Recycle Malta - Classroom Library
Mr Andy Muscat, a teacher of English at Pembroke Secondary School, wanted to teach his students two things: how both reading and the environment are two valuable assets we have as human beings. So, here he is sharing his brilliant idea of how he brought the two together with his
‘Recycle Malta - Classroom Library’ ♻️📚 A few weeks ago, a month before school started and in the peak of my summer, I got the first draft of my timetable. Great…that’s a lot of lesso…WAIT…22 of my 24 lessons are in the same classroom. WHAT?! 😱 Now this may seem ridiculous to most people out there, but I’ve been wanting to get a semblance of having my own classroom for the whole six years that I’ve been teaching. I’ve always wanted to be able to personalise a room and make both the students and myself feel welcome in it. This year is going to be different. It won’t exactly be MY room, but I decided to try to make it feel mine anyway. I started designing posters and charts, and my mother helped me with some plants. I went to the school, sat in one of the students’ chairs, and I just started thinking. 🤔 Now, as most teachers of English, my standard complaint is that kids don’t read enough - so what could I do to get them to like books more? A library - duh. 🤷♂️ Let’s be honest…how often do most of our students use the actual library? Most just use it twice a year - first to collect their textbooks in October, and then to return them in June. Is there something I can do to encourage them to read, and maybe even get them to visit the actual library? How about a mini-library in my own classroom? (Well - the one I’m sharing with I don’t know how many other teachers, #sorrynotsorry 🤷♂️) Next step, where can I get books which I could leave in a room which is not just mine? What can I do to make students appreciate that these books mean something more than just books on a shelf? How can I make a library mean something bigger, so that it is cared for in my absence? Then it hit me - RECYCLE MALTA ( FREE ITEMS ONLY )! 💡 I just wrote a small post on the popular Facebook group and it sort of blew up. I honestly wasn’t expecting that response. People from all over Malta were offering me their books, magazines, posters, and even furniture. Some of them invited me into their homes and let me choose from their own libraries. Others brought me the books themselves. It was overwhelming. <3 So, to all my students, this is what a community is. I present to you a society which is willing to go out of its way for something it believes in - YOU. It is so important to appreciate how random people, who we’ve never met before, have given us so much, just because I simply asked, just because I wanted to do something for you. I hope that you learn to appreciate each other and be able to live in a community where it is applauded when you’re kind to one another, where you’re encouraged to be generous and willing to share, where you belong to something far bigger than yourself. I am genuinely looking forward to what my 7th scholastic year will bring - so far, so good 🙃
