Literacy in American Lives by Deborah Brandt

Literacy in American Lives by Deborah Brandt explores how learning learning has changed over the years and how the rising expectations have changed during this process. Brandt explores the  literacy practices through  Americans living in rural Wisconsin. She does this by looking at the differences of Martha Day and Barbra Hunt, two women born into the same socio-economical background however in different time periods. Brandt in her book  examines the importance of literacy practices in  a large scale and local economic change, she does this while looking at its influenced by history i.e Literacy Skills= Resource for business =$$$$.  Brandt introduces the word of  "sponsors of literacy," these are people who are agents "who enable, support, teach, and model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold, literacy—and gain advantage by it in some way" (19). This can be a person, organization, or network that helps someone get their education in some way. She acknowledges that the idea of sponsorship is a changing one and that their are more numbers of agents of sponsors for teaching and learning literacy.

After reading Brandt's book It gave me a more enriched outlook on the current educational field and it gave me a deeper appreciation on how economic concern drives the growth of our field. 

This book also made me question the job security of a teacher of literacy in future economic fluctuations. 

A final reflective of ENGL C0853.

         I found this class incredibly helpful. I am an instructor at Zoni Learning Center where I teach English as a Second Language students. The readings from this class helped me in terms of making my classroom more engaging and transformative. By learning about andragogy, I was better able to understand the struggles of my adult learners. I was able to use my experiences as a traditional and adult learner to inform the running of my class. I was particularly taken with the readings by Mike Rose, Paulo Friere, and the concept of transformative learning.

 Transformative learning theory influenced me into being aware of the potential for transformative learning in my classroom, and Rose helped me to recognize the skills that the students needed outside of grammar. For example, I introduced the topic of media manipulation. Although that topic was only the main focus of one lesson, the students began to make increasing connections between that lesson and other topics such as gender coding and corporate culpability in factories overseas.  I watched them grow and develop critical thinking and communication skills in English. In the Zoni teaching method, the focus is on surface level mechanics and moving students forward in a linear, static manner. However, in watching my students critically reflect on the subjects brought up in class, I saw the transformative process unfold. For instance, one of my students applied the concept of media manipulation to her own motivation to coming to the United States and her goal of speaking non-accented English. Initially, she believed that her motivation of speaking non-accented English was to be better at her job. However, after critically reflecting, she learned that she really wanted to get rid of the stigma of her original accent and reap the benefits of speaking English without a Spanish accent. This kind of transformative learning—the kind where I could visibly see the utilization of past experience, critical reflection, application of that learning to her life—was immensely satisfying. I will continue to read more in the area of transformative learning theory—especially works by Mike Rose and Paulo Friere—to further enhance my teaching skills and to broaden the potential for transformative learning in my students.

Review: Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America’s Educationally Underprepared

Charlin Bailey

Professor Barbara Gleason

ENGL C0865 2TU Adult Learners of Language & Literacy

May 20^th, 2014

Review: Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America’s Educationally Underprepared

Rose, Mike. Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America’s Educationally Underprepared. New York: Penguin Books, 1989. Print.

In Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America’s Educationally Underprepared (1989) by Mike Rose.  Rose uses the genre of memoir to present his argument that the educational system fails to prepare students for the world. Rose believes that the education system should be blamed for students being unable to function in their current educational system. Rose suggests that much of the conflict that exists between educational institutes and society is due to a lack of diversity in the education system. In the first half of the book, Rose presents a memoir of his life and recounts his personal challenges as a child in school. He presents the struggles he faced after being “written off”, as he states in his 1998 interview with Bill Moyer about his book, Lives on the Boundary. In the interview, as well as in his book, Rose reflects on his personal struggle within a curriculum that to him seemed to be designed to prevent him from academic success. In the second half of the book, Rose looks at the educational system from the viewpoints of a tutor and an educator. He recounts his journey through the educational system and its impact on his students. He reflects on the lives of the students he met on his journey to becoming an educator, as well as the lessons he learned during this process.

