THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 4, 1994 TAG: 9412020257
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Town Talk
SOURCE: Eric Feber
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Curtis E. Lane, principal of Deep Creek Intermediate School, would do almost anything to encourage his students to read more.
So far the five-year principal has spent time in ``jail,'' has had wet sponges thrown at him and has climbed into a pig pen with a real pig.
This year Lane observed National Reading Month by donning a wet suit and immersing himself in a tub full of water.
``Every year we try to come up with something for me to do to encourage our students to read,'' Lane said.
One year, a Chesapeake police officer, the husband of one of the faculty members, ``arrested'' and handcuffed him and placed him in a makeshift jail. Lane apent a day in a cell dressed in striped convict's clothing, reading to students and having his photo taken with them.
This year, Lane took the plunge.
Children's Reading Month at the school used the theme ``Dive Into a Good Book at Deep Creek Intermediate.'' Lane interpreted the theme in a literal way.
He made a deal with the school's 730 fourth- through sixth-grade students: If they read a total of 200,000 pages during November, he would put on a wet suit and splash in water in front of the entire school.
To see their principal perform the stunt, the student body took to reading like . . . well, like a duck takes to water.
``The kids did a lot of reading. That's for sure,'' Lane said. ``They read everywhere - at lunch, at recess, wherever they could. I even got calls from parents who told me their children passed on television just so they could read in order to see Mr. Lane sit in a tub full of water. It was certainly a very strong incentive.''
Every day the students read and read, thanks to other incentives and stunts devised by the faculty. Each class initiated special reading activities and every day the school would pause for ``D.E.A.R. time.'' That stands for ``Drop Everything And Read.''
``Each day we would announce over the school loudspeaker to drop everything and read, and that's what everybody did during a 15-minute period,'' Lane said.
Finally, all of the pages read were tabulated in the official log book, and it was time for Lane to make good on his promise.
``They got me a wet suit and we got a tub donated to us by Southern States,'' Lane said. ``To be honest with you, I think the tub was a big 175-gallon horse trough.''
Lane said the tub was decorated with blue paper and labeled ``the D.C. Sea,'' and several goldfish were added to the waters to help complete the illusion of a teeming ocean.
Then it was time for the countdown to the splashdown. Lane said he had to do the same stunt four different times that day.
``We played it up big,'' Lane said. ``The tub was at the school's first-floor open space. The kids were all around us, and they all counted down and then I just submerged myself into the tub. They loved it. The kids were all cheering and screaming.''
Lane said he went underwater for several minutes, came up for air and, while still sitting in the tub, proceeded to read ``The Great White Man-Eating Shark'' and as many fish- and sea-oriented ``Silly Animal Riddles'' as possible to the assembled students.
``At the end I was a little waterlogged and a bit chilly,'' Lane said. ``But it wasn't too bad. You do have to make a fool out of yourself from time to time in front of your students just to let them know you're a human being and not just some principal who lives at school all day.''
``But the most important thing,'' Lane said, ``it got my students interested in reading.'' by CNB