oh so many books, oh so little time
It's dangerous for a language arts teacher to move her library. Invariably, she will stop and read the books, and next she will look up and realize that it has been an hour, and the books are still stacked next to the bookcase instead of neatly in the bookcase. And then she will shrug and go happily on to finish re-reading A Wrinkle in Time.
These books are my greatest teaching resource. One of the issues I feel strongest about is the importance of a classroom library in a Language Art teacher's classroom. Trekking to the school library takes valuable class time and imposes a false schedule on the students (what if they don't finish in two weeks? What if they do finish in two days?)--it also encourages students to rely on teachers and librarians to choose their books or to think of books as things that are 'only' found in libraries. When the books are already in the classroom, students can pick up and put down books at will and figure out how to choose a book they will enjoy on their own. Suddenly, books are something the students become comfortable with, enjoy, and keep reading after they leave my classroom.
Of course, none of this solves my inability to shelve books without reading them, but it's a problem I can live with.
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