            Mike Rose is from a working-class family of Italian immigrants. He was raised in a poor neighborhood in South Las Angeles. He attended schools that had low expectations of his success. He was lost within the educational system and labeled as ‘remedial’ because of a mix up of test scores of another student. This blunder allowed him to be placed in a vocational classroom. Rose became part of the underprivileged students, within the education system.  It was not until he was rescued from this system that he was able to overcome the limitations set upon him by education. His teachers allowed him to have “liberal education” (58), He was finally able to see himself as being able to succeed. He was taught to critically think.

Throughout the book, the key problem of the education system that Rose acknowledges is that students are underprepared. One of the main reasons that he mentions for this lack of student preparation, is that education is not open to all. In his interview with Bill Moyer, Rose mentions the “power of invitation” within the educational system (YouTube). Rose believes that it is the teachers’ duty to invite student into education by engaging them in the world of new ideas. In the chapter “Reclaiming the Classroom,” he looks at the struggles of veteran students trying to excel within the remedial classroom. In this chapter he looks at the content and curriculum of the class as being one of the key reasons as to why the students were not excelling, as well as the stigma that goes with the title, remedial, and its effect on the students’ labeled. Rose viewed the process of teaching the students through the traditional way of grammar drills to be outdated and ineffective for producing critical literacy. He believes that instructors need to “think critically about the crucial transition into college, what it is that students need to meet the intellectual demands the freshman year makes of them” (165). This allows these students to think critically of their purpose within the classroom and promotes success. In the classroom of the Veteran students rose states that “education had the power to equalize things” (137), Rose recognizes that each student comes to the classroom for different reason and it is up to the educator and the system to stimulate students’ interest.

He further suggests, in the chapter he titles “The Politics of Remediation”, that along with additional support, students need to be exposed to different types of writing and reading early in their education. They need to cultivate skills beyond summarization and memorization and be introduced to critical literacy.  Rose suggests that students need to think critically and gain confidence in themselves, while immerging them in reading and writing. Rose states:

Many young People come to the university able to summarize the events in a new story or write a personal response to a play or a movie or give back what a teacher said straightforward lecture. But they have considerable trouble with what has come to be called critical literacy: framing and argument or taking someone else’s argument apart, systematically inspecting a document, and issue, or an event, synthesizing different points of view, applying a theory to disparate phenomena (188).

Rose speaks out against traditional educational methodologies and recommend that educators remain constantly vigilant about the ways in which they see class and culture and how their beliefs may restrict their point of views.

What Mike Rose did in his memoir was brilliant. He has managed to create a piece of work that can transcend through different levels of understanding within the educational system. Rose has written a manuscript of awakening within the educational system. In this book he is able to actively speak and view all sides of education, from the point of view of a student of a working class immigrant household, as a learning tutor, and as a developing teacher.  This work encourages readers to rethink personal experiences within their educational system, as well as advises future educators to consider different teaching strategies to encourage their students. The placement of is personal experience at the beginning of the book allows readers to have a fluid read, yet allowing us to critically think about the meaning of what is being said. Each chapter’s title represents a different transformation within the educational system. A transformation that the readers are able to see as it happens. Mike Rose’s 20 plus years as an educator is apparent throughout the text. His constant growth from chapter to chapter is evident in his analysis and change of approach for each set of students he has. In the final chapter entitled “Crossing Boundaries” Rose acknowledges that:

Class and culture erect boundaries that hinder our visions— blind us to the logic of error and he evepresent stiffing of language— and encourage the designation of otherness, difference, deficiency and the longer [he] stay in education, the clearer it becomes to [him] that some of our basic orientations toward the teaching and testing of literacy contribute to our inability to see. To truly educate in America, then, to reach the full sweep of our citizenry, we need to question received perception, shift continually from the standard lens [he goes on to state that] the . . . stories that bring this book to its close encourage us to sit close by as people use language and consider, as we listen, the orientation that limit our field of vision. (205)

In his analysis Rose illustrates his acknowledgement of the problem of why students’ are underprepared. He goes on to suggest a solution for the problem that exist. This analysis bares reference to the Freirian approach of problem posing education in Paulo Freire’s book the Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freirie believes that the only way to be liberated from the banking education system is for a learner to accept that they are being oppressed. This leads to what he calls a “democratic proposal of problem posing education” (Freire 61). Rose’s analysis of the educational system draws reference, through modernized interpretation, from several noted scholars, such as, Paulo Freire. Rose’s description of the “canonical approach to education” (237) mirrors Friere’s theory of the “banking system” (Freire 98). Rose states,

