As the title of this post suggests, "math people" are often given a pass for not reading as much as the "language" and "arts" and "writing" people. There are a few problems with this. First, there is no such thing as a "math person" (or a "language" or "arts" or "writing" person). These are social constructs and damaging ones at that. Secondly, because of this indirect push to the hard sciences, I missed out on years of fulfilling and even potentially life-changing reading. I can only remember reading for pleasure for a very short time when I was a kid. Scott O'Dell and his Island of the Blue Dolphins sparked that reading burst. It wasn't again until my early twenties, after falling in love with teaching and then passionately consuming books on education, that I rediscovered my love of reading. Even after that, however, life got in the way and again I stopped losing myself in good books. How sad!
About six months ago, right around New Year's and my 30th birthday, I decided that I wanted to really read again. With the encouragement of a friend, I reconnected with my GoodReads account and set a 2015 goal of reading 25 books. I also realized that what was really getting in my way of reading on a consistent basis was TV. Making the simple decision to return my cable box has helped me stay on track with my reading goal. It's now about half way through 2015 and I'm on book #20. Should I change my reading goal to 40 books? Should I push to 50? It doesn't matter. What's important to me is that I'm back in the reading game. I find it so pleasurable to learn, think, and reflect through books. I'm a better teacher, friend, and human-being because of it. This time around, I hope my reading phase lasts a really long time...
Not on goodreads.com? It's like Yelp for books! I highly recommend it. Also available as an app for your phone.
UPDATE: I reached my goal today, August 17! Let's keep it going :)