I'll be the first to admit that I was a huge bookworm as a kid, and still am. I'm pretty sure I was reading chapter books wayyy before it was normal to do so, and my mom actually had to ground me from my books on several occasions because I was too busy reading to pay attention to her/do anything else I was supposed to be doing. Bless her heart, she drove me to the book store at midnight to buy every single new "Harry Potter" book when it came out.
If one person understands my love of the great American novel, it's Noel Morgado-Santos, a second grade teacher from Florida who recently dyed his hair blue after his students read over 400 books in one school year. Considering their original challenge was to read 200, you could say they completely blew this out of the water.
"The idea of dyeing my hair came from my students," Morgado-Santos told Dailybreak via email. "At the beginning of the school year, I challenged them to read 200 books by the end of the school year. I asked them to choose something they would like to see me doing if they reach the goal. I thought they were going to challenge me by asking me to kiss a pig, dance or even to make 100 push-ups."
Those seem like normal challenges to come from second graders, right?
"Esteban, one of my students that dyes his hair practically on [a] daily basis, asked the class to challenge me to dye my hair," he continued. "The game was on. By the end of the school year, my class read over 400 books (including book reports). The students voted for the color and blue was the color with the highest votes."
Morgado-Santos has been teaching for over 25 years, and currently lives in Ft. Lauderdale with his husband and their Havanese dog, Baxter. Luckily for his students, Baxter often visits the school and encourages his students to read as well!
Morgado-Santos also started the Celebrity Reader's Club at Bennett Elementary, where he currently teaches, and for 20 years has been inviting TV personalities, movie stars and radio hosts to visit the school and read to his students.
"City mayors, journalists, musicians, meteorologists, superintendents of schools and authors [have] joined us," he said. Some of the past celebrities include Emmy-winning journalist Louise Aguirre and Marybel Torres, former Editor-in-Chief of "La Nota Latina" magazine.
"I love what I do and my priority as an educator is to offer my students and their families a safe, inclusive and effective educational environment that will enrich and meet the needs of the whole student," Noel Morgado-Santos told us. "We start the day with a hug and we end every day with a hug."
One thing is for sure: we don't show enough appreciation for teachers like this. My heart is so full.