If you’re a working-class kid in the vocational track, the options you’ll have to deal with this will be constrained in certain ways: You’re defined by your school as “slow”; you’re place in a curriculum that isn’t designed to liberate you but to occupy you, or, if you’re lucky, train you, though the training is for work the society does not esteem” (Rose 28). His analysis references Feire’s banking system in that the student’s learning is limited to only receiving, filing, and storing the deposits or information learned. The learners become collectors or cataloguers of the things they store, but do not have the opportunity to use the knowledge learned to change their situations.

            In My Opinion Mike Rose accomplished the task of informing his reader about the failure of the educational system to prepare students to succeed. He does this through the lenses of students’ both in his personal experience and observation of his students; through reflection as a tutor, and as an educator. The different lenses the Rose uses allows his reader to understand the nature of development in literacy. He also allows educational professionals to learn about the educational point of view of the students. Rose does not give evidence, such as data, to support his point, but rather through anecdotal evidence, allowing his readers to analyze and deconstruct the observations he puts forth. Rose’s argument develops through every chapter and supports the overall idea of a lack of readiness of students and the importance of a solution.

 Despite the lack of actual data, such as how Deborah Brant in her book Literacy in American Lives, using factual evidence, such as census and analysis to illustrate that literacy skills equate resources for business.  Rose way of writing allows the book to be more widely understood. Unlike Brant, who does give facts, but limits her audience, Rose because of the genre he chose to write allows it to be more accessible to students and educators. I would recommend this book to all educators and students.

Social Transformation Through Education -Final Paulo Freire essay

Charlin Bailey

Adult Learners of Language and Literacy (ENGL C0865 2TU)

Professor Barbra Gleason

May 9, 2014

Social Transformation Through Education

Apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.

-Paulo Freire

According to the U.S Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics this fall, 8.7 million non-traditional students, ages 25 and older, will be joining traditional college- age students. The number of adult learners has increased between the year 2000 and 2011. These adult learners are entering the classrooms with diverse cultural and personal experiences and are changing classroom dynamics. These changing classroom dynamics can be more easily managed if instructors incorporate the theory of Transformative Learning.  Transformative Learning Theory is the theory in which an educator facilitates his or her students to have a changed mindset, environmentally, socially, and psychologically among others. Jack Mezirow (1978) is the most commonly referenced theorist of transformative learning. He popularized a psychoanalytical view of transformative learning theory. Mezirow, however, was not the only theorist working within the transformative field, Paulo Freire ,in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, was the first to introduce the social-emancipatory view of transformative learning theory by speaking against oppression of illiterate students in Brazil.      

The theory of transformative learning in its basic form occurs when a learner is changed through a learning process.  In a formal setting, this learning occurs within the classroom, and in an informal setting, it occurs outside of the classroom. The learning that occurs allows learners’ beliefs to change, consequently changing their entire perspective about an issue, topic, or situation. There are three key concepts of transformative learning: “the nature of life experiences that is central to adult learning; critical reflection processes; and the connection between adult development and the transformative process” (Fleming and Garner 24).  In order to accomplish transformative learning, a learner must enter with life experiences and be able to critically reflect upon the concepts presented. Once critically conscious, the learner must then apply this new transformed knowledge, either to self or to society.

 Fleming and Garner state that the transformative process, “begins as a result of a situation experienced by the learner, in which he or she confronts a dilemma that is incongruent with his or her previous life experiences” (25).  The first key concept of transformative learning is recognizing that life experiences are central to adult learning. This recognition is what makes the transformative learning “uniquely adult” (Edward W. Taylor 5).  Adults have years of experience affecting how they view a specific situation, where “learning is understood as the process of using a prior interpretation to construe a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of one’s experience in order to guide future action” (qtd. in Taylor 5). This prior belief results from all the years an adult has before they enter into a learning environment.

