Agroecology 3 Reading Promotion Activities Spread in Rural Areas
Reading knowledge and making good use of knowledge are important forces for changing individuals, families, villages, regional societies, and nations.
If we liken a reading promotion movement to a kind of farming, then reading cultivated in people's hearts, if it is to spread through rural areas, needs all the more to follow the spirit of farming: understanding the local customs and ways of the place, going along with the existing pulse of society, diligently loosening people's hearts, forming the idea that everyone participates in society, and communicating the thinking behind reading promotion through much discussion. More importantly, it should rely on existing community promoters and help consolidate them, aiming for a more systematic approach&message, so as to move more people to identify with it, and to win support and participation from civil society to government, whether at the grassroots or central level, in nationwide organizations or local ones.
"Giving gifts~~~that is how we love Aizhen" is precisely about encouraging the volunteer mothers originally at the elementary school in the town, the Five-Color Bird Story Mothers, to serve, uniting into the community organization of the Aizhen Association, and connecting with the Taiwan Children's Reading Association, which has nationwide service experience, to serve the locality together in a systematic way. With the sentiment&concept of "giving gifts," adults regardless of background make a lifelong commitment to promoting children's reading in Aizhen, and aim to promote the sustainability of reading throughout the whole town, creating a lasting influence as a cultural tradition of a book-fragrant community for generations.
If reading is to spread through rural areas~~~~the goal is from reading stories aloud, to telling stories, to children reading books themselves&being able to choose books themselves. Such a task must inevitably be carried out in families, schools, families and villages, regional societies, and the nation as a whole, spreading until it becomes a traditional culture in the life of the entire country.
In December 2010, I was fortunate to be invited by the Peng Wan-Ru Foundation to visit Northern European countries together. Although the theme of the visit was Northern European social welfare systems and practices, what I observed was that Sweden's reading capacity is the original foundation of progress for the entire nation's people. Just imagine a cold-zone Northern European country with a population of 9 million, where each person reads 0.7 books per week. That means 6.3 million books are read by all Swedes every week.
In that case, would the reading-related economy rise along with it? Yes! Purchases by individuals&families&schools&libraries&businesses generate related services. Related industries serving reading develop vigorously along with it: writing, illustration, publishing, printing, marketing and promotion....... as in Japan's style, newly published good books from around the world appear in translation within a week, and correspondingly the demand for translation talent from countries around the world appears. Is this not a comparative advantage in a nation's conditions for survival internationally?
When we bitterly hate the serious vote-buying in the countryside, it is not hard to understand that the power of knowledge and the moral courage of thought lag far behind the city; under the intimidation of village ties and of the underworld and corrupt forces, how would good citizens dare to stand against them? How could they resist the temptation of money&opportunities from communities of shared interest? With the education and media that keep people ignorant, and thousands of years of Han Chinese culture's imperial&subject chauvinist thinking, without three or four generations of democratic baptism, can it be washed away? In the film Seediq Bale, the army major Kamata Yahiko, played by Kawahara, who was responsible for assessing the Wushe Incident, said: the samurai spirit lost in Japan a hundred years ago is unexpectedly seen here! Imperial&subject chauvinist thinking is transmitted through culture and prevails deeply and endlessly in literature, in drama, in film, and in television series.
Being able to achieve universal sex education&universal reading 90 years ahead of the rest of the world, like Sweden, and affordable, universal, high-quality social welfare, is only now a pilgrimage site for countries around the world, and its strength in staying within the top ten in competitiveness has been deeply praised in recent United Nations reports!
Reading Within One Family
Reading within the family, from my family's 40 years of experience, is indeed~~~~from reading stories aloud, to telling stories, to children reading books themselves and choosing books themselves. Reading stories aloud to my son went from picture books to story books. Perhaps because his mother often read to him early on, my son began turning pages by himself at 10 months old, and gradually by one year old he could point at words and recognize them. Observing the reading experiences of my son&daughter, I deliberately used different methods: my son had his parents as a favorable reading environment, while my daughter had her older brother as a reading model to learn from. Although they started recognizing characters at different times, the two were about equal in their ability to read knowledge and make good use of it.
