Back to School, Back to Books

In NYC, the day after Labor Day has traditionally been the day that "'teachers report." They show up for their first day to get their classroom assignments, set up their rooms, meet with their departments, and begin their countdown of the state-mandated 180-days. It's a beautiful day, like April for Chaucer when all nature wakes up. Across all the DeGrassi and Ridgemont and Capeside and West Beverly Hill high schools, teachers today are planning their units and lessons, selecting the books they think will "work" with their classes--and one of the first criteria (forget official requirements) is that the teachers like the books they choose to teach. I won't go on and on about what goes on with teachers, students, and books except to say a few things such as that all the bestseller lists, book review sections, etc. seem to miss this key aspect of American life. They are not counting those things that really count. Do we really know what is being taught and read across America?

It is true that one of the biggest drains on the lives of young people is the forced reading of tired old texts--such as Steinbeck's THE DEAD PONY, oops THE RED PONY. A greater truth is that teachers have made a difference in the lives of kids by introducing them to books that matter and to which they may personally connect. It is teachers who above all others deserve credit for making memoirs so popular, and one day someone will write a history focusing just on the role of Maya Angelou's I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS in that effort; they deserve credit for promoting a whole genre we call YA; and credit to the newer teachers for bringing to their students the works they themselves are discovering in graduate school, whether Jamaica Kincaid, or Sandra Cisneros, or Oscar Hijuelos. Credit also to teachers who take the classic works and, with student participation, read them in fresh and creative ways; and those who bring in music and film to highlight techniques, or to deepen the artistic experience in ways that books cannot. This canon-reshaping and cultural regeneration takes place in the classrooms and student minds each and every semester. Teachers are both transmitters of culture and bulwarks against culture. And so, as Mr. Raditch said in days of old, "Good Morning, Aspiring Scholars."