Lessons from Harry Potter

I'm a middle school language teacher and one of my major campaigns is instilling the love of reading to my students. When the Harry Potter series burst into the scenes, it caused such a flurry of interest and controversy. But for us reading teachers, it was a god send. After battling with students' apathetic attitude towards reading, all of sudden they are lugging around books that are almost as thick as law books and actually reading them.

We were ecstatic. J.K. Rowling had made reading attractive and cool again.

On the other hand, I had one student returned to me one of my Harry Potter books saying that his mother does not want him to read the book. After observing this student read this book everyday with fervor, I was confused and disappointed. When I asked him why, his response was "It's against our religion. It's evil." I can only stare at him in amazement and politely asked, "Have your mother read it?" The response, as I expected is, NO.

This is what amazes me sometimes that people starts passing judgment on things they don't know anything or based their opinion on what they heard other people say about it. I have read all 6 Harry Potter books and is eager for the last installment, and I have not found anything wrong with this book. True, it is set in a magical setting, where witches and wizards and dragons abound, but the book is far more than that. For me, that is just extra, the icing on the cake.

The real strength of the Harry Potter series is the story itself, the journey of Harry from childhood to adulthood and how he handled every obstacle along the way. It's a tale of finding the hero within us, of doing the right thing against the odds, of true friendship and strength of character, of love, loyalty and bravery. In truth, it is about finding who we are and staying true to it no matter what happen.

In this case, I think every kids who deals with the challenges of growing up, from handling bullies and peer pressure to finding true friends, should learn these lessons. In fact, even adults need to learn these lessons. So happy reading.