Edward W. Taylor in the Third Update of Adult Learning Theory views these prior beliefs as Frames of Reference.  The Frames of Reference are “structures of assumptions and expectations that frame an individual’s tacit points of view and influence their thinking, beliefs, and actions” (Taylor 5). The Frames of Reference represent the set of beliefs an individual has prior to the learning experience. The Frames of Reference scaffold the learner’s every action and thought, whether the learner is conscious of them or not. When these beliefs are changed, transformative learning occurs. This transformation may occur gradually or from a sudden life altering experience, which changes the way a person views the world. These experiences of the learner allow them to have a transformation.

The next essential element of transformative learning is Critical Reflection. Critical Reflection is:  a process by which [the learner] attempts to justify [her] beliefs, either by rationally examining assumptions, often in response to intuitively becoming aware that something is wrong with the result of [the] thought, or challenging its validity through discourse with others of different viewpoints and arriving at the best informed judgment (qtd. in Taylor 6).

During the process of critical reflection, learners consciously make the effort to analyze their Frames of References and evaluate why they think in a specific way.

This effort to analyze their frames of reference creates a change in the learner’s mindset. This change is what Freire refers to as Praxis. Freire believes that a learner “will not gain this liberation by chance but through the praxis of their quest for it, through [the learners’] recognition of the necessity to fight” (Freire 53). It is not enough for people to gain knowledge of their reality, but they must act upon it as a way to critically reflect thus transforming allowing action and critical reflection. A learner is able to achieve the transformation process only through critical consciousness.

 Change is an essential part of transformative learning, and this vital factor can be seen in Mezirow’s psychoanalytical method of transformative learning. Mezirow’s psychoanalytic view of transformative learning “is seen as a process of individuation, a lifelong journey of coming to understand oneself through reflecting on the psychic structures [such as ones] ego, shadow, persona, collective unconscious” (Taylor 7). This, in turn, allows an individual to create his or her identity. On the other hand, Freire’s social-emancipatory perspective acknowledges social oppression within the education system and seeks liberation within society to accomplish transformative learning.

Paulo Freire’s approach to literacy education reinvented the way educators approached teaching adult learners. Freire bases his theory on learners’ cultural and personal experiences and believes that through educational enlightenment learners need to use their experiences to achieve active social change. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire speaks against oppressions of illiterate students in Brazil. He refers to the mode in which students are oppressed through education as the banking concept of education. Freire discusses this concept as an educational system that instills knowledge unto its learners, where the learner has no power over what is being learned. Freire states that “the teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance as absolute, he justifies his own existence” (Freire 53). In this way the teacher becomes the dominant figure or the oppressor within the classroom, and the students become subservient or the oppressed. The learner becomes alienated within the classroom and accepts the teacher as being the sole voice within the classroom, hence allowing the teacher to control the students learning process.

 Freire believes that learners, with their cultural and personal experiences, are the ones who allow education to occur, not the teacher, and the relationship of teacher and student should be interchangeable. He believes that individuals develop their own growth through situations from their personal lives and education. It is not until the two are connected that an individual can reflect and analyze the world in which he or she lives. Freire states that, “education must begin with the solution of the teacher student contradiction by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students” (53). This allows learners to become transformers of their worlds. This transformation is not possible in the banking system, which limited the students’ learning to only receiving, filing, and storing the deposits or information learned. The learners become collectors or cataloguers of the things they store, but do not have the opportunity to use the knowledge learned to change their situations. In turn, these learners who go through this system are lost and lack creativity, transformation, and knowledge (53). However, in the social-emancipatory model, the teacher’s role is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is taught in concert with the students through dialogue, while the students teach while being taught. Through this conflagration of roles, both teacher and student are actively and jointly involved in the transformation of the students.

Freire believes that the only way to be liberated from the banking education system is for a learner to accept that they are being oppressed. This leads to what he calls a “democratic proposal of problem posing education” (60). In this method students are given a problem and then asked to critically reflect on a solution. In this proposal Freire suggest that learners:

[adopt] instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings, and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world. They must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world. ‘Problem-posing’ education, responding to the essence of consciousness --intentionality -- rejects communiques and embodies communication. It epitomizes the special characteristic of consciousness: being conscious of, not only as intent on objects but as turned in upon itself in a Jasperian split" --consciousness as consciousness of consciousness. (Freire 60 – 61)

He believes by rejecting the banking system and accepting the problem posing education, it is only then that a learner can try to find ways that can help in their liberation. However, it is not until they accept that this oppression exists that they can be transformed and liberate themselves by locating the cause of their oppression.

