Ever since it was brought up by Brandt in one of her articles, I’ve really been interested with the idea of sponsorship and literacy. Resnick and Resnick do a great job of evaluating several different eras of sponsorship throughout the centuries. From the call and response of biblical text in the 17th century, to the educational reforms for literacy in the 19th century, the idea of sponsorship has always been in the back of my mind. Many people, children and adults alike, were struggling to become literate. Most of the time they just got to the point where they could hold a job or read the newspaper, and called it good. As time went on, many changes occurred in the educational system and literacy rates began to skyrocket.
While this seems like purely good news, something bugged me as I read it: Where is the baseline for literacy at right now? I grew up in the fairly affluent region of Hershey , where most kids were just bred to be pumped out to a nice college somewhere. The School always made sure that we maintained our blue ribbon status, and we were held to a higher standard of excellence because of it. While I developed great reading and comprehension skills from it, I never really stopped to think what it was like for someone who didn’t grow up in an environment like that.
My Interviewee is a young man who went to school in inner city Philadelphia his entire life. He expressed to me, in no uncertain terms, that most of his teachers didn’t really give a damn about building up a resume like that. He said it was more of a matter of just getting you up to the “required level” and then sending you to the next grade. I just found it strange how you read about all these elite french technical schools and think “Man, I’m so glad things are different now!” Only to have something like this make you realize that maybe some things still need to change.
I have tutored in inner city schools prior to this and have had a lot of first hand experience with the system that is set up through the school. Since a lot of work that I do is volunteer I of course try my hardest to do more than the basic, however, my students and I disagreed in the past. I’ve had many students complain when I force them to work harder on something that they usually can get away doing half-assed. This is something that bugs me quite a bit and I blame a lot of the laziness of some institutions on holding not only their students but their teachers to higher standards. I am not saying all schools take the easy way out but in a lot of cases you are more likely to walk into a school in a poorer neighborhood and see teachers who have the bare minimum requirements because some schools do not want to pay the higher salaries for teachers with bachelor degrees and experience or the teacher with a masters degree. That will eventually effect the learning environment in a school. Also I know for myself if I am not being pushed by myself or my place of employment it would be easy for me to fall into a lazy routine and I think that if schools were to work harder at holding high standards for everyone there would be a better outcome for students. However, you also mention that your school was held to a higher standard and it read as if you had some hesitance in supporting that. I would like for you to clarify if you like that you were held to a higher standard or do you think that that some how gave you an upper hand that you feel you didn’t deserve. I think that in general we need to be held to higher standards, however, I don’t mean that in a way where I think everyone should be able to do a, b, and c, there are always exceptions, however I do think the world is growing lazy and we need to be working towards higher goals to better ourselves and the world we live in.
I definitely support schools holding students to higher standards. I’ve had many teachers who definitely enriched my learning and helped me to become who I am now. That being said, many of them were severely restricted by the specific curriculum that my school had set up. I guess the only reason I seemed hesitant about it was that my school was so obsessed with grades and numbers that the students started to feel like that was all that mattered.
I suppose I worded it poorly, but I just feel like it seems strange that my friend and I had such different experiences just because of where we grew up, or who our parents were. He has since grown to become an accomplished poet, but he had to really bust his ass and do a lot of self reflection in college to realize that was the path he wanted. Overall I do agree that students should strive for excellence, but when you start to feel like your entire 12 years of education comes down to a few numbers, instead of self discovery and learning, it can do a real number on your motivation as well.
I think it is really important to take into account the different cultures and backgrounds of people when testing for levels of literacy. In my Foundations of Special Ed class, we had an assignment where we had to make a poster for Autism Awareness out of the objects in a plastic bag. The one problem was, everyone had different things in each of their bags. Some people had fives markers, ten pieces of different colored paper, scissors, and Internet access. Other people had a napkin and a pen. When presenting our posters, it was obvious who had more than other groups. Even though some groups put far more effort into their posters in order to make up for their lack of supplies, they rarely looked as good as the people who had far more materials. While this may sound like a tangent, it does apply to literacy. Not everyone is given the same tools in life to work with. Although some people can put in more effort and try harder, it is still very difficult to overcome the barrier placed by society and upbringing. Because of this, it is unfair to give everyone the exact same standard of evaluation in regards to their literacy.