Isaac Brooks did not did not graduate from college with a career in education in mind, but after an eight year stint in advertising account management he decided that teaching was in his heart. He left his advertising job to attend Columbia University's Teachers College and earned a Masters degree in Curriculum & Teaching. In the nine years since then he has taught every grade between second and ninth in public schools. Courtesy of the Tenafly New Jersey Public Schools, he attended summer and weekend workshops in the Teachers College Writing Project and was chosen to take part in their Leadership Program with poet Georgia Heard. He has continued his professional development by taking courses in Children's Literature and Reading at Teachers College and participating in professional seminars.
As Isaac's experience in the classroom deepened he came to realize the important role that literature played in children's
learning. He explains,"As students struggle to find their writing voice, I realize that they also have to find their thinking voice. Literature is the most accessible way for kids to key in to stories and to relate them to their own life stories. Many students are reluctant to try to tell their own stories. This shows up in class discussion, the paucity of hand-raising and the frequent 'I don't know what to draw/write/say…' that comes from them when prompted. I model my own responses to what we read, but I want my students to find a comfort level in which to formulate their own responses. This can be done through literature circles, reading buddies, dialogue journals, jackdaws, book ads or whatever. But it is crucial to the growth of any individual in a learning community. After we solicit opinions, especially those that do not mirror the majority or the teacher's, we look for evidence to substantiate our feelings. This is developmentally appropriate for elementary school and a valuable exercise for the academic years that follow." [3]
Isaac explains that his previous career in advertising has given him a unique perspective on bringing children to books and deepening their responses to literature. " I feel that children are grown-ups with less experience. I have met adults whose interest in reading had been stunted by their education. They have tried one or two genres, using one or two strategies and have given up making it a part of their lives. In advertising, we sought to match the interests of consumers with products and services they might not have considered right for them. Children are no different. My job as teacher is to expose them to as many kinds of writing and show them as many different ways to enjoy books as possible. After read aloud, the classroom library must be the starting place, but making my students the sales force for those books is the next step. They, like me, enjoy a happy reader who appreciates the book they've recommended. If a peer recommends a book and supports you through the reading of it, then that has the biggest success rate of all. We make book commercials, buddy up when choosing books and reading them, encourage forays into the library and local bookstore and give lots of time to talk about books throughout the day. Literature circles help, but they are hard to make as spontaneous as discussions about sports or TV. That's the challenge. Put books on an equal footing with video games and Pokemon cards and we've started the self-propelling juggernaut of reading in a child."
When asked about some of the problems he's encountered at different grade levels Isaac replies, "From a student's perspective, second and third grade presents a broad range of reading abilities among classmates. Some are still stringing sentences together to make sense of the book, while others are reading well beyond their "grade level." Students become peer conscious and self-conscious at this time and their parents' anxieties are felt keenly. Administrators are too often impatient with the wild and wooly nature of the class' reading ability and pressure the teacher to bring up the laggards. Standardized testing and leveling of books are both feeble attempts at normalizing a wide-ranging group of readers. The down side of each can be seen in the weaker students hiding their inability to read or in deciding they don't enjoy reading because they've gotten the message that it should be so much easier for them than it really is. By intermediate grades, the cement has hardened and successful, well-adjusted readers are set for life, but the students on the cusp are further behind and even less self-confident to bridge the gap. It is very hard to find high-interest, low ability books for students who wish to hide their poor reading ability. This obstacle alone, works counter to intermediate grade student achievement."
He has addressed these problems in several ways. "Frequent discussion with parents keeps them in the loop and sets their expectations at a more realistic and supportive level. Asking both parents to model reading and make time for it at home more than once a week works wonders. Testing and book leveling won't go away by themselves, but they don't have to stand in the way of rich reading activities, either. I have found that a rich reading/writing classroom tests well and that a large library of good books benefits students no matter how it's organized. Asking administrators and parents to come read with your students puts everyone on the child's side in the struggle for reading success. No one can spend 45 minutes with a struggling reader and say he or she knows how to make an entire classroom successful in reading. Empowering your students as teachers makes the entire class less needy and more able to tackle the challenges of literacy education."
When asked if he could share some memorable moments about children and literature Isaac replied with several anecdotes. One involved encouraging a student to hate a book. He reports, "This may seem bizarre, but it builds trust in the process of literature response. It seems like a risk, but some of my most obstreperous readers found me even more enthusiastic when they constructively lambasted the assigned book for the book group than when they pretended to love it. Like everyone else, they had to find evidence in the text to back up their assertions and they unwittingly united the rest of the group to come to the book's (and author's) defense. At one point, our self-appointed curmudgeon convinced me not to use a book next year. She was right--the book was awful."
Isaac also loves to ham it up during read aloud time and to read books with different character voices. He suggests that, "certain books don't lend themselves well to read-aloud because every character sounds the same. But for the most part, I look forward to the lively conversation captured in good books. I found one parent reporting back to me that her reluctant fourth grade reader was loving reading now that 'he could make up the voices for each character as he read.' "
Finally Isaac knows that there are many roads into lifelong reading. He explains, "I am amazed at how many of my supposed non-readers read newspapers, websites, magazine articles and comic books. By allowing these things in to the mix and broadening the stuff of reading to include them, I find these readers more willing to try traditional fiction when asked. Also, re-reading is a crucial strategy for some of my students. They skim deeper and deeper with each re-read and they are more comfortable with a book the second time around. Who says the experience is identical the second or third time around? Literary snobbery gets you nowhere when teaching eight-year-olds."
[3] All quotes in this profile were from a personal interviews or correspondence with Isaac.
