i just got off reading an article in the NewTimes-Rwanda, a national newspaper best-seller in Rwanda and the author of this article happens to be a teacher who is writing & trying to inspire the culture of reading in schools mostly among his students. There is no doubt our schools (elementary, primary, secondary..etc) need to inspire more students to engage in more reading. Not necessary as an obligation or something done to make them get better grades at english or related subject material, but instead model or develop it as a lifestyle for them.

In every single aspect, without doubt i personally verify his plea and that need to inspire students to read more. But i would also to like a give a broader overview in my own opinion. The purpose of reading should be larger than school. This is mostly important for the instructors who intend to inspire their students to do more reading. For a student, it should be about learning new course material and maintaining a deeper curiosity on specific subject matter. This should be coupled with enough reason and purpose on why this subject matter is important and how impactful & useful it is to the community and humanity in general. With a clear reason on why a student is reading, there is absolutely no limit to what or how much he/she can read. This will create enough self-drive needed to drive deeper and read more with passion, fun and more importantly with a purpose. To such a student, reading wont be a task done for the sake of pleasing teachers or getting better grades, it will be more than that, which is what the reading culture should be like for anyone who reads.

With that in mind, and viewing this with a broader perspective, every single career path or kind of work has a lot of material or knowledge one can read to broaden their perspective. There is absolutely no problem with having more knowledge about a specific field of interest, its in fact very much involving and fun to learn more about subjects of interests, and not necessary your career interests, but also interests in life generally.

Why is it that some people read & enjoy it a lot more than others? 1. is it because they have found their passion and thus want to read more and enrich everything within them to understand and learn about that specific interest? or 2. is it rather those who don’t read a lot haven’t found a passion about their lives that compels them to go deeper and read more about it. Neither of the two responses answer the former question. Some still would argue different people have different hobbies, and therefore reading is a hobby for some while its not for others. Thats an excuse many give for not reading… “its not just my hobby.” Should reading even be considered as a hobby? Isn’t ‘working out’ sometimes considered as a hobby by some while others think its not their hobby and therefore no need to do it as much as others, yet we all know how physically important it is to human health and wellbeing. Thing is, its easy to identify physical deformation by simply looking at someone who doesn’t work out, yet if the same analogy were to be applied to the mind & reading, it would be quickly & easily visible how mentally deformed one’s mind is when they do less reading.

The culture of reading should very much be fully ingrained in everyone’s lifestyle. Just as living healthy or working out, eating everyday…etc, ‘reading’ should be added onto that list of things that one can or should not be able to live without.

When it comes reading, their definitely is a wide range of materials & books one can read. from fiction, non-fiction, academic journals, autobiographies, biographies, and many more. This many variety should help one find any category or genre of interest to kick-off an adventurous culture of reading that ultimately gives you the capability to lure inside the minds of brilliant authors. One of my favorite imaginary quotes (don’t remember exact book i read it from) suggests that… “for example reading ABBOT was the only way one could get a chance to interact with brilliant minds of 17th & 18th century scientists” through reading their material. That in itself is great thing, if you think about person living in the present and ‘mind-ly’ interacting with Albert Einstein through reading his material, its absolutely great.

There is a lot more to why a reading culture is very much necessary for anyone who can atleast read & write, but will keep it at that for now…

till next time… GO GET THAT BOOK, and START READING something!