This is another post for my personal aesthetic practice.
When I was very young, I used to love when my mom would read stories to me and my siblings. Sitting on the couch and hearing these beautiful and complex worlds pour from the pages and through my moms voice, to my ears and into my imagination was awesome to say the least. I remember when I started to learn how to read, I was not that excited about it honestly. I dreaded practicing my ABC’s and writing letters over and over, I just wanted to be able to read without doing the work. At that time the written words were as good to me as this image of the Rosetta Stone. With out being able to understand, they are useless, but being able to understand them is invaluable.
Photo Credit: laser2k via Compfight cc
Looking back now, and even thinking about the present day, I realize I have taken the ability to read and write for granted. When I stop to think about the possibilities and implications of reading and writing, I am dumbfounded. Think about it, one person has the ability to record anything they can possible think of, save it, and share it with as many people as they want to. From philosophies and lessons, to directions and instructions, and to stories and imaginary worlds, anything one can think can be recorded, saved, and shared through the ability to read and write.
This is a picture from a section of my mothers library, of just a few of the many books we own. It blows my mind to think of all the information that are in these books. I only just started to really appreciate reading and writing in my grade twelve year at Balfour. Which is funny because I used to hate my English classes all throughout my previous education. But then, through some thoughtful assignments given to me from my grade 12 english teacher, I started to enjoy writing and realized that I was actually not as poor of a writer as I thought. Going through class discussions on material read, I also learned that I was fairly good at reading as well. This is when I started to appreciate reading a writing. I started to see the value in the ability to fluently read (both silently and aloud), and write. Being able to do so opens up literally millions of doors. When we can read and write fluently, we can communicate much more efficiently with people, especially with the use of the internet. This is why I chose to become an english teacher. I believe that reading and writing, and all it entails, is a beautiful thing.
Benjamin Ironstand 