Post Discussion

Reply from Jack van Raders on August 31, 2007

Dear Gloria, Old fashioned surely you are not, But time are a changing kid. the books you mentioned I have not read them either and I am older than you, Admittedly I was not brought up on English literature,or any Literature I was always more interested in Math. and science. Hey I am still happy and healthy without Tom Sawyer. from what you rote about him he must have ended up as a politician. Kristen and Jon will grow up fine without the English that you admire you only have to look at their EYES.They are Masters Eyes Till next time love to All Jack

Reply from Margaretha on August 31, 2007

My mother used to read Tom Sawyer for us when we were children. She read us all kinds of books, Around the world in 80 days, Robinson Crusoe, etc etc.

I remember one day I went to the library, and on the top shelf, which I could almost reach if I stood on my toes, I saw an old, tattered book. I pulled it down and the picture on the front was worn and torn, and the words “Treasure Island” (or Skatten pÃ¥ Sjørøverøya in Norwegian) was barely visible. I fell in love with it even before I opened it, and I remember the dusty smell of the pages, and the soft feeling of worn pages as I read it all through the night. The poem in the beginning sent chills up and down my spine in pure delight, and later, when I was walking in the woods to look for sheep in the fall, and darkness crept up around me, I would hum to myself:

Femten gaster på død manns kiste,
Hei og hå, en flaske med rom!

(fifteen ghouls on a dead man’s coffin, hey, ho, a bottle of rum)

The book I remember the best, though, is “Nobody’s Boy” by Hector Malot. The title is Frendeløs in Norwegian, which translates directly into Kinless in English. Oh, I could start crying even now, it is such a masterpiece.

I do agree with you, though, Gloria. I was awestruck when I realized what little American schools actually teach about great literature. My poor husband has taken quite a lot of my frustration on the subject - like it’s his fault that the schoolboards remove books from the classes. They didn’t even read The Diary of Anne Frank! How can that ever be considered controversial and “bad” for children? Books such as this are the ones that lets us develop our own deep compassion and kinship with the characters, and gives us the understanding of what the human society should never do again.

I do not believe that shielding children from books that might not go along with the parent’s religion or beliefs will do anything but prevent them for making their own decisions about truth, and especially when the books are about such horrors as the Holocaust.
How will we not learn from our forefather’s mistakes if the ones teaching us of our past pretends it didn’t even happen? I am not saying we should gorge in horrible eye witness reports. I am saying that by understanding our past and the fate of a young, jewish girl, we can develop our own compassion and understanding of what it is like to be human.

And now I think I’ve raged enough Arrrrgh

Reply from Trish on August 31, 2007

Well I’m appalled. And don’t even get me started about music education.

Reply from Gloria on August 31, 2007

Jack, what you write makes me take a deeper look at what I’m saying. Yes, of course, Jon and Krystin have the love that is important, and what they read or don’t read isn’t the making of them. My argument is with the school systems then that don’t provide equally worthy material. The thing with books like Tom Sawyer isn’t that they are considered “classics.” It’s that they are such darn good enjoyable stories. In fact, Jack, I would say that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and and The Adventures of Huck Finn are right up your alley. On a sidenote, it is no surprise that you would have wonderful grandchildren.

Margaretha, you have given me so much material that I think I’m going to reply with a whole blog entry, so hang on!

Trish, I would indeed like to get you started on music education! Tell us!

With love and blessings,

Gloria

Reply from Trish on September 1, 2007

“Trish, I would indeed like to get you started on music education! Tell us!” Gloria

LOL

I don’t think so. It has mostly disappeared already.

But essentially I think what you and I are both concerned about is that children are no longer being guided to interact with the best that humanity has to offer. Seeing a movie and listening to music, even the best, is a far different experience than communing with greatness through the written word or a musical score.

When you read a book, say Tom Sawyer, you are immersed in it for a time, probably several days, with your whole life and imagination — Tom Sawyer is in your life for that time and you learn what is learned through living his adventures. Content matters!

When you play Bach or Beethoven or Mozart on an instrument you are communing with the soaring vision of genius. The time it takes to learn a tune is time you become more and more acquainted with that vision.

Reading and playing become part of your life experience in a way that can’t be had as a mere spectator. Even sport, which is still revered in schools, is relegated to the best of the best by the time high school rolls around. The average kid is, again, just watching from the stands.

I think most public school teaching has become a dumbed down second hand affair aimed at getting the most people to graduation with the least possible time, effort and expenditure. If other enrichment and encouragement is not offered by parents, a high school diploma will qualify young people for a job in the fast food industry. There are plenty of excuses for that but the outcome is that for lack of real roll models, either in a kids real life and/or those known through books, the arts sports and music, for many the local gang banger becomes the most admired guy around. If a kid is feeling lost and alone that guy makes it easy to belong.

