by Teryl McLane (Publicity Manager, Scholastic Book Fairs)
Educators have done a lot of zany things to motivate students to read. I’ve seen principals kiss pigs, teachers camp out on rooftops, librarians get slimed or pied and undertake any number of stunts designed to motivate more excitement around reading.
But last month, I heard about a Woodland Heights Elementary School (Brownwood, TX) teacher who promised to shave her head bald if students could rally the school community to help raise $5,000 to buy books for the school library. Like most educators today, Woodland Heights is incredibly passionate about helping kids become lifelong readers. And sadly, like too many schools, they don’t have enough books (or budget dollars) to meet the demands of their voracious young readers.
That was the motivation for teacher Loma Blake to announce she would go completely bald for books. She would undo her hair-do for the sake of reading.
Not surprisingly, students jumped at the chance to give Loma an extreme buzz cut. To promote the event, the school had T-shirts made and invited shoppers at the spring Scholastic Book Fair to donate dollars and books to the cause.
In a little more than 10 weeks, when the last penny was counted, the community helped raise more than $5,500 in support of the bald-for-books challenge. Loma officially said so long to her locks during a school wide assembly last Friday, while students wildly cheered her on.
I’ve seen time and again how far educators will go to help their students. They’ll simply do whatever it takes, even if it means getting up close and personal with a farm animal or letting a mob of kids pour sundae toppings on their head.
Loma’s challenge got the entire school – the whole community, in fact – excited about reading and helped put new books on the library shelves. What a wonderful gift for these students…and all the students in the years to come.
Scholastic Book Fairs
