Like how salt is an important ingredient in a curry, reading is an important habit for a child. Along with the five core skills that a child must achieve in learning- observation, connection, judgement, communication and planning; the basic core requirement of a child, as he/she becomes a youth and a resourceful person to a community, is the ability to read.
The ability to read becomes a core demand of most of the jobs. Questions may arise – why should a pilot read? Why should a doctor read? What about other skilled jobs like mechanical jobs and hand-driven jobs? Do the skilled workers need to read? Yes, they do. Skilled work also need to be backed up by solid, good reading. So, reading needs to start at an early age to be continued until the last days of our life. Consequently, schools need to give extreme importance to develop the habit of reading.
The habit of reading is not only as a requirement of building vocabulary but also as a technique through which the human brain brightens. When I was a pupil, reading was a passion. I used to read a lot of stories. However, in my college days reading became restricted to textbooks. And, the urge to reading came as a challenge when I was a postgraduate student. I needed to read a lot to understand my basic subject, economics. And I depended on the University Library of Trivandrum which has a great collection of hard copy books.
Later the power of reading came to me when my guru, Balakrishna Pillai, ignited in me a fire to understand the different religions in the world. All he asked me to do was to read the spiritual book, Bhagavat Gita, which is a part of Mahabharata. But from the Bhagavat Gita, I was inspired to read the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagawata, the seven volumes of Swami Vivekananda’s guru Pramahamsa, and the Hindu spiritual books ending up to 32 Upanishads. Further I read several books on Buddhism, the Bible, and the Holy Quran.
There were days when books used to be my pillars. And where did I find the time to read. I used to read while travelling in the bus, in a train, and in a plane. I used to read when my wife goes for shopping. I read as I pushed the trolley which she filled. Till date, I might have read 10,000 books. If I did not have the habit of reading, then I would not have created education and healthcare for humanity. What made my brain and my mind to expand and to concentrate has resulted from the habit of reading voraciously.
If reading is a passion, there is enough time within the 24 hours of a day to read. If you don’t read, the problem is not lack of time, the problem is lack of a passion to read. The passion to read is the ice-breaker of learning and creating better future citizens. From where shall a child get the passion to read? The single answer is school.
Abraham Lincoln did not go to a school. He was self-educated. Basically, he was able to read. He had the ability to convert reading into conceptual picturisation mixed with passion. So important is reading that the habit has to be developed in children.
When I was a post-graduate student, I had a colleague who later became a great officer. All of us knew that he would be an IAS officer as soon as he passed out. He tried for IAS, but he failed to succeed. However, he became a grade 1 officer of the Reserve Bank of India and built up his future. When all of us used to happily while away the hours, this guy made use of the time effectively. Even if there is a paper on the floor, he used to pick it up, read it and make a note of it. So, wherever we went together for a job interview, this guy knew the answers to all questions. But if you ask me any question, I didn’t know.
The inclination to read any bit of paper and to create retainer notes in the mind shall drive a child to conquer the world. So, it is not all about the classroom learning, it is not all about learning from books; on the other hand, it is more about enlarging the human mind to its depths with the help of literary works.
As humanity moves ahead, works are accumulating, and to have a good capturing of the past, huge reading is required. Therefore, schools need to take the responsibility of developing reading habit in children. If any good habit, such as reading, is cultivated in school, children shall retain them and will find time to practice them even in their workspace.
Today, there are 3,000 to 4,000 people working in my company, send one mail, nobody shall read. Even if they read, they read them casually. There are many people in my company who send mails that go into two to three pages. I can bet that nobody reads it. Because people hate to read due to the overemphasis of the digital world and everyone wants to see the digital videos that come to us. And the ability to read is severely challenged. Which is better, both are required, but I don’t think the digital world can replace reading. The digital video may come with voice over. But still I believe that a person can become an expert in reading and complete a book in just a few hours like Swami Vivekananda.
Once you are an expert reader, you know what to read, what not to read, within the contents of a book. You will capture the book quickly because you know how to connect the writing to what you know on the subject. And you will exactly go to places where you have to very carefully read. So, reading is important as it helps to enhance the mind, to enhance the knowledge, to assimilate the knowledge, and to apply the knowledge in order to become a creative person in the future.
Every school should have extensive libraries with reading spaces and each classroom should have reading corners. The librarian should be properly qualified to able to guide children to read. Thus, every school must encourage and develop the habit of enriching students through reading.