Reply from Allan on September 1, 2007

yes…..

you are old-fashioned…

all my love….a…

Reply from Xenia on September 1, 2007

Dear Gloria, I too am a mother and grandmother and have noticed the difference in reading material that the youngsters are exposed to. But then, if I think what the generation of our parents praised as ‘must read’, weren’t necesarely my ‘cup of tea’ at times. This is called generation gap!

Of course, over time we might rediscover works of times past and some ‘classics’ are timeless.

On the subject of music: when one of our children was in Grade 7, their home teacher started the morning session with about 10 minutes of classical music played on a record player. When I commended the teacher for doing this, he said to me that he discovered this music as an adult, never having had the exposure as a child. He thought it was such a treasure, that he wanted his youngsters to be introduced to the beautiful music in case they didn’t have that from home.

There are great teachers around and even if the school ’system’ isn’t perfect, they make the difference! I can well imagine that you Gloria, were one of those!

Have a great day,
Xenia

Reply from Jo on September 2, 2007

I believe that now there is so much good new literature to choose from for children. Yes the classics like Tom Sawyer are wonderful, too, but there are so many other worthy books for middle schoolers to read and study. There simply isn’t time to cover all of them. The thing about books, poems, and song lyrics is that each reader can find Divine wisdom in their lines whether they are the older classics or newly published. I think of one of my favorite bumper stickers: “Jesus is still speaking.” Check out “Because of Winn-Dixie” a more recently published piece of juvenille literature.
I also believe the title of “Tom Sawyer” will stick in your grandson’s brain a lot longer now that his grandmother has mentioned it than he would if it had been required reading.

Reply from Mariaemma on September 24, 2007

Dear Gloria,

I am just getting a chance to add my comments, as I’ve been traveling, and leaving again tomorrow to train teachers at a school in Canada….

Wow, there’s so much to respond to here, I don’t know where to begin, so I just will…

The first thing that comes to mind is that most teachers are scared to death of standards and benchmarks and test scores. So, if it’s not in the curriculum (controlled by the publishers, who are controlled by the mystery people who make up the “rules�) it won’t make it to the classroom, because basically they have to teach to the test.

Secondly, in many programs these classics are included but many kids don’t even remember them because their brains shut down in the classroom. There are so many kids who are not print learners and if you force them to read a book, no matter how fun and delightful it might be, they just turn it off. It’s possible, Gloria, that some of these books were covered when your grandson was younger and he doesn’t remember!

It used to be that teachers read aloud almost daily to their classes - books of interest that were delivered with expression and discussion and the kids were riveted. I think I remember you saying, Gloria, how you used to do interactive reading with your students. Sadly, I don’t think this happens so much any more, especially in the older grades. Yet older kids (even adults) love being read to…so reading the classics, a few minutes every day, and stopping right at the “good partâ€? keeps them wanting more. This is a great way to introduce great books. Other options for different learning styles are books on tape and watching the movie.

Do I think we should include the classics? Yes, AND it’s so much more than that. What I think is that teachers are supposed to be coaches, providing unlimited opportunities, drawing out the best from each student, allowing them to explore varied subjects and topics, giving them a voice to express their opinions. We can expose them to the classics as well as more recent great books, but if we don’t have that, “Let me share something wonderful with you and let’s have a real conversation about it� attitude, it won’t work. Turning something delightful, like Tom Sawyer, into a terrible chore, would turn anybody off.

Hope this makes sense to you all, as it’s really hard for me to do this in this format - it really deserves extended discussion.

Basically, the bottom line is this: the No Child Left Behind Act is leaving numerous students behind. I’m all about every child shines and thrives! Most teachers and parents have an intuition about how to meet the individual needs of children and what books are appropriate when…but they are frozen in fear and are trying to follow the state and federal rules and standardized curriculum. If they could just relax, follow their intuition, and really teach from the heart, magic would happen, and the test scores would go up as a side benefit anyway!

Mariaemma, LearningSuccess(tm) Coach

Reply from Gloria on September 27, 2007

Dear Maraemma,

How I agree with everything you say. I wish I could have taught with you.

I am thrilled at how you are reaching school systems and helping the schoolchildren learn and be happy in school.

Even before No Child Left Behind Act, childrens’ different styles of learning were not addressed.

I want to tell you that my classes LOVED The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. You should have seen the kids acting out the scenes! What fun!

I especially loved what you said about reading to the children. I may have already told about some of my reading-aloud-to-children experiences somewhere else, but I’ll tell you again!

I had a wonderful huge book of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I would read it aloud to seventh grade classes, even those classes erroneously homogenously marked as slow. The children loved it! I rememberin particular one boy who was not much a reader and who was a handful. When I would stop to do my pontifying, he would call out: “Read it! Read it!” And when he got too impatient with me, he would have come up and somehow got himself under my arms and in front of the book so he could be a part of it.

I think I had an enlightened principal because he gave me a special class for gifted students. It wasn’t a regular class, and I forget what they are called. We met once a week, and we could do anything the children and I wanted. I remember reading to them. I even remember one of the books. It was An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden. An excellent story. It also had a lot of specific British English expressions. A run in stockings was called a ladder.

