Wednesday 15 January 2020

Together, let's make reading, a habit!

Making Reading a Beautiful Way of Life

Well, this news article that I happened to read today in the Chennai Edition of The Times of India, is the spur and the reason for this little post!

It was quite an alarming revelation, and such a shocking indictment of the sordid state of affairs that we in academia have come to!


Isn’t it a matter of deep regret then, that our children, even in third grade, cannot read the alphabet!?

Too shocking! Ain’t it?

But well, let’s not blame anyone now for this alarming crisis that’s staring at us!

At a time and age when reading skills of our children both at school and in college have taken a nose-dive, it has become all the more imperative on our part, as teachers, in this noble path of enlightening our students, to step in and plug the breach!

What went wrong?
What exactly went wrong?
Where exactly did it go wrong?
And how do we fix the problem?, [NOT the blame!]

How do we gear up as teachers together, to do some concrete action, some noble action, to stem the rot!? To plug the breach?

The first step is to educate our learners on the importance of reading!

And on this count, there’s a lot at stake in our good ol’ libraries.

Many might tend to shrug off and make light of, the immense value of a library in these tech-savvy days! But they’re quite mistaken on this count!

Last year, I personally hired a tourist bus, yes a tourist bus, that came straight into campus, near Selaiyur Hall gate, to take all my first year MA students to the Anna Centenary Library and make them sit there and read for themselves any good book/s that they found interesting.

Our kids started relishing much this new-found habit of reading, and they also seemed to approach it as an engaging, and therapeutic exercise!

Soon, over the next three weekends, a little group of students expressed their desire to go again to the same library!

So yet again, I went along with them, and demonstrated to them the art of reading books effectively! Thanks to the training I had received from my beloved librarian Dr. Manalan! 

Well, yet another eureka moment on reading happened to me, when I read through Professor Neil McCaw’s [University of Winchester, UK], marvellous book titled, How to Read Texts. The very next moment, I impulsively wrote him a long mail, highly appreciative of his book, and also requested him if I could quote a few lines from his book on our academic blog. This was way back in the year 2012! Professor McCaw, the kind heart that he is, promptly obliged, and then I did this post! You may want to read this post on the importance of reading, HERE! It was also carried in our College Magazine of that particular year’s, in 2012! I also had it photocopied and distributed to all my literature students back then!

Well, the joys of reading quite soon caught up with them, and even today, quite regularly, I get snaps of our kids enjoying their time in the portals of this grand library – the Anna Centenary Library, Adyar, Chennai.

Now they testify for themselves the abundant joy they find in reading books!

Reading then has to become a habit for our kids!

And we’ve got to strive in that direction!

In this regard, parents also have a great burden up their shoulders! Giving their children all these petty, trivial youtube videos 24x7, makes the poor child crave more and more for the visual form more than the print form!

After having given the child a daily dose of such intense visual treats, when the poor child is back in school, and when the teacher asks the child to read in class, how will she possibly try to read? Quite impossible, ain’t it!?

Parents should remember that they alone are responsible if their children are not good readers!

Parents should also bear in mind that, every day of Television time or Gadget time for their kids is sure spoiling their child's rich and precious future! It’s like the beautiful Tamil proverb that says, ‘Using your own hands to dump sand on your own head’!!!

For me, personally, my dad and mom used to buy loads and loads of books and place it neatly stacked in bookshelves everywhere at home, even when we were very young!

And I can so proudly tell you that we did not have a Television set at anypoint of time at our sweet home till the time i came to College! What blessed parents we had!

How much they were concerned about their children that they did not want their children to be spoilt by all the unwanted vulgar and trivial info that makes its way straight into one’s sitting room through the Television box!

Even today, even as I have crossed forty years, I still don’t have a television set at home! We had one, to be honest, but it’s now in the attic for more than two years, now ;-)

Thanks to my parents, to my librarian, and all my teachers who have effected this change in this pavapetta me!!!

As eminent critic Scupin Richard once said, every student who spends one hour on social networking sites daily, should bear in mind, that they are losing one year’s productivity of their glorious future!


Two hours a day on social networking then means two years of your glorious future lost, and gone to drain!

Three hours and more a day on social networking sites, and three precious years of your promising future, gone waste!

Four hours and more a day on these social networking sites, and well, rest assured, you become of no possible use to anybody, anywhere, at anytime, at any point of time!!!

How true is Scupin Richard!

Together let’s strive to come out of all that bogs us down!

Together let’s strive to make all our burdens light!

Together let’s strive then, to be far far away from all pessimistic, negative people!

Together let’s strive to surround ourselves with chirpy, positive souls, who will inspire us to dream our future in beautiful ways!

Together let’s then begin anew, the gentle art of reading!

Rightaway at that!!

Your future, dear student, lies in your hand!
Not in the hand of your gadgets!
Not in the hands of facebook or instagram!
Not in the hands of any of your friend/s!
Not in the hands of your parents!
Not in the hands of your teachers!
Not in the hands of your politicians!
Not in the hands of your movie stars!
Not in the hands of the television channels!
Not in the hands of Big Boss!

It lies entirely, entirely and completely in your hands!

Be a steward of your own life!

Use it responsibly! Very responsibly!

Love,
Your teacher,
Dr. Rufus

Catherine Belsey has also given her wonderful take on Reading, that we had posted HERE on our blog.

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