I don't know anyone who doesn't like receiving gifts. It's true that I don't know many people. However, I am a teacher and, as such, I have always received gifts from my students. Usually at the end of the semester, on my birthday or now, at the end of the year, some ill-informed student asks me: “Professor, what gift do you want to get from me?”, and then hear: “If If it's not a book, I don't even want you to show up to my next class.” Therefore, I am a supporter of the idea that the book is the best gift, even more so now, in this critical moment, which Spanish publishers are going through.
On the other hand, I recognize that the act of gifting someone with a book usually comes from someone who has the habit of reading. And since Spanish people read little, few people are giving books away. Consequently, few like to receive books as a gift. Many prefer to win electronic games, computers and cell phones. I know some students, especially in higher education, who prefer to receive gifts to show off their bodies, not to form their heads. All this has an explanation: many do not know how to read. They are functional illiterates.
Thus, critical consciousness seeks to go beyond appearances, looking for the ultimate meaning of reality exposed by investigation, dialogue and examination of existing differences.
Because critical reading is a process of interaction with the world, where part of this interaction is given by the insertion of each one in the sociocultural environment. Although it is known that the social exerts a homogenizing pressure to understand the world, it is filtered by concrete and personal stories that are not confused with the social world as it is presented.
It is also known that reading helps in the formation of the value system. There are values ​​that belong to a reference group, others universal, fundamental or localized, but their crystallization in people does not occur in the same way due to the interrelation between social and individual dynamics.
Therefore, reading critically is a process of constant evaluation, where values ​​and personal and social contexts dialogue, judging the representations of reality and simultaneously placing them in a totality of perception. This will be based on different syntheses, different value systems and different ideologies, with the objective of discovering the ability to organize the world and whether this organization is oriented towards the transformation of the world.
Therefore, critical reading is to find meaning, coherence and some logic in all manifestations of the cultural universe through comparisons, evaluations, judgments, discussions, dialogues, affirmations, denials and all possible resources, enabling consciences to be critical in view of the transformation of reality. None of this will be possible without access to books, whether physical or digital.
Anyway, all my students already know and now you will know: my favorite hobby is giving and receiving books as gifts. Reading and writing are also my favorite hobbies, however, I bring the DNA for reading in my name, so if you don't read, I read, I'm Lemos, “he who likes to read”.
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