How to inspire every child to be a lifelong reader | Alvin Irby

144,180 views ・ 2018-04-04

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Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:12
As an elementary school teacher,
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my mom did everything she could to ensure I had good reading skills.
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This usually consisted of weekend reading lessons at our kitchen table
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while my friends played outside.
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My reading ability improved,
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but these forced reading lessons didn't exactly inspire a love of reading.
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High school changed everything.
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In 10th grade, my regular English class read short stories and did spelling tests.
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Out of sheer boredom, I asked to be switched into another class.
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The next semester, I joined advanced English.
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(Laughter)
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We read two novels and wrote two book reports that semester.
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The drastic difference and rigor between these two English classes
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angered me and spurred questions like,
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"Where did all these white people come from?"
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(Laughter)
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My high school was over 70 percent black and Latino,
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but this advanced English class had white students everywhere.
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This personal encounter with institutionalized racism
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altered my relationship with reading forever.
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I learned that I couldn't depend on a school, a teacher or curriculum
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to teach me what I needed to know.
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And more out of like, rebellion, than being intellectual,
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I decided I would no longer allow other people to dictate
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when and what I read.
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And without realizing it, I had stumbled upon a key
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to helping children read.
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Identity.
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Instead of fixating on skills
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and moving students from one reading level to another,
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or forcing struggling readers to memorize lists of unfamiliar words,
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we should be asking ourselves this question:
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How can we inspire children to identify as readers?
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DeSean, a brilliant first-grader I taught in the Bronx,
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he helped me understand how identity shapes learning.
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One day during math, I walk up to DeSean, and I say,
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"DeSean, you're a great mathematician."
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He looks at me and responds,
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"I'm not a mathematician, I'm a math genius!"
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(Laughter)
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OK DeSean, right?
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Reading?
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Completely different story.
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"Mr. Irby, I can't read.
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I'm never going to learn to read," he would say.
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I taught DeSean to read,
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but there are countless black boys who remain trapped in illiteracy.
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According to the US Department of Education,
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more than 85 percent of black male fourth graders
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are not proficient in reading.
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85 percent!
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The more challenges to reading children face,
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the more culturally competent educators need to be.
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Moonlighting as a stand-up comedian for the past eight years,
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I understand the importance of cultural competency,
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which I define as the ability to translate
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what you want someone else to know or be able to do
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into communication or experiences that they find relevant and engaging.
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Before going on stage, I assess an audience.
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Are they white, are they Latino?
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Are they old, young, professional, conservative?
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Then I curate and modify my jokes
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based on what I think would generate the most laughter.
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While performing in a church, I could tell bar jokes.
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But that might not result in laughter.
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(Laughter)
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As a society, we're creating reading experiences for children
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that are the equivalent of telling bar jokes in a church.
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And then we wonder why so many children don't read.
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Educator and philosopher Paulo Freire
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believed that teaching and learning should be two-way.
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Students shouldn't be viewed as empty buckets to be filled with facts
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but as cocreators of knowledge.
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Cookie-cutter curriculums and school policies
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that require students to sit statue-still
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or to work in complete silence --
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these environments often exclude the individual learning needs,
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the interest and expertise of children.
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Especially black boys.
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Many of the children's books promoted to black boys
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focus on serious topics, like slavery, civil rights and biographies.
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Less than two percent of teachers in the United States are black males.
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And a majority of black boys are raised by single mothers.
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There are literally young black boys who have never seen a black man reading.
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Or never had a black man encourage him to read.
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What cultural factors, what social cues are present
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that would lead a young black boy to conclude
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that reading is even something he should do?
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This is why I created Barbershop Books.
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It's a literacy nonprofit
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that creates child-friendly reading spaces in barber shops.
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The mission is simple:
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to help young black boys identify as readers.
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Lots of black boys go to the barber shop once or twice a month.
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Some see their barbers more than they see their fathers.
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Barbershop Books connects reading to a male-centered space
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and involves black men and boys' early reading experiences.
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This identity-based reading program
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uses a curated list of children's books recommended by black boys.
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These are the books that they actually want to read.
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Scholastic's 2016 Kids and Family Report
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found that the number one thing children look for when choosing a book
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is a book that will make them laugh.
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So if we're serious about helping black boys and other children to read
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when it's not required,
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we need to incorporate relevant male reading models
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into early literacy
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and exchange some of the children's books that adults love so much
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for funny, silly or even gross books, like "Gross Greg".
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(Laughter)
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"You call them boogers. Greg calls them delicious little sugars."
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(Laughter)
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That laugh, that positive reaction
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or gross reaction some of you just had,
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(Laughter)
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black boys deserve and desperately need more of that.
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Dismantling the savage inequalities that plague American education
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requires us to create reading experiences
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that inspire all children to say three words:
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I'm a reader.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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