Don't let the library turn into a meeting room, leaving books and newspapers covered in dust.

In Vietnam, it is very rare to see people holding a book in their hands in public places. Even libraries are deserted. And school libraries are no exception.

Students excitedly participate in a reading session at a school library in Tay Ninh - Photo: Room To Read

In order to encourage and develop the reading movement in the community, Vietnam has April 24 as Vietnam Book Day. However, the number of people who regularly read books today is not much, if not too little.

To add another perspective on this situation, here is a share from teacher Nguyen Cao sent to Tuoi Tre Online.

The library becomes a meeting place

Each public school has from several hundred to several thousand people. This is an ideal environment for teachers and students to come to the school library. However, according to observations over many years, very few teachers and students go to the library to read or borrow books.

Sometimes the library is borrowed by professional groups for professional meetings or by some teachers for reviewing exams for gifted students, and it is bustling. Otherwise, only the library staff sits alone at the computer watching movies, listening to music...

During recess, most teachers sit in the teacher's room, sit in the canteen drinking water or gather in a corner talking to each other.

Students went down to the cafeteria to eat, some stayed in class surfing their phones, playing games, or gathered in a corner of the school yard.

Teachers and students rarely go to the library and if they do, they rarely look for books, borrow books or read newspapers and magazines - that is the current reality in schools.

There are many reasons, but perhaps the enjoyment of reading books has decreased among most teachers and students.

Partly because today's teachers do not take the time to research materials to prepare lesson plans like they did in the past.

Lesson plans are now flooded on the Internet, many teachers download them and edit them a little to make them their own.

It is the same with students. Now, they can look up any lesson or knowledge online. All the questions in the textbooks are available online, or they have taken extra classes at their teachers' homes, so they rarely have to go to the library like before.

Besides, most of the books and documents in the library are old books, books that are liquidated by publishers, so it is natural that most of them do not attract students and teachers. Therefore, every teacher has a phone connected to the Internet. The same goes for students from junior high school and above, so when they have free time, teachers and students hold their phones with many interesting things on the screen.

Need to reward and praise students for reading books?

To express the role of books in human life, writer Chu Quang Tiem (China) wrote: "Education is not just about reading books, but reading books is still an important path to education."

Even now, when people enter the flat world, the Internet is connected to everyone, books still play an important role.

Especially in schools - where students' personalities and knowledge are nurtured and where intellectuals, teachers, work - books become even more important.

However, how to make reading a habit is a big problem for teachers and students in schools.

First of all, schools need to invest in the necessary and selective types of books and newspapers. For example, for school-age children, each week there must be several newspapers and magazines suitable for their age to attract them.

For teachers of subjects, choose new types of books.

Instead of buying a lot of liquidation books, discounted books but with little practical value, you only need to buy some necessary and suitable books. Every year, the school creates conditions for professional groups to propose some types of reference books, necessary documents...

Besides, teachers must be pioneers in reading books and looking up documents to create good examples for students.

At the same time, every week the library staff can work with the classes to introduce some good books; some new documents under the flag and it is necessary to have rewards for those students who borrow many books, regularly come to the library - even if it is just a few notebooks and praise before the flag will also encourage students to come to the school library.

Otherwise, the school library will always be empty of readers. Many books, newspapers, and documents in the library will just collect dust over time.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/dung-de-thu-vien-bien-thanh-phong-hop-sach-bao-phu-bui-20241126134737958.htm