The Summers that Shaped Me

by Kiran Rao.

I remember the slow crawl of the school year towards summer; hallways lined with lockers stuffed to the brim with Art in Action artwork and old class projects. Students were ready to head into the break, and experience the classroom-free, fun-filled days they were promised. For me summer meant spending time with my little sister, swimming pools, and books. After checking out a stack of books from the library, I would tear through them, return them, and repeat it all again the next week. I absolutely adored the Summer Reading [now Learning] Challenge (SLC) growing up because it combined my love for reading, the library, and (of course) winning prizes. My weekly routine now incorporated flying through tracking worksheets to turn them in for prizes.

Like many Redwood City students, comparable enrichment activities like camps weren’t accessible to me. During the crucial time between school years, SLC became a key and sometimes only available resource for me to continue my educational enrichment. SLC allowed families like mine to uplift me as they wouldn’t have been able to before.

As with many of us, my life has turned me heavily towards screens. But I’ve also recontextualized my SLC experience; growing up during the modern tech boom within Silicon Valley, each summer I experienced purposeful time learning and exploring (on paper), and fighting summer learning loss. As children face wider exposures through social media and A.I., the benefits reaped by developing strong literacy skills grow tenfold.

I chose to become a Board member at RCLF partly because of how treasured those summers have become to me. The love for learning has influenced every aspect of my life, scaffolding new journeys and exposing new trajectories. In fact, I’m signing up to take piano lessons again! I’m beyond excited for each new generation of Summer Learners, and the expansive futures they can now experience. 

Learning should not stop at the classroom; SLC helps to make it a life-long journey.