TITLE: What Happens When We Read To Kids AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford DATE: July 22, 2016 11:02 AM DESC: ----- BODY: A great analogy from Frank Cottrell:

Think of it, he says, the sun pours down its energy onto the surface of the planet for millennia. The leaves soak up the energy. The trees fall and turn to coal. Coal is solid sunlight, the stored memory of millions of uninhabited summers. Then one day, in Coalbrookdale, someone opens a hole in the ground and all that stored energy comes pouring out and is consumed in furnaces, engines, motors.

When we -- teachers, parents, carers, friends -- read to our children, I believe that's what we're doing. Laying down strata of fuel, fuel studded with fossils and treasures. If we ask for anything back, we burn it off too soon.

My wife and I surely did a lot of things wrong as we raised our daughters, but I think we did at least two things right: we read to them all the time, and we talked to them like we talk to everyone else. Their ability to speak and reason and imagine grew out of those simple, respectful acts. Teaching at a university creates an upside-down dynamic by comparison, especially in a discipline many think of as being about jobs. It is the students and parents who are more likely to focus on the utility of knowledge. Students sometimes ask, "When will we use this in industry?" With the cost of tuition and the uncertainty of the times, I understand their concern. Even so, there are times I would like to say "I don't know" or, in my weaker moments, the seemingly disrespectful "I don't care". Something more important should be happening here. We are creating fuel for a lifetime. (The Cottrell article takes an unusual route to an interesting idea. It was worth a read.) -----