Having parents who are good at telling stories is a blessing for children. My parents taught all of life's principles through storytelling. Our generation, born after the war, had literacy and abundant sources of books, so storytelling became even easier. Of course, disadvantaged families or families with no concept of reading are equivalent to the generation born before the war, and the next generation's opportunities are relatively deprived. But from the experience of my children and myself, although the starting time for reading differs, whenever it begins there will be good results. This is an important basis for the nation and society to promote universal reading for people of all ages!
Once a child who can point at words and recognize them has opened the door to exploring knowledge, if the interest in reading is not suppressed for life, then reading can probably become a lifelong habit. From pointing at words and recognizing them to children reading books themselves and choosing books themselves, that is truly a wonderful process. Watching my son and daughter progress from this process to independent reading, after entering elementary school they already had the ability to read Mandarin Daily News, and this reading confidence made them enjoy reading.
The curious mother then came up with a strategy~~buying books! Every month, the week of payday for dad was parent-child book-buying day, continuing until the children could go buy books independently, which I remember was around the upper grades of elementary school! The experience of choosing books in a bookstore is truly precious. Regret over choosing something not worth reading again and again made my children say: "Mom~~this book is fine just to look at in the bookstore, it saves money! Only a good book that can be read for a long time is worth buying and taking home!" This was an interesting discovery in the process of buying books: I discovered the differences in my children's reading appetites, and they diverged starting in fourth grade! My son, who loves literature, history, and philosophy, and my daughter, who loves biology, science, and reasoning, under the freedom to choose books and the long-term support of conditions for buying books, made us as parents marvel. There is a saying: "A healthy chicken will find healthy food to eat on its own...."
During the stage of social movements engaged in educational reform, I was often invited to give lectures and was asked: "How should children be raised....." I would often ask parents in return: "What kind of good children do you want to raise?" Most parents usually said nothing beyond health and schoolwork, especially emphasizing school academic performance. Parents themselves, throughout their lives in the process of schooling and employment, read only what was sufficient to cope with the scope designated by schools, and after leaving school no longer read, seemingly having lost their appetite because of the exam-oriented education system, let alone making reading a lifelong habit. I remember in a lecture at Mandarin Daily News, I asked parents to group by their children's stage of schooling, namely preschool, elementary, and junior high, to discuss child-rearing problems and share experiences. Parents of junior high students concluded that children who had reading ability before starting school placed a lighter burden on their parents and had fewer problems!
I have a good friend of my gifted son (not the kind identified by schools), who did not like studying school books and liked playing video games, becoming fascinated with computers, and actually learned Japanese from a dictionary in order to understand the Japanese in instruction manuals. Having the opportunity to be exposed to reading, liking it&being able&continuing to read, starts from the family. The companionship and valuing in this process are crucial. One year when I went to Germany, I happened to encounter Goethe's birthday, and the streets and related activities all over Germany were lively. I joined in and bought a theater curtain and a commemorative watch. This theater curtain was made by Goethe's mother based on what three-year-old Goethe had written, as a stage. (I gave it to a group of kangaroo mothers raising children! What a pity it was not kept) Based on what the script required, it had three frames top and bottom, respectively a square, a circle&a triangle. The parents, dressed formally, sat in front of the curtain, dressed as if in an opera house, to watch three-year-old Goethe's first performance in life.
As a mother myself, because my family was poor I lost out on schooling and had to leave my hometown early in junior high to work and support the family. From age 15 until now, my whole life's work and learning have depended deeply on reading, and I have benefited endlessly from it. In 1974 (the 74th year of the Republic of China), I established a community children's library, persuading my children to occasionally donate the books they had read, so that community children could read them until they were worn out and torn apart, even sent to the recycling pile.
Books are consumables; only then do books fulfill their mission of being printed, right? Reading culture starts from the family, reading habits are laid down from childhood, and a reading budget within one family is a must! Investing in spiritual food for the whole family is just as important as food!
