written, represents.
    People!!!!  Each volume is the thoughts and word of somebody, or several
somebodies,  Each volume is a testament to a person's existence.   The rooms we
work in are crowded with hundreds or even thousands of people all shouting what
was important to them. Our world is built upon the knowledge of those who
wrote.   We watch plays and entertainment by people who died hundreds or
thousands of years ago,  Even our beliefs in something beyond our lifetimes are
guided by writers of faith who wrote not knowing their words would reach
generations spanning millenniums .  We live better (or worse ) because of these
people who wrote and members of our profession who guarded their creations.
    We work in a holy place .  A place where the ages meet .  One path
stretching backward into the dim past and one stretching forward into a future
unknown.  Here resides knowledge and the trivial , beauty and the ugliness of
the soul , saints ,sinners, fools , the wise and the ordinary, all that make up
the species that is called man.
    We are the keepers of the shrine.  We keep the past alive and provide the
keys that the young will use to create the future.  We defend , we mend , we
advise and instruct  all who enter this place.  There will not be celebrations
in our honor , or statues of our august features  found  in parks.  Most will
not even remember our names.  But , we still serve .  And in serving we join a
long line of those who cared .  We keepers of the flame in this sanctuary of
knowledge .

We Librarians!


Victoria L. Rubottom
Sacred Heart School
Librarian
 102 Cottonwood
Emporia , Ks.
rubottom@cadvantage.com

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