If You Need Me Ill Be Reading
[Music]
[Applause]
when i sat down to begin
planning my year of instruction with my
ninth grade students
this year i decided that i wanted to
begin by having them create an identity
map
and as any good teacher might do i sat
down to create one myself
before giving it to my students as i did
that
i was met with a few facts about my life
i grew up in a place where nearly
everywhere i looked
my eyes were met with people who looked
and sounded
a lot like i did
i attended a local church with my
parents
and older sister i went to a small
parochial elementary school i took dance
classes
all throughout high school attended a
state college
and eventually i became a teacher
i married a man i first met in
kindergarten
we adopted a dog and i traveled
1372 miles
to land here in wilton manor florida
my name is leo wolf and today i want to
talk to you
about the power of reading to build
empathy
and understanding
after high school i went off into the
world wildly curious about others
but ultimately ignorant i was unaware of
my own implicit biases
as most of us are and overly optimistic
about my ability to make friends with
anyone
as i look back on a number of
interactions that i had with people
and friends that i viewed as different
than me i realize now that i
misstepped and misspoke more times than
i can count
with a limited foundational worldview i
was left
curious but without the tools that i
needed to ask questions with
tact although i had traveled
quite far away from my childhood home it
didn’t take my mind
19 hours and 59 minutes to travel back
to the ways of thinking i developed
there
it still happens quite quickly actually
and i have to work constantly to better
my thinking
and to think through my words and
actions
and so i started to dig and i realized a
couple
of very important things that i still
use to guide my learning and thinking
today
one there is a danger in a single story
there’s a ted talk on this actually and
i think she says it best
two no one is obligated to educate me
on their culture and three
i should use my voice to amplify the
voices of others
and as i sought to implement those
principles in my own life
i dug through twitter pages and
instagram pages
and i realized pretty quickly that i had
a lot of questions
i also realized though that it was up to
me to do the work
to answer those questions for myself
all of a sudden it hit me
literature i am an english teacher
after all and i’ve read a lot of books
about people from other cultures
but because i understood the danger that
exists
in a single story i knew that i had to
consume
more stories in order to deepen my
understanding
and so i read i read
mondays not coming by tiffany jackson
and i had the devastating realization
that people do not always care
as they should and that things are not
always as they seem
i read the poet acts by elizabeth
acevedo
and i saw the turmoil of a teenage girl
trying to follow her passions
and meet her mother’s expectations at
the same time
i read the grade along by kristin hannah
and i felt the turmoil of a person
living in complete from society
i read internment by samira ahmed
and i understood the danger that can be
created
because of the fear of the unknown and
the power
of vocal resistance in the face of that
leader
i read americana by chimamanda ngozi
adichie and i understood the immigrants
experience
in a whole new light
i read the 57 bus by dashka slater
and i saw the outsized injustice that
exists within our justice system
while at the same time i understood the
freedom
that can be granted through the simple
use of the pronoun they
i read small great things by jodi
picoult
and i saw how beautiful yet complex
relationships
between races can form when people
listen to each other with open ears
and also with open hearts
i could talk to you for a long time
about all the books that i’ve read over
the past
couple of years but instead i want to
share with you a story about a student
at this very school and her experience
with literature
earlier this year i recommended that
book the 57 bus
to one of my ninth grade students she
wanted something different
and i thought that this would fit the
bill i gave it to her
and pretty quickly she came to me and
told me that she thought this story was
a little weird
i listened to her perspective and i
talked with her about how the story was
true
and that if she gave it a few more pages
she might
change her mind and so she did that and
when she came back
finishing after finishing the story she
empathized
openly with both of the characters in
the story
despite how different she was from them
in race
gender and life experiences and
i think that this really clearly
illustrates how quickly a book
can help to change your perspective on
something
as humans we often avoid talking about
our identities
or the differences that exist between us
we have a deep
instinct to protect ourselves and at
times that means we avoid being
vulnerable
we play it safe we don’t ask the tough
questions
we don’t forge the path to a difficult
friendship
we choose to sit next to people who look
like us
because we assume that they might also
think like us
but what if we’re wrong what if we’re
missing out on some of the greatest
opportunities
and best friendships that life has to
offer us
all because we’re afraid to take a small
risk
luckily for us books can help us to take
those risks
before we really have to take them they
help us
if we read enough of them to understand
people
different from us in race gender
religion
ethnicity and the like by giving us
space
and time to get to know them
books help us to see people people
with complex backgrounds belief systems
and traumas
but also people with complex hopes
dreams and ideas
books help us to learn to listen before
we judge
and to consider how a person’s
experiences shape who they are
books teach us to understand they help
us to widen our understanding of the
single story
and give us an easy way to pass that
understanding along to someone else
for all of these reasons i am forever
grateful for the impact
books have had on my life and i’m
certain that no matter where you find
yourself
on the spectrum i describe you will be
too
if you need me i’ll be reading i still
have a lot to learn
thank you
[Applause]
you