 Through the problem posing system, learners start to have control of the directions of their learning and unveil their reality, allowing them to “no longer be docile listeners [, but] are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher. The teacher presents the material to the students for their consideration and re-considers her earlier considerations as the students expresses their own [opinions]” (62). In this new system, the learner is able to achieve what Freire calls education as the practice of freedom rather that the practice of domination (Freire 62). Learners are now able to have a genuine reaction in the learning process and think critically as it applies to their society and the oppressions surrounding it.  They are now able to use their personal and cultural experiences and apply it to what they learn, allowing them to become more “fully human” (64). This however cannot be achieved instantaneously or by chance, but through the praxis of their quest.

            Freire believes that it is through the learners’ recognition of their need to fight against the oppression for freedom that “will actually constitute an act of love opposing the lovelessness which lies at the heart of the oppressors’ violence, lovelessness even when clothed in false generosity “(Freire 40).  Learners will not overcome the problems without locating the cause of their oppression and then understanding it. Through this understanding learners are now able to engage in critical reflection. They can now reflect on what they learned and apply it to their situation; this allows the learner to take action through the praxis in education. This action is what illustrates the transformation and brings change. In every stage the learner is to question to find answers that allow them to eradicate their oppression.

            Freire’s social-emancipatory teaching method produces transformative change in students by invoking consciousness in the oppressed, more specifically conscious change amongst the people in Brazil that were unknowingly oppressed, through their inability to read and write. For this reason Freire’s approach to literacy exemplifies transformative theory. Paulo Freire’s social-emancipatory theory has a significant impact on the learners and allows them to become consciously aware of their oppression; reflect critically on their situation; and then take action, as a means to bring about change. His methods allowed the learners to have a personal reflection and then foster change within themselves and their society.    

Transformative learning theory allows students to become enlightened through their interpretation of their environment, and Freire accomplished this by exposing the notion of emancipatory education. He worked with illiterate people from Brazil, who were from a poor community, and helped them to realize the oppression of the education system, the “banking method . . . which emphasizes passive listening and acceptance of . . . [keeping] students’ disenfranchised” (p.45). His goal was to allow the learners to constantly reflect and act on the transformation of their world “so it can become more equitable place to live” (Taylor 8). He wanted people to be viewed as ‘Subjects’ and not ‘objectives’. Freire’s goal was to have a “social transformation by demythicizing reality, where the oppressed develop a critical consciousness” (8). According to the article “An Update on Transformative Learning” by Lisa Baumgartner, “transformative learning theory has expanded our understanding of adult learning by explicating the meaning-making process” (Baumgartner 22).

 In a transformative classroom, students possess established sets of values and assumptions, based on their experiences they are molded and create a sense of understanding of the world and self. These students “feel challenged to engage in critical thinking in order to reexamine his or her values through a reflective process” (Fleming and Garner 25). The role of teacher and learner becomes interchangeable, where the teacher learns from the learner and the learner learns from the teacher, creating a feedback loop of transformative learning of both parties. Transformative learning uses a problem- based approach where both learner and teacher collaborate together. This theory creates educators who are more involved in the learning and understanding process of adult learning, at the same time, allowing learners to think critically, and not become influenced by the teacher.

Works Cited

            Baumgartner, Lisa M. "An Update on Transformational Learning." The New Update on

Adult Learning Theory. Ed. Sharan B. Merriam. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2001.

15-24. Print. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education #89.

Fleming, Cheryl Torok, and Gamer, J. Bradley. Brief Guide for Teaching Adult Learners.

Marion, Indiana: Triangle, 2009. Print.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 20th Anniversary Edition. Trans. Myra Bergman

Ramos. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003. Print.

 Taylor, Edward. "Transformative Learning." Third Update on Adult Learning Theory. Ed.

