Rourkela: Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.” And the DAV school here has started taking a baby step in this direction of creating readers and people to move the world. As a new initiative beginning this July, the school has initiated one ‘reading day’ in the school. So, the last period of every Saturday has been kept aside for this wonderful enterprise. “Actually this is happening across all DAV schools but has not come to anyone’s notice,” said the principal of the school Lokanath Pradhan. With an added sense of pride, he said, “All our teachers and students participate in mass reading. And it is gaining popularity gradually as early signs are there.” It is being done across classes, beginning from Class I to XII.” Explaining this growing phenomenon, he was of the opinion that much could be achieved if there was an initiation with the right intent.
Elaborating it further, he said, “Only three Saturdays have passed, and we are getting good responses from the students. Now, the students are coming with their own books or magazines to the class to read as they are allowed to do so.” For the students of lower classes between IV and VII, a reading bonus point system has been issued. “A maximum of four marks will be added to the total marks obtained in the examination as an incentive to the students. And now I am getting regular inputs from the students who are also writing along with reading. One of my Class VI students Pujita is regularly contributing to newspapers,” informed the principal. This activity is being done apart from the library periods. “Teachers are taking books to the classes and distributing those to the students. At Jharsuguda students are bringing their own books and this has led to an increase in book sales,” informed Pradhan. Remembering Emilie Buchwald’s famous quote – – “Children are made readers on the laps of their parents,” he said, “From my interaction with students, I learned that unfortunately, parents are not subscribing to newspapers. And if some households do, parents don’t encourage their children to read. That is very dangerous.” However, he was hopeful that through such initiatives, the dying art of reading can be revived but gradually. “But we require parents’ intervention also,” he added.