Ed 250: Literacies and Education

In Gee's article, he broke down literacy in terms of being able to control our discourses. He discussed the social construction of literacy and how it is not simply a matter of the ability to read and write. I found that it was extremely important to make this distinction and to recognize there are many different types of literacies. However, I feel it is also essential to acknowledge the power that reading and writing hold. As liberal arts college students taking an education course, we recognize the value in all types of literacies but the average person automatically associates literacy with reading and writing. Schools are determined to be good or bad based on their test scores in reading and writing. In my sociology course, Problems in the Natural and Built Enviornment, we discussed how many things are social constructions but that doesn't make the consequences of them any less real. A student may be literate in terms of music or social skills, but if they lack the ability to read or write, they will be significantly disadvantaged compared to students who can. Our society places different values on different types of literacies, giving agency and power to those who posess valued literacies. It makes me wonder how we can change the system; how can we make major structural changes to ensure equality.

In the Literacy and Development reading Pat Herbert and Clinton Robinson describe a scene from a Muslim religious tradition in which people are holding cards with prayers written on them but none of them can actually read the cards; they have memorized the prayers instead. Further investigation found that the people believed the actual words themselves to be sacred and therefore having them in their hands was important even if they could not read the words. This reminds me of my field placement in a first grade classroom. I was working with a boy struggling to learn to read. The teacher had given me a stack of books the boy had been working on all year. I let him pick which book he wanted to read. He picked it and read it better than I have ever heard him read before. He picked another and again I was impressed at how much he had improved since my last visit a month ago. I even told the teacher about how much he had grown in that time. The next week I picked the book for him. It was one I had not seen before which meant it was the most recent book he had been reading. He struggled.  He did not know most of the words, making most of them up as he went along. He even said, “I don’t know this one.” It was clear to me that he had read the other books so many times he had memorized them. I thought he had really improved his reading but in fact he had just memorized the words and so could “read” them quickly. But it made me wonder, is reading the words actually any better than simply memorizing the stories?

One of the most interesting parts of learning new literacies is defining all of the terms. I love that sometimes, when I’m introducing a new concept to someone, I have to dig deep into my understanding of that concept to find the most fundamental vocabulary. I love the necessity for analogy--for us to figure out how to relate new terms to those we already know. And then there are the terms that take on new meanings in different contexts.

For my Music Ed class, I am learning how to tango. I know pretty much nothing right now, and my assignment for the week is to practice walking everywhere. The tango walk has so many components that I don’t have to think about in “normal” walking--lean forward; connect with yourself, the space, the floor, the music, and your partner; extend; cover more distance; be a broom. But still, when I think about it, I am just adding to a specific definition of walking.

At the end of class last week, I found myself feeling uncomfortable with the way the class was using the term "illiterate."  As we are all working to expand our definitions of literacy, I think it is important to keep in mind how we're using related terms.  I really like the idea that literacy goes beyond the ability to read and write to encompase having knowledge or competency in an area but does that mean that being illiterate is the opposite of that?  While I'm comfortable with the fact that I am not literate in all areas, I'm not comfortable with the idea that not being literate in an area means that you are illiterate.  I'm also interested with the connection between illiteracy and ignorance.  Are they connected?  If only in the sense that both words seem to have very negative connotations with me despite the fact that they shouldn't be neccessarily negative.  For me, ignorance is not knowing and I think given my previous definition of literacy one could say that being illiterate is not knowing.  However, I think illiterate is used in a much broader sense than ignorance.  For example, I think the way I have been thinking about the terms, one can easily be ignorant about part of a culture or lifestyle or any number of things.  However, if you are illiterate, it isn't just one part of a culture or lifestyle but its the whole culture.  I think it is easiest to understand in terms of language.

