Space to read on your own

Over winter break, I had free time again for the first time in months and I picked a book off the ever-growing pile on my nightstand and sat down to read. I forgot how much I missed the feeling of not being able to put down a novel; I would read in the car waiting for friends and bring my book with me to family events. 

When I wasn’t spending the majority of my time in school or doing homework, reading was a perfect way to decompress and I still felt that I was spending my time in a valuable way. I was exploring subjects I was interested in and learning about things that I could contribute to conversations outside of the guided academic discussions typically encouraged in school. I began to wonder: Why could I not make time to read by taking the time I usually spend on my phone and dedicating it to reading? Or better yet, couldn’t our school encourage us to read books we are interested in? 

Schools want to teach students to think critically and give us a fundamental background to find future careers related to our interests. It seems like having time to read books we are interested in, allowing us to develop these skills, would be an essential part of the curriculum. Yet somehow high school English classes stick to books like “Jane Eyre” and “The Scarlet Letter,” causing teachers to lose the interest of their students in the weeds of old-fashioned rhetoric. 

While I enjoyed these books, at times reading them felt more like a tedious task than an enjoyable activity. And I have many friends who lost their interest in reading altogether, deciding that it would be much more time efficient to read an online synopsis of the assigned reading. These people do study their interests in other ways, generally consuming media through articles and movies. However, they miss out on the beauty of spending time with a book, the artful language the writer purposefully chose and the opportunity to broaden their horizons in a way that other forms of learning don’t allow. 

Schools should give students the space to read books they are interested in and will enjoy. They should teach books in a way that allows students to appreciate them rather than making them feel like reading is a chore. Reading is a lifelong skill, helpful in any career and reading books is an invaluable way to learn and explore one’s view of the world. When students lose their interest in reading as early as high school, they are missing out on the opportunity to be exposed to a wide range of information, ultimately limiting their range of knowledge.

Amelia Harris is a junior at Burlingame High School. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.