Briceville students are shown where reading can take them

February 1, 2023 by Ken Leinart

You could try to describe it with words like “exciting” and “explosive,” but you’d fail.

You can’t describe what “Engineering Better Readers” really brings to the students at Briceville Elementary School.

“We, literally, are bribing kids to read,” Carol Moore of the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation said.

“Whatever it takes to open that door for them.”

And that’s what it takes sometimes — an incentive other than a letter grade or a pat on the back.

It takes a reminder of where you are from and a reminder that you are important.

And it takes a little fun.

It’s earning (prizes) and learning.

This is not a “one-off.” It is not a gimmick to raise test scores. It’s not a gimmick to get kids to open a comic book and say they know about Batman.

Students read books and pass a comprehension test with their teacher to earn points to “purchase” prizes.

For an hour at the Briceville school Jan. 19, students were told that traveling to distant and exotic shores is only a page away.

They were shown that educators and those they trust most to protect them would do anything to show them how fun and rewarding turning a page can be.

They were taught about work and what it requires and what the payoffs could be.

And once the students saw the prizes …

You can’t describe it. Not with all the words in the English language (or the Welsh language).

Think of all the old film clips of “Beatlemania” and combine that with the closing of a tent revival.

Breathless screams, hands covering eyes and mouths, stares of astonishment.

And looks of determination.

You want a snow board?

Well, here’s a book.

Read it. Tell us what it’s about.

Coal Creek Watershed Foundation, through its scholarship program and its highlighting of the rich history of this north Anderson County sector, has made it a mission of telling students at BES they can do anything they set their minds to.

But reaching their goals take work and that work starts with reading.

“Reading … Appreciating reading, was a beginning for me,” Anderson County High School freshman Rebecca Lyons told BES students. “Being a good reader at an early age let me comprehend more, let me enjoy what I was reading.

“It has let me enjoy school.”

And for a small school in the foothills of the heart of coal mining country, being told there is a way forward, means a lot.

Engineering Better Readers is not about numbers, not about school board policies, not about whether a school should be kept open, not about test scores.

But it’s all of that as well.

Yeah, it’s kinda complicated.

There is more to BES, the Briceville community as a whole, than most people fathom. Briceville is one of the many cornerstones of Tennessee’s history, of the history of the United States.

The ER Coal Creek mining engineer David R. Thomas came back to life from 150 years ago to greet the students and give them a lesson about why reading can change their lives.

His father was Welsh coal miner, Rees R. Thomas, who came to Coal Creek from Wales after the American Civil War.

He collected books from the Welsh who wrote books in their native language about their lives in America. They came here so they could live freely and use their own language to practice their religion at a time when it was illegal to even speak the Welsh language in Great Britain.



Welsh language books from the Thomas family now reside at Harvard University. Dr. Eirug Davies of Harvard used those books as references to write, “The Welsh of Tennessee.”



Eirug’s book tells the story of the Coal Creek Labor Saga from the perspective of the Welsh who lived it and is now part of the state social studies curriculum for high school students in Tennessee.



Engineering Better Readers is not just about being better readers.



It’s not, really.



That’s the core, the reasoning, the madness behind the method.



It’s not about telling students the history and importance of their community. That’s a cornerstone, an important part because without it the whole message may not mean as much.



When educators, men and women who have worked mightily to achieve their education and status … when Student Resource Officers (trained and sworn to protect and serve) … when an Anderson County School Board member from Oak Ridge (Glenda Langenberg) … when all of these people celebrate ER with the students from Briceville Elementary School, that means something.



That is the message.



Engineering Better Readers is about Briceville. It’s history and, more importantly, its future.



Sometimes you just need a nudge to be reminded that coming from a small school in the heart of former coal mining country means a lot.