BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE ceremony which marked the official opening of the Dr. Williams Primary School Library featured a certain Sixth Grade student whose presentation captured her audience’s attention while conveying the very essence of her thoughts on reading.
Over years past, the Ministry of Education had indicated that two of the areas with which children struggle are reading and comprehension.
Some find the exercise of reading mundane and frankly unnecessary, but for Dr. William Connor Primary School’s Eurecia Foster, reading and life are synonymous.
She did not read from a piece which she authenticated but it was obvious that she understood and believed the words which she brought forth.
“When I was first asked to make this short speech, I was struck by the title ‘What Reading Means to Me’. My knee-jerk reaction was ‘What doesn’t reading mean to me?’As a student, I thought of all of our standard platitudes: ‘Reading is Life’, ‘Reading is Fundamental’. ‘There is no such thing as too many books.’ I might easily have gone on and on along this vein, until I remembered that, for me, it hadn’t always been that way…not by a long shot.
“It is a privilege to open someone up to the world of books, but it can be frustrating since it’s not one of those things you can make happen, and you never really know you’re doing it once you actually do it. There is some reason why you should keep going to the library, like seeing reading in action or seeing people choosing to spend some time between the covers of a book.”
Eurecia elucidated that the possibilities that reading presents are limitless and even and lends to the opening of one’s understanding.
Her belief is, “Everything we need to know, we can learn by reading.”
“Reading makes faraway places seem close by, and makes nearby places seem far away. Reading shows us why Narnia’s Kingdom is in a closet and it helps us learn how to calibrate my spark plugs. Reading teaches us the importance of things like good nutrition, a Red Sox World Series, and why Rodgers and Hammerstein had to re-write the South Pacific about a dozen times.
“Reading teaches us about hatred and about love, about fellowship and about aloneness. It helps us to care about why Rosa Parks did not give up her seat. It assures us that we aren’t the only ones who have certain fears and it continues to prove that no one – absolutely no one – could keep us from finding out about something if we really want to. Reading teaches us how to think more than teachers have taught us how to think, but we can credit teachers for showing us the importance of being able to think. And reading also teaches us there is absolutely no reason why we couldn’t have been one of those people who fought in the Revolution, or who travelled in space, or why run in the Boston Marathon, or who planted a tree.”
French writer and one of the greatest western novelists, Gustave Flaubert, said we must “read in order to live”, an expression which Eurecia echoed in her presentation.
“When we finally try to boil down to just a few words what reading means to us, what comes to mind, oddly enough, is the title of Mr. Sondheim’s composition “Being Alive” from the musical company…When we read we’re reminded of all our scenes and sensations and imaginations. When we read we’re reminded we have a brain, a heart and a soul. When we read,we’re reminded we’re alive.
