So here we are, almost at the end of the term and I still am struggling to come up with posts for the blog. During mid-semester conference I said I would write about the readings, however, this week we don’t have any so I am stuck not knowing what to write about to fulfill my goal from the conference.
I’ve decided to take this time to reflect on past readings. Which ones were our favorites and why we liked them. I know for myself I found quite a few of them rather interesting and so I figured I would discuss them now, there are of course that I was not found of, one being ‘Why Johnny Can’t Write’ which was expressed openly in a past post. However, I wanted this post to be in positive light. So I am going to discuss the ones I liked and I would like for my fellow students to do the same in the comments!
My favorite readings by far have been; Students’ Rights to Their Own Language, “I Just Wanna Be Average”, Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project, and Becoming Literate: A Lesson from the Amish. I liked these readings for different reasons but a majority of my reasoning is because they are all so different. I also really enjoyed how a lot of them had a personal narrative with them making it easier to get through.
Out of all these readings though I connected most with Becoming Literate: A Lesson from the Amish. I think that I connected with this because it was the furthest thing from relatable for me. I don’t know anything about the Amish and I don’t know much about why they do the things they do but I felt that this article discussed a lot of things that I could relate to in a setting I could not which was only more intriguing for me. I think that this also got down to the root of some of the larger issues that people discuss in literacy communities.
What do you guys think, what were your favorite readings and why? (:
My favorite readings were Literacy and Literacy Myth: From Plato to Freire by Gee, “I Just Wanna be Average” by Rose, and Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom by Delpit. I liked Rose’s paper because of how personal and descriptive it was. I also was able to relate to it because of the realization that simply being average and trying to just get by wasn’t nearly good enough. I found Delpit’s paper really interesting because it was specifically about how literacy is taught in schools and how it can be improved to make it more effective. Again I was able to relate to it because I have struggled with gaining literacy and I agree with Delpit that different methods would have made the process easier. Gee’s paper might have been my favorite reading in the class because it changed my view of literacy completely. I had never thought of literacy as a social or cultural construct until I read Gee’s paper. After reading it however, I have been convinced that literacy is exactly that. I may not know how to define literacy exactly, but I do know that how it is defined is influenced by one’s social ideas. I might not have discovered how to define literacy, but because of this paper I’m convinced that there is no one way to define it.
The ending of this class provokes reminiscing:
Why am I in this class?
It’s a prerequisite for the School of Education’s Secondary English program.
Why do I want to go through the School of Education’s Secondary English program?
I want to be an English teacher.
Why do I want to be an English teacher?
…
…
…
It can’t possibly be for the money…
…
Or the prestige…
Because…
Because…
I had amazing English teachers and the experiences I had in their classes and with them inspired me to become a teacher. Deborah Brandt’s Sponsors of Literacy reminds me of the reasons why I’m pursuing this path. Revisiting these ideas and memories helps me when the work of getting on the other side of the desk becomes difficult.
Similarly, Lisa Delpit’s Other People’s Children strikes a familiar, nostalgic chord. For the past year and a half I’ve worked for MGR Youth Empowerment, a nonprofit that provides art, health, and environmental consciousness program to under-resourced youth. A majority of the young people we serve are minorities from low-income backgrounds.
Because of my own background, white upper middle class, I don’t share a lot of common experiences with my students. This summer I felt like I had an important milestone experience as an educator.
As a part of MGR’s programming, we infuse lessons on social justice into our art curriculum. In response to the events in Ferguson this August, we held discussions about our students’ relationships to and perceptions of the police in their communities. The discussions were illuminating. I can’t honestly say I understand how my students feel, being either ignored or under unwarranted suspicion, but letting them share experiences that I’m not privy to helped me understand the importance of creating an encouraging and accepting environment when I teach.
After one on of the discussions, one of the more less engaged students in this group approached me and the other teaching artist and said, “I feel really good right now. All that was sad, but we don’t talk about stuff in classes. Can we do this every week?”
Sponsors of Literacy and Other People’s Children reinforce the reasons and ways I want to teach. Reading and discussing them reaffirms my teaching ambitions and makes the state of education seem less hopeless–from what I’ve heard from my classmates going into teaching, they have the same level of care for their present and future sponsorees.