My timeline looks quite different from most of the others in the class. This, I think, is due to two factors.

First, my timeline is longer than many of the others by about a decade. Perhaps that's not so long, but it means that I went to grade school in the 1980s, a most unfortunate circumstance. It was the decade when teachers were just starting to realize that the old ways weren't working so well, and many decided that the best way to deal with that was to entrench and intensify: brute force direct instruction. I was one of the guinea pigs that proved the need for many of the things now taken for granted: classroom libraries, reading circles, etc. You're welcome.

Second, and this is to some degree a result of the first point: I didn't love reading growing up. I wish I had. I'll fight with all my might to get my two young sons to love reading. But I didn't have that experience. What I loved (and still do love) was information and thinking. It wasn't until I was able to harness books to facilitate those ends that I began to love reading. That happened during and after college. One result of this is the way I see reading: not as a personal passion or an inherently virtuous act, but as participation in the exchange of ideas, a means to a greater end.