In the Rose and Akinnaso readings for Tuesday, it is made clear they are ‘different’ from those around them. For Akinnaso, this is explicit. He is one of the most educated people in his entire village–his literacy achievements alone carry enough weight to immediately delegate foreign affairs to his handling. As for Mike Rose, he is the child of semi-literate parents (both have had some schooling, but not past what would generally be a middle school education). Among his classmates, he is at different times a high-track student placed with low-track students, and a student with a partial low-track education placed in the higher track, giving him an outsider’s view of both tracks.
Additionally, both take it upon themselves to continue their education on their own time. Akinnaso orders catalogs from London and goes out of town to find more Shakespeare and atlases. Rose carefully experiments with chemistry sets and other potentially explosive substances out of curiosity, and later joins Mr. MacFarland’s ‘salon’ to further explore avant-garde literature outside of the classroom. Mike Rose is an extremely special case, having been kept on the low-track due to a clerical error, then promoted upon its discovery.
Their education, while opening up further opportunities, both elevates them in society (literacy as a state of grace) and alienates Akinnaso, who begins to question his ancestral customs and is monitored closely by his father.
Because of these collective experiences, these two are somewhat outsiders to their own culture. Their experiences and upbringing similar, but with occasional diverging points. Additionally, all of the research and reports we’ve read in class have come from those elevated and given extreme status due to their education. Because of these achievements, we trust them to accurately represent these dilemmas. None of these reports were directly written by the illiterate.
How does the literacy of these writers effect their ability to evaluate literacy? Are they more likely to stress or down-play the importance of literacy because of this? Also, in the cases of Rose and Akinnaso, do their positions as ‘outsiders’ change the way they view those around them? Do they inadvertently incorporate the myth of literacy into their analyses?
Akinnaso remarks towards the end of his reading that individualism is seemingly a result of read and writing (153). Do you agree with this? How might his unique position in his culture influence this view? Is it consistent with our previous readings?