Not allowing our students to fail

“A different way to learn is what the kids are calling for….All of them are talking about how our one-size-fits-all delivery system----which mandates that everyone learn the same thing at the same time, no matter what their individual needs---has failed them”- Seymour Sarason in The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform.

As teachers we are often faced with the reluctance of some learners to read and write. A major reason why students are quick to say “this is stupid” or “cant I just get a worksheet?” is because they either feel embarrassed to say I can’t read or write and or because they have less confidence in their abilities. True educators provide differentiated learning experience to maximize success. Ladson-Billings’ presents the readers with critiques of schooling presented in the above quote. Many educators in our school system are mere robots of traditional practices and underestimate the youth of today without considering other means to help them learn. Educators’ responses to their student’s language and attitude are detrimental in providing a window for failure because you can “lower expectations of their abilities”. The above quote critiques schooling in that it does not acknowledge how all children from various backgrounds have various levels of needs and are not provided with the same “equity” opportunities as others. This approach to teaching has tremendous impacts because their “academic achievement represents intellectual growth and the ability to produce knowledge”. If there is no room for growth and success the student begins to lose confidence and enthusiasm in learning. Learning is supposed to be fun for the students. I begin to think about a foreign student learning from a text unfamiliar to his native eye. How do you expect him to gain knowledge and critically analyze the text without offering some sort of mediation and or knowing his experience with the text? The mediation requires putting his roots into perspective and somehow integrating it with the curricula in addition to providing him with opportunities of choice. What is happening is that, many educators chose to give worksheet practices which is “the easy way out”. In fact they should have students learn a foreign text by having the students engaged, enthusiastic, and having the opportunity to apply what they learned to real world situations. Lisa Delpit, in her book The Skin that We Speak, offers us three propositions to the success teaching:

Successful teaching focuses on students’ academic achievement [‘intellectual growth and the ability to produce knowledge’],

Successful teaching supports students’ cultural competence [students grow in understanding and respect for their culture of origin] and

Successful teaching promotes students’ socio-political consciousness [‘develop a sense of mutuality and reciprocity toward others’] (110-111).

As stated before, literacy practices in schools lack to educate the youth in a way that is meaningful and comprehensible to them. True educators, find ways to have the students who “hate reading and writing” by having them “use reading and writing for real purposes” in ways that create works that have authenticity in of their voice. Not giving the students the chance to try allows them to fail which is why we must request from all out students “high levels of academic achievement” (119).

Out of School Literacies

Traditionally, literacy practices in schools are those established by the culture of power which views literacy as the ability to read and write English. These views trickle down to institutions like schools. At present there is a new movement known as “The New Literacy Studies” that denies this general view of literacy and considers other factors that contribute to various forms of literacy within a culture. People in a particular culture adopt different literacy practices and rituals they part-take in. They are often are shunned and viewed as illiterate by others because their way is not part of the culture of powers “correctness”. Often times, values of out-of-school literacies are over looked as bad. The lowrider culture in particular was a movement that emerged in the 80s in Bayside, California, as a way to resist the norm. The norm is the high ride fast cars driven by white Americans at the time. Many view the lowrider as well as the cholo/a with a “negative connotation” with gangs. But in fact when we look pass these portrayals; we being to understand that it has served as a haven for many to identify with and oppose the assimilation from the culture of power and their standards. In lowrider culture, they have developed distinct ways to become literate on visual interpretations. The visual representation in the customization of the cars and literacy as defined by Mahiri and Sablo can be seen as “skills applied to the production of meaning in or from texts in a context.” These drawings not only promote cultural pride and tradition but a sense of identity to many Latinos. The above image contains a mixture of themes that are important and or surround the lowrider community like the Virgen de Guadalupe, Jesus Christ, Aztec culture, chola, an artistic cholo, and solider with a rosary bead on his helmet. a A literate member of lowrider community begins with “seeing and admiring and learning aesthetics to learn to build and maintain them”. Many who are viewed as MINORities (not part of the culture of power) and demonstrate some sort of “gang related” appeal, their talents are invisible by schools and society as a whole. If schools and teachers learn from out-of-school literacies like the lowrider culture, and are empathetic to their struggle, maybe then it will make sense why many urban youths associate themselves more with out-of-school literacies as opposed to in-school. When taking the time to learn about urban youth one might find that as Jabarui Mahiri states, they “search for allies to assist them in finding ways to beat the odds and overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of fully realizing their individual potential and the well-being of their families and communities” (45).

