Reading is one of my favorite past times. When there’s an opportunity to list my hobbies, I always put reading. There was a decade that I forgot it was my hobby. The decade was my first year teaching; there was a lot going on and I share about it on my blog.
When I ask my students what their favorite hobby is, I can’t remember the last time one of them said “reading.” It doesn’t surprise me because I know that many of them can’t read. However, it makes me sad to know what they’re missing out on. I’m also surprised because my job is to teach them to read and now I have to pique their interest in it as well.
It’s a good thing I know kids like prizes and pizza! I decided to incentivize their reading. I also needed to make it accessible to them because the nearest library is roughly 45 minutes away on a highway that is nicknamed “Highway Loop-de-Loop,” which happens to be my commute. Pretty fitting for this Modern-Day Pack-Horse Woman (I explain it in my newsletter).
I also began to wonder how I can incentivize my own personal reading hobby. Did you know that women are paying to go on retreats in which there is nothing planned, someone cooks for them, and they can read the entire time? There are even silent book clubs becoming popular. People are gathering to read their own books and not speaking. I’m impressed and interested in everything people are coming up with to cut out time for their reading hobby. I am also wondering what in the world is happening that people don’t have time to read. They don’t have time to enjoy their own hobby. Is once a month for 2 hours enough for a hobby? Is once a year, at a retreat, enough to call reading a hobby?
No wonder, kids don’t talk about reading for pleasure. None of us as adults have time to do it so it’s not even seen as a hobby. What are your hobbies? I’m not judging you if you don’t say reading. 😉 How do you make time for your hobbies?
Back to my books — there's always another one piquing my pages.
~Kreisa