Reading for Pleasure

During my four years of college, I rarely took the time to read.  And by rarely, I mean never.  My parents have always had a house full of books.  They love reading.  My brother loves reading.  My aunt loves reading. My uncle loves reading.  If I were in the states, I would upload a picture of me sitting in the built-in bookcases in my room in Alabama.  But, that's not one of the oldies I have scanned and on my computer some 5500 miles away.

I grew up loving to read...but sometime along the way, my opinion changed.  Perhaps because of having to read books for school?  It basically ruined a book for me to be assigned to read it for class.  I can remember enjoying To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby in high school.  I didn't read my senior paper book {The Grapes of Wrath}.  And I still got a very good grade.  But that's beside the point.  The second semester of my senior year at Norman North, I took Reading for Pleasure with Claudia Swisher.

That class changed forever how I viewed books.

Every day, for 55 minutes, we simply sat in her classroom and read.  You could read whatever you wanted, as long as you were reading.  At the end of the period, we would journal for a few minutes stating how many pages we read and anything that struck you for the day.  This is a class that, in my opinion, should be mandatory for every kid to take at Norman North.  For the past six years when I worked with kids at McFarlin, I constantly told each of them to take that class.  It was the best decision...ever.  No question about it.  You see, not only is Mrs. Swish, as she's commonly referred, one of the most fun teachers at the school...she also has pictures on her wall of every student she's taught at Norman North (and probably beyond).  If my memory serves me correct, it's a requirement to give her a senior picture of yourself.   And when some of my McFarlin kiddos would {actually} listen to me and take her class, they would come running to me saying that they found my pictures on the walls of her room.  That was usually followed by laughter at whatever outfit I happened to be wearing or how my hair looked.  Moving on...

The Kindle.  I didn't want one.  Remember?  Well, I was wrong.  It is by far my absolute favorite thing I brought with me to Ukraine.  I hated the idea of having an "e-book" and no longer having my "pretty books" on the shelf.  But, in the world of Peace Corps, it's really not practical to have a slew of heavy paperbacks (or even worse, hardbacks).  So, two weeks before I left for Ukraine in March 2011, one of my best friends, Mitchell {and his loving fam!}, surprised me with a Kindle.  If you want to read more about the background story {which I made very complicated by deciding I would buy my own Kindle!}, here's the link.   Here's the horribly awkward video that my mom took of me opening the package in the mail.

Since today is Friday, I am always reminded of Mrs. Swish.  She has a little poem that she says aloud to every one of her classes:

Take care of yourself;
Take care of each other. 
Buckle up.
Hug a dad or a mother.
Tell someone you love them!

It's stuck with me for 7 years now.  Here's to Friday, Reading for Pleasure, and one of the world's most passionate teachers.  Thanks for teaching students the art of reading, Mrs. Swish!