Much of what we understand about the current state of the world at the time we are living in it is often taken for granted, or assumed that this was always the case without giving it much thought, even if we know its not the case, we often forget. I believe Resnick’s article on the history of literacy (as well as this class in general) touches on that nicely. Literacy has had an interesting development over the years, starting as an almost homer-like memorizing of certain stories via text for the sheer purpose of reciting and moving to a more “sophisticated” tool applicable to only an privileged few.
The article seems to conclude that there is somewhat of a disparity between our current institutional understanding of literacy, i.e. “functional literacy” and the fact that the needs of the everyday American worker from this point of few are exceeding what is current emphasized/actually provided (especially among school districts)
My question is then: Do we, as a society, need to redefine/refocus our understanding of literacy to one that provides a more holistic benefit (critical thinking, etc) or one that emphasizes the more basic skills we often take for granted?
I feel as if our society needs a combination of the two. For example, a lot of schools focus on the basic but allow for the advanced for those who want to take advantage of it. I think this is a great idea for people because it allows them to choose what they want to learn.
In addition, college tends to provide that extra step of critical thinking in personalized intense fields of study. For example, I am studying Rehabilitation Science and thus I’m not taking any higher level math courses or writing courses or philosophy courses because they don’t directly pertain to my future career. For those studying philosophy, they probably don’t have to take higher level science courses while I do.
I do think there is some form of this in society, but I do believe in order to fix the problem, such higher level education, whether college level or just vocational, need to be more available to people who cannot afford it now.
Based off our class discussion today on Back to Basics and the arguments it presents for English departments regarding students’ education in reading and writing, I think that literacy should continue to provide a more holistic approach so that we can reach the high reading and writing bars that were presented in lecture via the Resnick and Resnick reading.
The way I thought about this relates to baking cupcakes. Think of literacy as a cupcake. The art of making the perfect cupcake is the result of successfully mixing the right balance of ingredients and then baking it all together for the perfect amount of time. Once the cake starts to bake, you cannot break it back down to its original component parts; they are all part of the final product and give you the perfect sweet treat. This is like literacy. Teaching separate lessons on grammar, sentence structure, or how to write the perfect essay are all important ingredients to achieve literacy. However, those separate lessons do not automatically combine together to produce an individual who meets that high status level of reading and writing. As we have discussed over the past couple of weeks, one thing that we do know about literacy is that it develops and thrives due to engaging conversations that we have with other students and professors. Through these conversations and the practice of the other skills listed above we have the ability to reach the bar that has been set before us. As we continue to learn each ingredient in the literary world, we come closer and closer to making the perfect cupcake because we have the right knowledge of what ingredients to combine in order to get that perfectly made cupcake.