Help, The Reading Teachers Are Mad at Me

["F. Douglas Knight" <fdknight@teleport.com>]

As a current English teacher working on LMS certification, I have a few
ideas here.  You may choose to ignore them because they come from
someone on the other side of the fence.

First of all, I'd bet good money that your teachers are very aware of
the benefits of reading a book more than once.  You don't need to
convince them of that.  What they are also aware of, however, is that
many students and parents do not understand that a book can be
interesting the second time around.  Like anyone who teaches classroom
novels (which is not a new instructional technique) they have dealt with
complaints from parents and students and want to avoid them.  The
problem is not that they don't understand but that they are the ones who
will have to deal with the people who don't understand.

From your description, it sounds like you may have made a mistake when
you offered to help them expand their reading lists.  This would suggest
to me that you are not aware of the work that went into creating an
articulated list like this one and that you may not respect the
knowledge of your colleagues.  Granted, you have ample reason *not* to
respect their knowledge when they ask you to do something so stupid as
removing classics from your collection.  But I think you should try hard
to demonstrate respect for the work they they have done and to
understand the difficulties of their position.

If you want to change the way they are teaching reading, you will have
to gain their respect and affection.  You will also have to wait until
the books they have now start to wear out.

What you can do is to offer some sort of compromise.  Of course, you
shouldn't remove the books.  It is to be hoped that the principal will
recognize that you are correct and that the teachers will, too, once
given a chance to cool down (and shown that you respect what they are
trying to do).

I can think of the following reasons why the books need to remain on the
shelves:

* many students will have a need for significant titles like these when
they are not studying them in class
* some students will transfer into the school or out of it and should
not be deprived of a geat novel just because they aren't at your school
for every year
* with the range of reading level, it sounds like not every student will
read every book, anyway.  Although people who read at the third grade
level should not be made to read a book at the eighth grade level in
class (and vice versa) they should be able to choose to read good books
at any reading level
* some students may want to re-read books that they have read in class
* the library program should support the whole school and not be hobbled
to support one particular aspect of the instructional program

You could also offer to make the following concessions:

* don't book talk or otherwise "push" titles which are on the list

The above, I think, is a good choice.  The following are things you
could offer but which I don't feel as good about:

* label the copies you have so that students will know that they have
chosen a book which they may have to read again
* reduce the number of copies that you have on the shelves (if you have
seven copies of a particular title, cut it down to two)

Best of luck!  We English teachers aren't really that bad-- give us a
chance to get over our inflexibility and we might even be friendly.  The
fact that you are concerned for supporting their program and reading in
the school will come through over time.  Don't make the mistake of
believing that the most vocal or emotional teachers really speak for the
group-- probably everybody else has been yelled at, too, and they're
quiet about it because they're glad that it's you this time and not
them.

Doug Knight
fdknight@teleport.com
LMS Certification in Process
Language Arts/ Social Studies
Astoria Middle School, CyberSchool
http://www.cyberschool.k12.or.us/~knight/holocaust/index.htm

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