Nicole Brown- Blog Post 3 Miller, Section 1: “Not This: Is There Enough Time? And Is Time Enough to Support Independent Reading?”

This chapter touched on the biggest complaint of every teacher in the United States, “There is not enough time in the day!” Every day is a race to get everything done. I love how Miller points out all the things that we do in our day that may not be giving us the best ROI (return on investment): calendar activities, announcements, transitions, lining up, how we spend our reading block, DEAR/SSR time, testing practice, worksheets, etc.). We all know that the best way to improve reading is by kids being actively, and purposefully engaged in reading. However, often times we don’t make the time to do just that. As I read through the list of guarded benches from the Baltimore school, I knew there must be a lot of teachers feeling offended that they may be doing these things. I think it is important to note that the activities themselves may not be “bad” and may very well have academic merit, but it is the amount of time spent on those activities that can lessen their value. School announcements have been a complaint I have heard from teachers. I am thankful for an administration that responded to this and is now doing announcements prior to the school day (7:30-7:45). 

Can we as a school look at our instructional times and find benches that we are guarding? I hope so. Our children are worth it. We sometimes have to look past our need to keep things routine and the same in order to make changes that will benefit our students. We, in turn, will also be rewarded. We will be able to build deeper relationships with students like we never have before when we bond over books and reading experiences. And believe it or not, this job isn’t all about their education. It’s about the relationships we are able to build with them. They will not remember what we taught them, but they will remember the relationship we had and how we made them feel.