Merriam, Sharan B. Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008, 5-15. Print. New Directions

for Adult and Continuing Education #119.

Ways with Words

Everything in Its Right Place

Charlin Bailey, Nicholas Magliato, Martha Romero

The community of Roadville is deeply rooted in traditional values, gender roles, and ways of learning.  Its people are white, working class miners who strongly believe in the way and word of God, as well as passing His teachings on to the next generation.  Even before the birth of a baby, parents prepare for the arrival with a baby shower – a longstanding tradition that has remained unchanged for nearly half a century.  Close friends and family members, or a few select “kin folk”, bring gifts depending on the sex of the baby – dolls for girls, toy trucks for boys.  From the earliest stages of infancy, a sharp distinction between the sexes is drawn to distinguish their role in society. 

Community members value routine and “rightness” in their daily lives.  At the early stages of infancy, mothers use “baby-talk” with their children to help them begin to name their world and recognize their surroundings.  By age two, mothers typically abandon this type of speech and begin to correct their children when they mispronounce a word, or use one incorrectly.  This corrective behavior is a type of direct learning in which the mothers help direct their children’s learning and language development.  The motivation behind the mothers’ teachings is to let their children know what is “right”, and further, how to adjust to life outside the home in the larger community. 

As children begin to age and enter the larger community, they continue their language learning through The Bible.  In the community, teaching language is consistent with the church.  Children memorize passages or psalms to recite and transcribe, testing their knowledge.  Those who can recite a passage verbatim are praised for their “rightness”, while those whom cannot are scorned for their failure.  Children learn not only how to talk, but how to learn – for instance, if a child accidently throws a ball through a neighbor’s window, breaking the glass, the child knows he/she should apologize, for it is the right thing to do, even though the child might not feel any sorrow for his/her actions.  Above all, there is a great sense of having everything in its right place and helping children sort and categorize all the parts of their community, society, and world. 

QUOTES

Charlin Bailey, Nicholas Magliato, Martha Romero

Family

“Roadville parents see themselves as responsible for “training” their preschool children, and they plan ways and means to provide what they regard as appropriate experiences before their children go to school.” (pg. 145) 

“For Roadville parents, there is no substitute for their role; children need parents to train them. Extended family and trusted friends may reinforce the teachings of parents, but the critical functions rest with parents.” (pg. 146)

Religion

“The rightness of their behaviors and beliefs is, in their minds, in line with their religious teachings and the precepts of the Bible.” (pg. 139)

“These memorizing tasks are graded in difficulty, so that the youngest children learn the names of Bible characters, words of songs such as “Jesus loves me”, and move on to short verses, books of the Bible, short passages, and whole chapters or psalms by the time they reach junior high age.” (pg. 140)

“For many of the practices and precepts the church holds for language, a parallel ideal is expressed by parents. The church insists on verbatim performance as a prime way of showing off knowledge; parents demand verbatim performance from their children at home as a way of showing their learning.” (pgs. 143-144)

Society

“Children who are too young to engage in cooperative play are often put together in playpens, and there they babble and monologue to themselves in parallel play. Their mothers often intervene and try to get the two children to talk to each other, for example, to talk about the sharing of a toy rather than to squeal and tug.” (pg. 124)

“They have learned to use language to acquire the knowledge their community has judged they should know at their age and they have learned appropriate ways of expressing that knowledge.” (pg. 145) – Trackton and Roadville

*Right

“Children come to know they must be careful about following directions on the links between words and behavior; if they “say it right,” they show they’ve “got it right,” and they themselves are, in turn, “right.” (pg. 144)

Other Concepts

·         traditional baby shower - representing the community values

·         baby talk to relay instructions and advice to new mothers - secondary message

·         word association that connects to their environment; applying a learned word to relatable objects (pg. 122)

·         word and sentence expansion - guided and controlled by adult (pg.124)

·         questions as directives to discipline

·         everything in its place - spaces having purpose (pg. 137)

·         memorization skills to demonstrate knowledge

·         expectations of language reinforce values (pg. 144)

Discussion Questions

1)      What is a parent’s role in the early stages of learning?

2)      What is the place of religion in learning? And how does it help or hinder learning and literacy?