The above information and facts were provided from Jabari Mahiri's text, What They Don't Learn in School. This book is highly recommended for many educators to read because it provides one of the many perspectives supported by "The New Literacy Study".

My Thoughts on new times...

In his article, “Teenagers in new times: A new literacy studies perspective” James Paul Gee highlights “the ways that teenagers use distinctive social languages [which will] have consequences for changing nature of school, literacy, and society” (412). In a study conducted with middle school teenagers from different socioeconomic classes, Gee analyzed literacy discussion of upper-middle class teens compared to those that come from working class family teens. His findings were that very often the discussion of upper-middle class teens’ appears “elaborated” because they use a “distinctive social language” to “distance themselves from everyday social interaction to mediate what they say through their relationship to achievement and success, and sometimes to cloak or defer their material interests with abstract arguments” (418). He found that these teens generally distance themselves from issues like racism neglect its existence even when visibly present. A student went on by saying that racism, “it’s not that big of a problem anymore, it’s not like it’s real big….I think [African Americans have a fair chance” (419). In reality, we would like to think it’s not a big issue and everyone has a “fair chance”.

Amanda Lewis in her article “Even Sweet, Gentle Larry?” provides the readers with some glimpse that EVERYONE sees racism. So why might people especially these upper middle class teens, tend to turn their heads and keep their mouth shut when racism is present? In a utopia society, everyone would probably be colorblind. But, race is a way we read the world around us and as stated by Lewis we “make decisions on how to act, react, and interact [...] all of us 'see' race, we aren’t colorblind and neutral 'we are all the same' isnt an effective way to avoid racial conflict." Schools are responsible in adding to this effect of denying the realities of race. The upper-middle class teens in Gees study, by their responses in the interviews, demonstrated “distanc[ing] themselves from issues like racism even when it is the overt content of their course work”. Although they state that our society shouldn’t stereotype people, when asked about racism, they were blind to its presences and state that “not a lot of racism around here[…]”(419). Racism is everywhere, that is why it is important for us to stop conditioning ourselves but in fact be critical thinkers as to why question or speak out against it when witnessing it.

Can you define literacy?

Literacy is one’s ability to communicate with others using speech, hearing, sight, writing, and/or reading. From this, we try to construct meaning and understanding. No one individual are the same. How we communicate varies with people and cultures. So why is the term literacy of great debate today? Although there still is not a clear definition as to which practices are most effective to teaching literacy, we must begin by looking at each individual child needs and tailor to them as educators. We must not look at literacy as a one size fits all approach but in fact remember there are multiple literacies. These multiple literacies are a combination of various things that constitute for an individual’s literacy. Hence, if we live in a diverse society one would encounter various community and cultures right? So why not prepare our future leaders to be multifaceted in these different settings by having them be engaged and immersed in it? Theorist Bloome and Ensisco argue this point, in the article “Looking Out Across Columbus: What we Mean by Multiple Literacies”. If we want our students to participate in our society, they must articulate multiple literacies. Because they will be required to engage in various settings, often requiring them to differentiate their language, they must be educated on the following...

· Recognition of the diversity of ways written language is used by people across social institutions, communities, and social situations;

· Recognition that student must understand both how to adopt extant literacy practices and how to adapt them to new situations and needs;

· Recognition that students must understand how literacy practices connect social institutions with each other, local contexts with national and global contexts; and,

· Recognition that how literacy practices are structures and how they provide meaning constructs social relationships among people and social groups, as well as provides social identities to individuals” ( Bloome and Ensisco 298).

I am open to James Paul Gee’s term of Social Languages. According to Gee, Social languages are “distinctive in that they are used to enact, recognize, and negotiate different situated identities and to carry out different socially situated activities”. For example, there are different cultures like hip hop that require not only a specific language but you must have a distinct demeanor to activity participate in that culture.

According to a study presented by Gee in his article, “Teenagers in new times: A new literacy studies perspective”, students from low economic backgrounds were unable to “actively recruit distinctive oral and written social languages for leaning within socioculturally recognizable and meaningful academic Discourses” because they are at a disadvantage and never taught at home. Having the ability to change ones language in different social settings is also known by Lisa Delpit as “code switch”. A way we might help poor children who are unable to actively “code switch” is possibly by considering the criteria’s mentioned above as well as teaching students the various “kinds of English”. Maybe if educators were open to and accepting of a student’s home language and given reasons and explanations as to when it is appropriate to use each language, is the child more aware of how society runs.