Free Read Friday

Call it the literary equivalent of a power nap...

I just wanted to rest my eyes on the pages of the book. Open. Inviting. That was the last thing I remembered.

My periphery darkened as the words on the page dissolved into the mental cinema of my imagination. I was so engrossed by the book, and had managed to completely tune out the world.

Several chapters and thirty minutes later I peer upward, towards my sixth grade reading class. Every nose deeply buried inside a book. Not a peep.

There is a kind of quiet that comes with being alone in the house on a dark night. A silent stillness. But this was the quite of 23 preadolescent bodies cramped into a classroom on a Friday afternoon. The crowded silence far exceeds that of being alone. Apparently my students were into Free Read Friday as much as I was.

It is amazing how education can take place when teachers step aside to let it happen.

Tags: Friday, reading, free read, education, books