Today is Father's Day, so I will keep this brief; you all need to be out doing things with your kids or you Dads, not reading something you opened through a link on your Twitter or Facebook page. That said, thanks for that click.
So here it is. My first and greatest teacher is my Dad. I honestly believe he is one of the prominent reasons I am a teacher today, and more specifically, an English teacher. Those of you who know that Mom carries in her billfold a yearbook picture of Dad, one that captures him head on desk, sleeping in class, might question that belief, but I know it is true. Without a doubt.
I could create an extensive list of the lessons Dad taught me, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about that lately. But, as I said, I want this to be brief. (Oddly enough, it just struck me that this too is something I learned from Dad. No need to drag things out. Say it, do it, write it, whatever, but do it. People have things to do. I may not have learned it very well, but he tried to teach it.)
So what is this monumental lesson, the one that I believe has led me into the most rewarding passion that exists? Simple: READ.
That's the whole tweet, as they say.
READ.
As with so many of the valuable lessons Dad taught us, he didn't ever tell me this. He never sat down stared into my young eyes, one of them drifting off and having to be consciously drawn back into the conversation, and said, "Son, you need to read. Books will take you places." No, that wasn't Dad's style. Instead, he did it. Yeah, long before Nike thought they were marketing geniuses, Dad owned that concept. Work needs to be done? Just do it. Kids don't believe you can stand on a ball like the bear in the circus? Just do it. (If you are not laughing right now, that is a story for another day. But he did it.)
Dad just did it. He taught us that reading is what you did. There is a sign in the library at BHS that says RMR. Real Men Read. Um, duh. That was never something I had to be told, and I definitely didn't need to be convinced it was true. I already knew it, and it was a natural as breathing. Every day of my life, I saw it. Mom and Dad both had ever-present stacks next to their chairs in the livingroom. Each night after work, Dad would sit down and read the newspaper, front page to back page. Yes, the TV was on most evenings during my childhood, but it was more of a background soundtrack than a focus because everyone had a book open. Dad's favorites were nonfiction, and they included books focused on history and biographies. There might be a sports book in his stack, and after I graduated from high school and he took up golf, Golf Digest became a constant.
Some of my clearest me memories from childhood involve going to the library. We would walk with our cousins to the Ellsworth Library on Saturday mornings after cartoons ended and The Baseball Bunch was over. Sometimes, Mom would take us. We took part in every reading activity, contest, and program they offered. And they stayed open on certain evenings. That is when Dad took us to the library. As we walked in the front doors, we would turn left and descend the stairs to the children's library. Dad would continue up the stairs to the adult section. Usually, after we found our books and checked them out, we would traipse back up the stairs and go looking for Dad. He checked out books. Lots of books. In our house, stacks on stacks on stacks referred to books. I realized that that is my house now. And my kids have seen it every day. If I spend time in a room, there are books there.
Dad and Mom taught me, taught all of us, that you read. It is just what you do. Today, I try to teach kids too. I hope that this is one of the lessons I can pass on to not just my own children but to my kids that I am blessed to work with in my classroom. A great friend of mine, Samantha Neill, included a section in a recent presentation that said (and I paraphrase here) that to get our kids to read good books, we have to read good books so that our kids see us doing it and so that we can talk to them about those books as they read them. This seems so elementary, and yet, it is so powerful.
And it is so true. I am living proof of that. I learned Dad's lesson, even though he was not trying to teach it. He was just doing it.
READ. And let them (whoever they are) see you doing it.
