Truth or Myth?

I actually enjoyed reading the articles for this workshop. It was probably because I could relate to them on a personal level. I have found myself often believing some of those literacy myths presented to us in the articles and I have definitely encountered people in my lifetime who believe the myths to be true. Why do these myths exist? Could it be that it is our way of “blaming” one thing or another for our society’s faults-for those students we cannot reach no matter how hard we try? It is almost like we need to pin the blame on something or someone and justify the wrongs in our world. This seems like the easy way out and for all the years that have passed we still cannot get the whole “literacy” thing right. We continuously struggle with the entire “literacy” dilemma and it seems to never get any better.

As teachers we are continuously being inundated with the “latest literacy trend” or the new government initiated program such as “TLCP”-and we all jump on the band wagon-hoping and praying that these will be the answers to our literacy prayers. Yet within a year or so-or even shorter, we jump off that band wagon and hop onto the new one. We allow for the vicious cycle to continue. After reading the articles, I also felt like “literacy” and all of the programs that are offered to us are all about the “bottom dollar” and how rich the publishing companies can become richer. Will it ever be solved?

I especially enjoyed the activity were we had to write down what we were thinking while we read the story “The Discus Thrower”. I did write down at one point “I don’t get it” and was initially afraid to share this with the class. I did eventually build up the courage to share with my peers and was pleased to find out that it was okay not to get something that we read. I want to share this experience with my students so that they too can feel safe to share with me or any other teacher when it is that they “don’t get it”. I will be using this reading strategy in my classroom with my students because I am very interested to see what they would write down while reading.

Overall all of the activities we did on Saturday sparked interest for me personally. Although we did not do much writing-I was in awe with the fact that “oral communication” can lead to a wealth of information. Sometimes we need to refocus our teaching and ask ourselves-are we just trying to find an answer to the literacy myths or do we dare to take on different teaching strategies as we did on Saturday and try reaching our students to the best of our ability.