Happy Read Across America Day!

Don't ever say that junior high students are too old to be read to.  Just for fun, in honor of Read Across America Day, I read my students a couple picture books. One of them being Mo Willems We Are in a Book (I know I'm supposed to read Dr. Suess in honor of his birthday but I'm a maverick, what can I say?) You'd expect them to think this was silly and babyish, but they actually really enjoyed it.  I would go so far to say that they laughed themselves silly.  And these were genuine laughs too.  It wasn't that junior high, "I'm too cool for this so I'm going to mock it" laughter.  I mean, these were some serious giggles.  I couldn't stop smiling all day at the thought of some of these "cool" junior high kids letting loose and allowing themselves to have fun.  It was definitely one of those feelings that reminds me why I do this and why test scores will never dictate what I do, no matter how much the state or the secretary of education think that numbers and data can tell me how to do my job.