A Folk School Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a little girl who didn’t want to read. It wasn’t that she couldn’t read (because she could) and it wasn’t that she didn’t like to read (because she did); it was just that reading a stupid story about bunnies was simply beneath her. She wasn’t going to read that book.

It was easy to avoid reading the book at home – she just never opened it. But not reading the book in class, when the teacher walked around to be sure the class was reading, was a bit trickier. Not impossible, but a little more challenging. But no fear – the little girl rose to the challenge. She opened the book to the section where it looked like her classmates were and she occasionally turned the page. But in her mind, she was making long, long lists of perfectly reasonable reasons why she wasn’t reading Watership Down.

Well, along came the inevitable quizzes and tests. All those teacher-created indicators of “student success”. But those indicators didn’t matter to the little girl – the only indicator of “student success” that mattered to the little girl in relation to this lesson was NOT reading the book. So, even though the teacher gave the little girl a “D” – the little girl gave herself an “A+”.