One day there was some state educational group or something like that who came to check out the school. The principal was so happy that the group was impressed to see a teacher reading aloud to a small group of children in the atrium.

Thank you for posting, Mariaemma.

Reply from Mariaemma Willis on October 19, 2007

Hi, Gloria, you are so welcome!

I have been traveling and doing one training after another (parents and teachers). Thank you so much for your response and for the video clip. It is so amazing. I talk a lot about the power we have as adults to instill confidence or the absence of it in kids…buried talents…people who are afraid to go for their passion because they don’t think they can do it, etc…I will be showing this video you referred us to in my workshops…http://www.maniacworld.com/Phone-Salesman-Amazes-Crowd.html

I love the story about your 7th grader. It is so easy to get kids interested and engaged - sometimes I just can’t believe that the school system doesn’t get it! May I share your story in my workshops?

One more thing - I know YOU know this…I wish our school system would think of ALL kids as gifted students - because they are all gifted - in a million, wonderful, different ways…so often, a small group is designated gifted and they “get to do” marvelous things that exactly fit the learning styles of those kids who are being labeled with “disabilities.” If those kids could do the same things, they would shine, and people would see how gifted they are!

That’s all for now - I’m off for some vacation this time!

Reply from Gloria on October 20, 2007

Yes, please, by all means, share the story of the 7th grade boy at your workshops. Scotty Randall would be thrilled to be known. I wish I knew where he is now and what he’s doing.

And what you say about every child’s being gifted — if only everyone could feel that way. It isn’t even how you feel. It’s what you KNOW.

I am sorry to say that sometimes teachers referred to students with terms of disrespect.

And what you say about the learning styles. How nice it would have been if I could have been able to take a few of the “ungifted” students and read to them out in the atrium.

And that video — I wish the whole world would watch it.
And certainly every teacher and every student.

By the way, does anyone out there know a way to get a DVD of the video?

Reply from Daisy on October 21, 2007

All i can say is this is one of my favourite stories I love Tom Sawyer and this story. When my daughter was a little girl my husband and I used to read to her… as she grew up we introduced her to a wide variety of children’s books and stories. Classics like Alice in Wonderland and The Borrowers, The Wind In the Willows,
Peter Pan, they seem to last forever and although our children grow up I am convinced that as we read to our children we plant seeds which grow into their imagination.. May we also like children hold onto the sparks that fire our imaginations, that there will always be part of a childlike innocence that never quite grows up… and keeps us finding the simple joys
pleasures of life as children…Luv Daisy

Reply from Jordan on April 30, 2008

Dear Gloria,
my name is jordan shuler and i’m a freshman in highschool. I read ur post and wanted to inform you that i have read every single book on your list and enjoyed them all. I could understand them, but had a little trouble with some of the situations and statements in the book a tale of two cities, but that was nothing that a little studying wouldnt fix and after that i understood it completly :)…. i really do think that everyone should read the books you listed at least once in there lifetime. each one gives life lessons and could teach alot to the growing mind. whenever i first began to read some of the books, i didnt want to and didnt want to try, even though i had scored colleage levels on my tests that i took to be admitted into new schools and even more tests that i had took with counclers several times for english and literature. bu after i really began to read them it opened my mind and got me interested. but i would just like u to no that im very glad to see someone wanting more highschoolers and children to read this list of books. and please forgive me if some f my spelling is incorrect. im very tired, but i felt the need to post a comment on this. thank you for your time

Jordan

Reply from Gloria on May 1, 2008

Dear Jordan,

Your post has touched me more than I can say. I am thrilled that you found this blog and particularly this entry and that you took it to heart and read these books.

You are happy to know there is someone who wants young people to read books worth reading. Imagine how happy I am that one young person I know did go ahead and read them on his own.

Do you have a favorite?

Sometimes classics are hard to get into. As you say, once you get into them, you’re glad.

Jordan, the most fun was sharing them in a class. Can you imagine acting out A Tale of Two Cities? Ninth graders playing the part of Lucy Manette standing all day outside the prison so Charles Darnay might catch a glimpse of her? Imagine a ninth grader playing Sidney Carton as he sacrifices himself? The evil Marquis, Lucy’s old father etc. Such a dramatic story!

One year my ninth grade class took photos of their teachers — close up’s of their teachers — and blew them up and chose Miss Mullens, a gym teacher, to play the part of Mmme. DeFarge and insert her photo in a mural etc. You can imagine what a thrill that was.

I wish I could have had you as a student, Jordan. It is a beautiful thing to see your willingness to learn. Your parents must be so proud of you.

Don’t tell anyone, but I used to tell my classes that spelling wasn’t as important as it was cracked up to be! Not that we didn’t pay attention to spelling, but it just wasn’t suffering over, as some kids did.

How did you find the Godwriting blog? Where do you live?
Have you read any Heavenletters?

What sort of schools are you thinking of going to?

Hope you find this and will tell us more about you.

With love and blessings,

Gloria