The first time I saw the bumper sticker “If You Can Read This, Thank a Teacher,” I grinned. Seemed so obvious. As time passed, and after  seeing that bumper sticker a hundred times or so, I’m still struck by the simplicity of the message.

Whether you went to public school, private school, or home-school, you know literacy opened doors to learning like nothing else. The famous abolitionist, author, statesman, reformer, and former slave Frederick Douglass said, “Once you learn to read, you will forever be free.”

In honor of Teacher Appreciation week, I asked a few people to tell me about teachers who spurred their love of reading. Here are the reminiscings of a few:

Boxing News
“It must have been 1950, and there was a huge boxing event coming up: Joe Louis vs. Ezzard Charles. All the boys at school were talking about the match and choosing sides. Mrs. Herbert, my fifth-grade teacher, brought in the newspaper, and we scoured the sports section. There was a column called “Tale of the Tape” that gave all kinds of measurements: biceps, chest, height, neck, and so forth. It was exciting to get details on the boxers. Mrs. Herbert turned me on to reading the newspaper and to the possibilities of what can be learned through various media.”

Book Rewards
“At the end of the day on Fridays, if we had been good and done all our work, our fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Lyons would read a chapter of a fun book, like “Pippi Longstocking” or ‘The Saturdays.’”

Family Reading
“My school teacher was also my aunt. It was very confusing to me as a little girl. I knew I shouldn’t call her Aunt Millie in school, but I couldn’t make myself call her Mrs. Waite. She read to us in school, which I loved. But even better was going to her house after school, where  she would read books like “Dr. Doolittle” to my cousins and me.”

In recognition of this important week, we at Learning A–Z are opening up one of our six websites each day of Teacher Appreciation Week, May 5–9, plus May 12. Be sure to tell your teacher friends to enjoy the free materials. The Open House is scheduled from midnight to midnight EDT as follows:

May 5: ReadingA-Z.com
May 6: Raz-Kids.com
May 7: WritingA-Z.com
May 8: VocabularyA-Z.com
May 9: Reading-Tutors.com
May 12: ScienceA-Z.com

Should girls and boys at the primary school level be separated into different classrooms? For many decades, as far as public schools are concerned, the answer has been no.

The New York Times Magazine recently ran an extensive article on the single-sex education debate.

Boys and girls are fundamentally different and learn better if taught separately, according to proponents of single-sex education. Former physician Leonard Sax studies the neurological differences between boys and girls and is a supporter of the emerging science of sex differences. Other proponents of single-sex education argue that it is critical because boys and girls simply have different social needs.

Jay Giedd, Chief of Brain Imaging at the Child Psychiatry Branch at the NIMH, has a different point of view. He argues that gender is a "crude tool for sorting minds" and points out that the differences between boys and girls (both in terms of brain images and psychological testing) are less significant than the height differences. Giedd's point—and I tend to lean in this direction—is that there might be some merit to dividing classrooms according to learning style, but that dividing along gender lines would still leave too many people in the wrong place. Others weighing in on the issue, such as the ACLU, are concerned that dividing education by gender would automatically create unequal education.

At this point, according to the article, there is not adequate research to prove the benefit or harm of educating boys and girls in separate classrooms. Certainly this issue deserves more study. And maybe that research will finally "prove" what good teachers and schools have always known—that there is no one single answer, no one classroom or school model for everyone; but that there are many learning paths by which each student finds his or her own success.