Posted by Teacher Ria in Advocacies, Teacher's Corner | 6 Comments

We NEED a Country of Readers: NO TO THE PHILIPPINE BOOK BLOCKADE!

‘...novels and reading books are “not educational”.‘(1)

Add this to a long line of baffling statements people in our government has said.

I strongly reject the notion that a reading book or a novel serves no educational purpose. Just because we are entertained by a story, a book, or whatever reading material, this does not discount the fact that these are avenues for learning and growth. In a country that sorely needs education, they are making achieving this even more difficult. How can we, as a country, progress if we keep the people from accessing information?

While  Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series are not textbooks filled with facts and figures to inform us about historical events and similar data, these books encourage us to THINK and IMAGINE. These are crucial components of problem solving and logic reasoning. We don’t learn how to share and be self-aware with an almanac do we? But with books like Rainbow Fish, The Giving Tree and The Missing Piece we learn what it means to be human.