School Year Ended, But Text Books Look New!

As a parent, year after year, you might have made that one trip to school.

Where you get that big bag, 

which contains a lot of things : the text books, note books, 

binding paper and graph books, stationeries and so on.

We have already made twenty such trips in the past, 

since we have two children and they have already finished their schooling.

Now, the interesting part is not the trip itself!

Interesting part is what happened to the things inside that heavy bag!

Especially those TEXT BOOKS!!

It is my observation from past 10 years that,

The text books used to remain new even at the end of the academic year!

I am sure some of you are smiling already 

and might have already guessed what i am getting into.😄

Yes. I am getting into the topic of READING.

By now you know why those textbooks looked so new even after a whole year! 😄

I didn't stop there,

I used wonder,

How often does a child actually open the textbook?

When they do open it, do they actually read the chapter?

And when they read it, do they understand what they are reading?

Or has the textbook slowly become something they open 

mainly because of the exam - “because some of the answers were marked in the text book”? 

In my children case,

on an annual basis,

I would say,

my daughter read text books , to some good extent.

Son, not much.

So, his books used to always remain brand new even by the end of the year 😄 

Now please don't argue with me that, you don't know my son,

his books will be almost in a state of decay, 

even the scrap paper guy scolded me for expecting money for that!

I get you, that is a different story. 

Just, to let you know,

In my son's books, I have seen, Gandhiji, 

turning into a hero of a movie "Godfather" with a cigar.

We will talk about that another day. 😄

Coming back to TEXT BOOKS & READING.

I always wondered, in a child's mind, 

why in general  TEXT BOOKS give an uncomfortable feeling !

In spite of so many academic scholars, research and development institutions 

like NCERT and Government has spent enormous effort and money!!

Let me bring my one cent observation or knowledge regarding this.

I suspect, some how TEXT BOOKS and READING has got

this bad reputation of being TOO COMPLEX and TOO DIFICULT.

And ultimately from a child's perspective it probably 

gives a feeling of  I CAN'T READ or WHO WILL READ.

And this is where my concern about the young years comes in.

Let me explain,

if you look at our EDUCATION SYSTEM as a whole.

So much of school is still built around WRITTEN KNOWLEDGE.

Curriculum.

Textbooks.

Notes.

Assignments.

Exams.

Which means that, whether we like it or not, 

reading continues to play an important role in a child's school years.

So I keep wondering:

Why does reading become such a struggle for so many children?

Whatever the future of education looks like, I suspect reading is going to remain 

an important part of a child's school life for quite some time.

If reading is going to remain such an important part of school, 

perhaps we need to understand why children find it difficult to engage with it?

Is the textbook too difficult?

Is the language a barrier?

Is the content too dry?

Has the child simply never developed the habit of reading?

Or have we somehow made “reading for studies” feel very different from the joy of reading?

I don't know which of these is true.

Perhaps it is one of these. 

Perhaps it is a combination of several things.

But I keep wondering:

Why does reading become such a struggle for so many children?

How about you?

Does your child enjoy reading?

And I don't mean only storybooks.

I mean the textbooks sitting in their school bag.

Does your child actually enjoy opening them, reading them and trying to understand 

what is inside?

If not, what do you think gets in the way?

I'd genuinely like to hear what happens in your home.