By Stephanie Gottlieb
During the first session of the teachers'
reading club at the Luiz Freire Center in
1992, excitement and apprehension gingerly
mixed in the air. Each teacher awaited a
turn to read a page aloud and then pass the
book to the next. The aim was to enrich
their skills through group readings of the
classics of educational theory, Piaget,
Montessori and others. Although the texts
were certifiably dense, the challenge
seemed achievable, with the teachers'
support of each other and the help of the
staff at Luiz Freire.
But as soon as the first teacher began to
read, it became apparent that not only were
the theories difficult to decipher, but the act
of reading itself was a formidable task. At
first the teachers were embarrassed by their
poor skills, but soon they found a degree of
comfort in knowing that they were not
alone. For most, their own educational
experiences had fallen short. They had
learned basic literacy and math, but school
had not nurtured or empowered them. They
associated their own scholastic careers with
experiences of frustration and thus avoided
activities such as reading simple novels.
What began as a reading club became a
cathartic outpouring of their painful
experiences as students.
