Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Punish the Over Achievers

This kid has won the summer reading contest five years in a row and the librarian wants him to stop entering so other kids can win. How about some other kid reads more than him?  Why don't we ban athletes that win more than one gold medal so others can win?
This reminds me of the 5th grade. In the mid-western state I lived in at the time, we had to read 15 books during the school year, three from each of 5 categories. I read 72 books because I didn't have a TV and lived with my Grandmother 3 miles from anywhere. Unfortunately, they were all from, History, Fiction and Sports (most of the books were Science Fiction and Westerns because my father had a huge paperback collection). I don't remember what the other two categories were, but I wasn't allowed to go to recess until I read six books from the missing categories (three from each). No other kid in my class read more than 20 books, but I was punished for not reading the "right kind" of books instead of being commended for reading 72 books. 





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