Mr. Bronson was on one of his classic high-horse lectures again, the “I’m here to bless you lowly mortals with my infinite wisdom” type that feels like punishment. If there were an Olympics for dragging out lectures about reading, he’d take gold—no contest—ten times over.
Picture this: a classroom that’s halfway turned into a graveyard of attention spans, with half the kids pretending to care or fully checked out. Of course, I had to be the one “engaged,” or at least as engaged as a cat forced to listen to a lecture about vacuum cleaners. As if that would ever happen…
“So, class,” Bronson started, arms crossed like he was about to drop the profound truth we’d all been waiting for, “why is reading important?”
Silence hit the room like a stone wall. Not a word. Just the faint rustle of Ta
