When reading the articles, I found myself thinking about my own classroom, my school, and the community where my school is located and telling myself “this sounds all too familiar”. The school where I teach is in a very low socio-economic area, whereby the students come from one parent families, where they often come home to empty homes and have no support for school. There is definitely a “clear” distinction between the classes at my school. To top that off, you also have teachers who have the attitude that “they can’t do that” and we have already given up on them before they have even started. These students are clearly at a disadvantage and it is almost like the world as a whole has given up on them. It further made me begin to think what can I do to change this as a teacher and most importantly-am I doing anything to help these students currently?
Most of the articles expressed how children born into classless societies are deemed to fail even before they begin. Coming from teaching in a primary grade, I clearly remembered how we all followed the structured four blocks to literacy and we based the student’s success in reading on the leveled book they read. Comprehension of what the student had just read was not really taken into account at times and if it was we all assumed that students were able to make connections to what they read from their own personal experiences. Parents often questioned their children’s reading grade stating “But my child has been reading since he/she was three or four” not taking into account that decoding words is not all that makes up reading. Since then I have moved to a junior grade and once again, I was faced with following a somewhat structured program. I had to face the wrath of EQAO and TLCP this year and it is becoming really frustrating. We are all attending in-services boasting differentiated learning and reaching our students keeping in mind all levels of multiple intelligences. Yet we have to meet as a grade, discuss a pre and post question that is to be answered on a certain date by all students. Also, in between the pre and post test question, we are to “model” the structured “formula” on how to answer the question. This of course is followed by us all meeting to do “moderated marking”, to ensure that “we” the teachers are all marking alike. A little hypocritical don’t you think. How are my students going to become critical thinkers and how am I supposed to “differentiate” the learning when I am asked to deliver a pre-determined curriculum. Not to mention, I have only a certain amount of time to “train” them on how to write EQAO-a test whereby many of my students struggle since they cannot connect their own personal experiences to what is being asked of them on the standardized test.
The aggravation grew further as I read the articles because it made me question “If everyone is so sure about what leads to failure when it comes to literacy and what is the “best” approach for “success” in literacy-why then are we still struggling with literacy in our schools today-in the year 2009?” These articles were mostly written in the late 1980’s and it seems that we have not even begun to tackle the problems of literacy within our school system, since most of the problems mentioned in the articles still exist today. Teachers need to empower their students with the tools to allow them to become critical thinkers. We are not to assume that because of the place where they come from, automatically means that they cannot do what we expect from them. If all teachers were on the same page and made a contentious effort to put in the time to allow our students to “use” their own experiences, strengths, and ideas within the classroom-that they would naturally develop literacy.
Whether it is- giving students a video camera or asking them to “draw” their story, we need to be more open to accepting this as literacy and the development of the student’s literal abilities. We need to let go of the predetermined notions that literacy is the level of book students read at and where they placed their commas and periods in their writing pieces. Rather that literacy is an individualized aspect of every student’s life and needs to develop accordingly.
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It does seem as if the same problems keep facing us. Probably the issue is we never learn or we, as teachers, are positioned to never be able to learn from inquiry and experience in our own classroom. I liked what you were saying at the end, but I think literacy is a set of social practices and as such it is part of every student's life. We would be wise, as you suggested, to build on and off of the literacies that young people are brining with them to school, and while reading and writing may always be important, the specific form it takes is going to vary as our world keeps changing.
ReplyDeleteJCHarste