3)      How does each community’s independent use of language affect their children?

- The community of Roadville is deeply rooted in traditional values, gender roles, and ways of learning. It provides a good example of how young children are able to learn what is and what is not culturally acceptable in their community.

Response to Freiere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Paulo Freire's book the Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a magnificent source that allows an individual to become aware of educational and social struggles. The book brings forth the nature of dominant and subordinate relationships within the classroom, i.e. the 'teacher-student' relationship. It speaks on how important this relationship is in the learning process of both teacher and student.



 In his book, Freire raises the issues of the nature of dominant and subordinate relationships within a classroom the image approach illustrates an idea of the teacher student relation, which he refers to as the banking system. In this system the teacher is the center, and their role is to instill knowledge into their students, these students take this information and believe everything the teacher has to say. Similar to the picture above, which illustrates the teacher as center, in-front, of the class and all the students as blank slates. Each student has no impression, they blend into the background of the pic. each student faces the main focus of the picture the teacher and awaits instructions.  Freire looks as this type of teaching methodology as the striving force of oppression within an educational system.

This book was an interesting read and it allowed me to reevaluate my years of learning growing up.

'Meh languiz iz ig lish' : Response to "English and Creole: The Dialectics of Choice in a College Writing Program."

 “Who is to say that robbing a people of its language is less violent than war?”

                                                                                                       -Ray Gwyn Smith   

Before I came to the United States, "English" was the language I spoke. This was my native language; the language I had studied in school; the language that I spoke at home, it was the Queen's language, the language of my country's conqueror, the only language I knew! However it was only when I came to the United States, that I realized that my native English became foreign. When I entered into high school my English became known as, Creole—broken English--- and I was placed in ESL classes.  I was no longer understood and every time I spoke I was followed by the constant ‘huh?’ which was always followed by a restatement of my original sentence. The process of constantly correcting my English to 'proper understandable-American English' annoyed me. I was forced to assimilate to the ‘correctness’ that was standardized American English as a way to succeed. My English in turn, became something I spoke only at in private with my family or with friends, who were from similar countries, which spoke 'improper' English. Throughout my academic career I constantly felt as if I spoke two languages. The article English and Creole: The Dialectics of Choice in a College Writing Program." by Elsasser, Nan, and Patricia Irvine was an interesting article, because it reminded me of my own process of using ‘learning English within my academic setting. I

The authors documented an experimental writing program for honors and remedial students at the College of the Virgin Islands. This program analyzed the use of 'improper' English, Creole versus proper English in an academic classroom settings. The research looked at the stigma behind Creole as a worthy language to be acknowledge with in academia. The overall conclusion of the article reveal the trial to include Creole and English in the academic setting, but as two different languages. They believed that by doing this it would enable the students of the Virgin Island to better preform within both languages as well as expand the overall function of Creole as not just being a private language.

The idea of fighting against the predominant language and finding a way to preserve a native language is similar to the short story "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" by Gloria Anzaldua, which focuses on the idea of losing an accent or native language to conform to the current environment. The story looks at the preservation of the native Chicano Spanish language. She goes against the Formal Spanish and Standard English to create and maintain her own language. The idea of using both Creole and English within the academic setting is a great and the idea for accepting and valuing the private language, Creole, in the same way as the prestigious language, English. However this program can only work in an academic setting where the predominant society speaks in that dialogue. Personally growing up in my country I never realized the difference of speaking in the classroom versus speaking out of the classroom. I knew the properness of the language would change, however the language itself would still remain the same. My change only happened when I was forced into an academic setting that classified my ‘English’ as other. I agree that although the idea of allowing students to recognize their ‘private’ language, Creole, in a written format would be valuable, it is unrealistic because it would not be the same when read aloud. There is not a standard structure of writing creole and the process of trying to write it down will be based off of main stream English guidelines hence altering the pronunciation of the original spoken message.

This article sheds light on the fact that ‘creole’ will never be looked upon as an academic language. 
 

"How to Tame a Wild Tongue" by Gloria Anzaldua, http://dsapresents.org/staff/michael-thornton/files/2011/08/Anzaldua-Wild-Tongue.pdf