Written Response for Workshop #2

To be… literate or not to be… literate!

If literacy is tied to economics and class, it seems obvious that to be literate means belonging to the upper class and not to be literate means belonging to the underclass. If acquiring literacy were the only condition then why can’t the underclass get out? All they have to do is learn to read and write and everything will take care of itself. Not so, says Paolo Freire, who distinguishes between critical literacy and naïve literacy. His distinction helps me to see the vicious cycle that the marginalized members of our society are caught in. For example, it is no wonder that the underclass can’t get out of their social class when schools, as Freire suggests, impose naïve literate views on them. These are views that paint a gloomy picture, one that promises no escape and offers only hopelessness. What schools should be doing is promoting critical literacy, so that students can relate what’s happening in society to what’s happening within themselves. This view concurs with what Mills calls “sociological imagination”. When we can ask Why am I in this predicament? How did I get here? and What forces have not afforded me opportunities to get out? we can make sense of what’s happening and take control of our lives.

To be literate is more than having acquired the skill to read (decode words) and write (spell correctly). This alone doesn’t afford the most important element of literacy and that is the ability to read the world and make sense of it. But when practices and conceptions of reading and writing reflect only the interests of the upper class, the underclass become helpless and at best can only try to adapt and when they don’t they are blamed for not caring enough or for being lazy. Discussions about why some people fail to rise above the unfortunate conditions in which they find themselves almost always end up with some people who blame the victims and others who feel sorry for them. But, neither of these opinions help the problem. They just perpetuate it. When it comes to education, I think it’s important to discuss solutions rather than simply attempt to diagnose the problem. I see this happen all the time when teachers and administrators are trying to determine why Franco can’t seem to earn his high school credits. They inevitably list a whole slew of causes and sometimes symptoms, but hardly ever solutions. I don’t know all the possible solutions, but I do know that I’m frustrated with the school system taking the easy way out. I think the answer lies in making students, like Franco, part of the process of finding a solution. Helping him become critically literate, by promoting sociological imagination will allow Franco to understand the world and his place in it. He will make the necessary adjustments and adapt or assimilate on his own terms. But just like a painter who in the absence of a silk canvas, uses the sidewalk to paint his masterpiece, Franco, once he becomes critically literate, can ‘get into’ mainstream society, one way or another.

It becomes incumbent upon us, as educators, to establish conditions that will include the subordinate group. This suggests that we promote critical literacy in schools, so that ALL students in our classes are given a voice and see themselves in the texts that they use. When we make knowledge relevant to them they become part of the equation, for when it is irrelevant to their lives it remains phony and awry. My annoyance is further exasperated by the counterfeit literates that walk the halls of many educational institutions proclaiming to educate young minds! These are the ones who are certain that they possess the absolute truth and are called to impart this upon the empty vessels who sit in the rows of desks before them everyday. By this, I mean those who O’Neil refers to as improperly literate. They are the ones who are reduced to career inspired, complacent, conformists, and graceful livers who believe they are in control of themselves and their environment, but are the furthest from being properly literate of all. In order to help our students become properly literate we must ensure that they are able to connect their knowledge and experience to the events of every new day. Language is the vehicle by which we become ‘free’ to engage in the world in which we live. Using language effectively is power. The power of language allows us to be able to recognize and articulate the connections we make with the world and it affords us the freedom to ‘be’ in the world. Being consciously in the world empowers us and motivates us to engage in social action. By using language, all students, the marginalized and the mainstream, have the power to act on and even change their reality.

Yet, I remain uncertain that saying it makes it so! As Freire reminds us, “…all teaching is intrinsically political” and as such cannot be void of bias and therefore is never neutral. Luke tell us that literacy teaching is “a form of modern cultural capital”. Therefore, the question remains, “WHICH literacies do we address? HOW do we distribute knowledge? WHO gets access? The answers to these questions remain ambiguous …about this I am certain!