Teachers who do not read

BarcelonaEveryone is clear that reading is good and having the habit of reading is even better. For years we have been trying to do this from high schools, especially language teachers. I say we try because we don't always succeed. In a few high schools in Catalonia, half an hour is dedicated to reading every day. Where I work, this is done in all courses, from first year of ESO to second year of baccalaureate. Sometimes, on guard duty or walking through the corridors, you see that the youngest ones, those in the first cycle, still maintain the desire to read. The key word is "still", because I fear that with adolescence, a good part of the students lose the reading habit. Some, unfortunately, forever.

The family environment, omnipresent screens, constant distractions, and the general difficulty in concentrating, especially on what is written, cause that wonderful discovery made in primary school, learning to read, to lose its appeal. For me, it is the most important and wonderful thing a human being can learn. Widespread laziness, the powerful fight against images, and the immediacy of the click make us lose young readers, even if we let them choose what to read. Teachers who also do not read

It is especially sad to see how high school students spend thirty minutes pretending to read. The coolest ones don't even hide it. Some girls still do it for pleasure and escape, but most boys pull out a few pages from the newspaper available for emergencies and do the sudokus or review the football standings. Some days the image really saddens me because I think most of them will be university students who won't like to read, and in a few years they will be graduates who will never pick up a book unless it's out of obligation or because they were given one for Saint George's Day.

Don't think that there are also many teachers who don't read, and, of course, you can't promote what you don't practice. That's why, whenever I visit a high school as a writer, I try to break stereotypes. Before talking about the novel in question, I ask them some questions about their tastes. All students like cinema and music, but not any genre or style. With books, I intend for them to understand that it's the same pattern. All of them, at least here I find hope, confess to me that at some point in their lives they have read "at least one book" that they really liked. Therefore, it's just a matter of pulling the thread and offering them more. And then we'll see.