From a Chinese blog I subscribe to, translated (by me!)…
Reading became my primary way of education. Since my graduation from university, I didn’t make it into grad school, and, I’d gotten away from the identity of being a student since, but, after I stopped being a student, it seemed, that the lessons I’m supposed to be learning had just gotten started: in the areas of education, psychology, the arts, the aesthetics, as well as literature too. At age thirty-one, I’d started teaching, up in the mountains, because there was NO set curricula, NO set progress, the task is now, how do I get the kids to come into the classes and listen to my lectures, and that, was when I read volumes of books on educational psychology, and I’d also read alongside my students, the books that I’d assigned to them as well.
I recalled how at the start of a certain semester, I had picked out three novels, and asked the three different grades to read them, to hold a discussion on the books at the end of the school semester. And, that, was when the kids at that open school started rebelling against me: why can’t we choose what we read? Why must I, the teacher, choose the reading materials FOR them?
I’d contemplated, for a very long time, and in the end, I’d come up with the solution, I’d chosen a book for them to read as a class, and, each of the students in the class got to choose a book of their liking to read, so they can hold one-on-one discussion of the books that they were reading by their own choices. That was, probably, the busiest semester for me, other than fulfilling the duties of a teacher in class, I’d gotten buried in books from day to day, and I had, managed, to read over thirty volumes of books that semester. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, The Education of Little Tree, the Short Stories of Zweig, as well as the works of a Chinese-Japanese writer. Soseki Natsumi’s “I’m a Cat”, and Nietzsche’s work too…I’d read a ton of the masters’ works during that period in my life. I had, taken notes, over what I’d read, and I’d had to, come up with intelligent questions for my students, then, I’d set aside, two hours, for talking with them on their reading material one-on-one, I’d done the estimations, and, it would take me over sixty minutes, to hold one conversation with just one student on the book s/he chooses.
When the internet wasn’t so popular from before, we’d had to connect to the internet using the phone lines, I didn’t have the opportunity to google the summaries of what I was supposed to be reading online, and use it as my own, there’s no slacking off for me back then.
I’m grateful, for being able to establish the habits of loving to read, and am glad, that I could easily get the main points as I read, and the ability, to read and think about what I just read at the same time, and this, I’m crediting to how I’d read the books with the students during that year. And so, as I’m judging the essays for the reviews of the yearly publications, I could quickly find the main point, and express my own opinions on the matter, and know how to express my findings.
After I’d lost my identity as a student, however, I’d never lost the identity of a reader. Even as I was going through college, I’d found reading to offer me the values I sought, and so, reading became a key in my continued learning processes, and this, is what I hoped, to give the kids in my class to carry forth in their separate lives.
And still, being born in this day and age, the kids are interfered by the high-tech products, and the time and the quality of their reading time got diluted. Actually, it’s not just the high-tech products that I’d found, to be interfering with the students’ reading processes, there are, a ton of garbage that are not helpful, to the mental growths of the students. Some, were storylines that were overdone one too many times, some are with information that are useless to me, and, there are those books, with this nagging sense of the same ideals too. And so, in order to find a good book to keep, wouldn’t it take you, to read the same books three times, analyze the material, then decide? “Crack Open a Book” is a good belief, because even a badly written book, can get me to think, but, “how much benefits”? that, is my primary concern. And, there were books, with very low positive effects on the readers, like a while ago, someone handed me two volumes on spiritual development, they’re really boring to me, and, sort of, hypocritical, and so, I’d stopped, wasting my time, and tossed them away.
It’s also because of this, I’d turned the offers of becoming a judge of literary competitions too, to allot myself more time, to read the things that please me.
………
And so, this, is from someone who CAN think critically, to decide whether or not the printed texts are fitting to what’s believed to be true, and, you’re still not born with this sort of an ability to judge whether or not a book is valid, the ability to do so comes from sorting through volumes of books.
Life, the Obstacle Course 