{"id":17,"date":"2007-06-18T14:08:30","date_gmt":"2007-06-18T14:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/the-great-bookcase-in-the-sky-a-morality-tale-for-teen-literature-teachers"},"modified":"2016-10-02T13:02:26","modified_gmt":"2016-10-02T20:02:26","slug":"the-great-bookcase-in-the-sky-a-morality-tale-for-teen-literature-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/the-great-bookcase-in-the-sky-a-morality-tale-for-teen-literature-teachers","title":{"rendered":"The Great Bookcase in the Sky – A Morality Tale for Teen Literature Teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Melk

Melk Abbey Library<\/p><\/div>\n

Imagine a bookcase that stretches a mile into the sky, where the easiest books to understand are on the bottom shelves and the most difficult books are on the highest shelves. When you’re in first grade you can only reach the books on the bottom. There are books by Dr. Seuss, Mercer Mayer and the Berenstains. You can’t reach the books on the top shelf: Dante, Milton, Sophocles, Aristotle.<\/p>\n

As you get older and taller you can reach more books, but eventually you stop growing. That’s ok, you think, there are plenty of books on this shelf. And you’re right–there are hundreds of thousands of books on those lower shelves–enough to last your entire life.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s not enough for you. You want more. You want to reach the top.\u00c2\u00a0 But you’re alone.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t do it yourself.<\/p>\n

Then along comes a teacher.\u00c2\u00a0 She sees your trouble and offers to help.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s taller than you are, so she reaches up and hands you a few books that are slightly out of your reach.\u00c2\u00a0 She brings them down to your level.\u00c2\u00a0 But she can’t stay long, so soon you’re left alone.<\/p>\n

After a while another teacher comes along.\u00c2\u00a0 He offers to help by boosting you up.\u00c2\u00a0 You jump up on his shoulders and start looking through all the wonderful titles three and four and five shelves up.\u00c2\u00a0 You read as many as you can, but eventually the teacher has to move on.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t stand going back down to read only the first few shelves, so you cling to the shelves like a spider.\u00c2\u00a0 With one hand you grasp the shelf, with the other you try to pull books out to read, but it’s not easy.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re one false step away from falling.<\/p>\n

Suddenly you hear a voice from above.\u00c2\u00a0 “Need some help?”\u00c2\u00a0 You look up and from the top shelf a teacher is calling.\u00c2\u00a0 “I can’t get up there,” you call.\u00c2\u00a0 And, near tears, you continue, “Please tell me what’s in those books.”<\/p>\n

“Climb up and find out yourself,” she answers.<\/p>\n

“I can’t reach,” you moan.\u00c2\u00a0 “And I’m tired from hanging on.”<\/p>\n

“Build a ladder,” she says.<\/p>\n

“What?”<\/p>\n

“Build a ladder.”<\/p>\n

“I don’t have any tools or wood,” you complain.<\/p>\n

She laughs.\u00c2\u00a0 “Sure you do.”\u00c2\u00a0 And she starts to climb down the shelves.\u00c2\u00a0 How is she doing that?<\/em> you ask yourself.<\/p>\n

Finally she’s beside you, smiling.\u00c2\u00a0 “What’s that in your hand?” You show her the book you just finished and she takes it from you.\u00c2\u00a0 “Watch this.”\u00c2\u00a0 And she takes the book and shoves it sideways<\/em> into the bookshelf, so it sticks out.\u00c2\u00a0 Then she steps on it and moves up to the next shelf.<\/p>\n

Now you understand!\u00c2\u00a0 Using the books on the lower shelves as stepping stones, you can climb as high as you like!<\/p>\n

“Sometimes I get dizzy,” the teacher says, “so I climb back down and read a book on the ground, just for fun.” Then she moves off, leaving you alone again.<\/p>\n

But this time you know what to do.\u00c2\u00a0 Each book you read becomes a stepping stone to another book higher up.\u00c2\u00a0 As you look up, the top doesn’t seem so high any more.<\/p>\n

The Moral of the Story:<\/strong> Don’t be like the first teacher, who only brings one or two books down to the student’s level then moves on.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t be like the second teacher, who introduces great literature to the student them leaves him hanging.\u00c2\u00a0 Be like the third teacher, who shows the student how to teach himself, so that when he’s on his own he can continue climbing to the top.<\/p>\n

The Second Moral of the Story:<\/strong> Kids don’t need much help in reading books on the first few shelves.\u00c2\u00a0 Once they reach junior high they can read ninety percent of the books in the world without any help at all.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t teach books that kids can read on their own.\u00c2\u00a0 Teach them how to read books that are above them.\u00c2\u00a0 Show them how to climb the shelves.<\/p>\n

The Third Moral of the Story:<\/strong> You can’t show kids how to climb the shelves if you don’t know how to climb them yourself.<\/p>\n

The Final Moral of the Story:<\/strong> You can’t make the student climb the bookcase.\u00c2\u00a0 He has to want to.\u00c2\u00a0 But you can make the top shelves look interesting enough that he wants to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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