by Dennis Harter
dennish@isb.ac.th
Our middle school students and teachers have worked hard since the beginning of the year and this break comes at a good time. We hope that you will have time to spend with your child in fun family activities, travel, talks, or whatever connects you best.
At ISB, we recognize this time as important family time. For this reason, we do not assign assessments or other work for students to do during the break. Students will not have tests or work due on the Monday and Tuesday, after the break. We hope that this means that students will use this time to engage with their parents and/or siblings, do the things they enjoy, and balance their time with rest and activity. Their time playing games and interacting with you and others face to face is invaluable. Please help them do so.
And finally, please make sure your child finds time to READ for pleasure over the break. Reading what they like to read forces them to imagine in ways that watching a show or movie does not. It forces them to create in their minds what they understand the story and words to mean. While there is plenty of research to suggest that reading improves academic achievement, I also encourage reading for the empathy, imagination, and escape it provides as well.
Author Neil Gaiman, speaking at The Reading Agency on the future of reading and libraries, said,
“The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them.”
and
“Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information. We need to read and write, we need global citizens who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading, understand nuance, and make themselves understood.” (Gaiman, “Why Our Future depends on libraries, reading, and daydreaming.”)
Have a well deserved, wonderful break. I hope our students and you have a chance to read.
We look forward to seeing the students back on October 30th.