Since my post last   Social skills, cognition, and emotional intelligence fall under the category of social literacy.  Social literacy can be associated with an individual’s ability to connect with the people around them. Would someone be considered socially illiterate if they cannot express their ideas in a way that people can understand?  I don’t think being coherent and being literate are the same terms.  I think someone can completely understand what is going on around them but they cannot express their ideas because they are incoherent.  I think that using literacy as an umbrella for multiple capabilities is limiting in a way.  By saying someone is illiterate socially or musically, it promotes the assumption that they have absolutely no skills in that area.  When the words literate or illerate come to my mind, I assume black and white.  Either someone is completely capable, or completely incapable.  There is no grey area.  That is why I don’t think describing someone as socially illiterate is an appropriate term for a person with some sort of social disorder. 

I have been not so keen on spending this time on twitter and fairly unenthusiastic about twitter as a constant form of communication. I definitely see the benefits of it, and if I had an iphone or something similar maybe I would feel more in the loop with the ability to see the whole twitter website, but I am feeling like it is difficult to be constantly engaging in this online way of communication. All of this is true, but Emily's tweet "really enjoying the "third spaces" of this 360- as in conversations that are not strictly social OR class related" helped me realize the potential of twitter! (thanks, Emily!) I really like the idea of creating spaces that merge different topics, interests, and situations; clearly Twitter has the power to constantly engage our class in a way that cannot be achieved just in the classroom. Recently, I have read articles for anthropology classes that describe the concept of "third spaces". Both Asaf Bar Tura's "The Coffeehouse as a Public Sphere: Brewing Social Change" and Ray Oldenburg's "The Good Place: Cafes, Coffeeshops, and Book stores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community" address the idea of third spaces as physical places for social interaction that bridge separate spheres. I hadn't considered the potential for third spaces to exist in other forms beside as locations. Viewing twitter as a possible space that bridges different communities and thought processes has helped me move past considering twitter as only a form of informal electronic conversation.

*had trouble getting on to serendip so here the first blog post!

• Understanding the Arrogant Persepction

I want to understand this term used by Maria Lugones by first putting emphasis on the word perception instead of the word arrogant which is its descriptor. When first trying to understand this term, I began by discussing the word arrogant before the word perception and my understanding of the text became confusing. However, when putting the emphasis on perception it is easier to begin thinking about how this applies at large to feminist epistemology, colonialism, power, education, etc. despite each of these entities being at times very different from one another. However, they all relate in the sense that how we perceive the world, our perception of the world is colored by hegemonic ideologies that are created and reproduced by people with power. As sociologist C. Wright Mills discusses in his book, The Power Elite, it is the select few with the most cultural, social and monetary capital that create the hegemonic perspective. Ordinary people, the majority of people, except a small population of the intellectual bourgeoisie, as Pierre Bourdieu discusses, consumes thoughts with little doubt or reflection as to who created these ideals and beliefs and for what reasons. The word arrogant then makes more sense in that those who have the power to create perspective, shape them, infiltrate them are those who are arrogant.

Chimamanda Adiche’s talk “The Danger of a Single Story” spoke to the discomfort I have recently wrestled with in terms of my own upbringing as a middle-class, white girl; my battle to acknowledge the single story the media, my teachers, our government, religion and so many other facets of my life have taught me unintentionally. Whether it be on a global scale such as Adiche’s experience with expectations of a single African story and the token “third-world woman” too often noted by anthropologists or at the local level, one school to the next, via class or color, the single story does exist and is used to create structural barriers, while simultaneously allowing those in power to happily claim moral neutrality at the hands of a biased system. Lemke’s reading spoke to this juxtaposition, showing how language standardization has been assumed both necessary and desirable, creating a means to attain and justify power that is neither fair nor essential: “The policy of language standardization seems culturally and politically neutral only if we deny that differences in linguistic codes have evolved to reflect differences in the lifeways, social practices, and interests of different communities and social groups” (Lemke, 2). Lemke’s point here and throughout the article is critical, acknowledging that an emphasis on written standard English, a strain that is not spoken or used by anyone, creates a divide and gives an unfair advantage to those whose dialect is closest to the written word—typically those already in power.