Tom’s School Reading and Reading for Enjoyment

Throughout high school, Tom was assigned books to read. Often he would have preferred to read an assigned book within a few days; however the teachers parceled out pages and then quizzed on those pages. Completing the book ahead of schedule would have meant poor performance on the frequent quizzes, which often asked questions like what was a character wearing or eating (as if that had much relevance to the overall story).

Most of the assigned reading was melancholy. The themes usually centered on death and misery instead of life and joy. Tom recalls reading the following books in high school:

• Ethan Frome (about attempted collaborative suicide);
• A Separate Peace (about high school friends and one becoming jealous to the point of trying to kill his friend);
• The Great Gatsby (about a rich man who pines for a shallow woman which ends up causing him to be murdered);
• Jane Eyre (about an unattractive British woman who is to marry her older boss until she learns he is already married to a nut);
• The Wide Sargasso Sea (about the life of the nut in Jane Eyre before she marries the rich British dude);
• To Kill a Mockingbird (about racism which kills an innocent black man);
• The Red Badge of Courage (about death and dying during the Civil War)
• The Good Earth (about a newer Chinese generation taking over and placing the preceding generation in a corner with opium).

Tom needed other books to read in order to keep him reading. The school books alone would have destroyed all desire to read in the teenager. So, Tom sought out adventure stories including books by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, et al), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost World, Sherlock Holmes), Jack London (White Fang, Call of the Wild, Sea Wolf), and other early Twentieth Century novelists. These books also dealt with themes like death, but in a way that was positive, life reaffirming, and adventurous. Like many other teenagers, he also enjoyed comic books. These books gave Tom a desire to discover, learn, travel, and be something, whereas the assigned school books caused him to wonder what the purpose of life was and whether life is worth living when there can be so much tragedy and horror.

As an adult, Thomas still does not know why the school district assigned the reading it did when thousands of other books with more engaging themes could have been on the reading list. He figures that the books would not survive as literature if not foisted upon young minds whose world views would thereafter be affected. He wonders if the reason so few adults read books after graduation has anything to do with the reading that had been required.

Teen-aged years were traumatic enough. After all, teenagers deal with wanting to be free while restricted by parents, school, and other authority. Teenagers deal with new emotions that are stronger than at any other time in life. Why then should the school force such sad literature upon teenagers already dealing with turbulent, troubling times?

Tommy Learns to Read

In 1986, Tommy's third grade teacher believed that Tommy might have an eye problem and told his parents to have his vision checked. Tommy was not doing well in the reading portion of the class. He knew the alphabet, but did not sound out words on the page. He seemed to not even notice the words. However, they soon learned that Tommy had perfect vision.

Tommy was in a cloud of confusion at school. He was distracted by the other students in class and their strange behaviors. Other kids talked about He-man cartoons, The Transformers, and brought lunch boxes depicting video game figures and containing candy, cookies, and coke products. He remembers girls were into Cabbage Patch Dolls and boys liked the Garbage Pail Kid cards. Tommy’s parents did not have a television or video game system, and did not let him eat candy or drink soda. They also thought the Garbage Pail Kid cards were too grotesque. So, Tommy sat through the day observing all the odd behavior, not realizing that a kind and patient teacher was trying to impart knowledge that would serve him well.

It was decided that Tommy would have to spend part of the day in a Reading Improvement Program (RIP), where he would be placed in a special classroom, a portable, and sit alone with a book and a tape-recorder which would read the book to him. And so, he spent his days at a carrel desk designed to keep him focused. He still remembers the first book he read with the program. It was John Henry the Steel Driving Man. It was far more entertaining than his regular classroom activities. He had heard the Johnny Cash version that his father sometimes played, but reading it, it made a lot more sense than the song to his young mind.

The book had a great impact on Tommy in several ways. He realized that he could read and what reading would mean to him from then on. The story was about a man who would not quit, despite great odds against him and despite many distractions—even if it killed him. After third-grade and his new found skill, Tommy became a voracious reader. In fourth grade he vastly out-read all the other students in the class combined, and won a top reader award. He remembers that, in fourth, fifth and sixth grades he was especially fond of mystery stories, including The Three Investigators, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Encyclopedia Brown. In fifth grade Tommy started writing his own mystery stories and the teacher often had him read the stories in front of the class.

Reading that first book may well have laid the ground work for who Thomas would later become. Although he suffered a slight stigma in third grade for being in a RIP class (for dumb kids) and was teased for it, the lesson of John Henry the Steel Driving Man helped him overcome this and many more obstacles in life. When the kids made fun of him in third grade, he inwardly smiled because he was having a much more fun time in RIP than they were having in class.