Critical Literacy

While navigating through the plethora of articles, readings and learning assignments, I have identified several issues that stand out for further discussion and personal reflection. Garland’s special report on “Why the Underclass can’t get out from Under”, read like a typical script from a Hollywood movie and I did not stop to question the value or the content of the article. I was on a mission to find quotes for my collage and I did not look at it with a critical eye. At the time, I was not equipped to identify it as an article that lacked sociological imagination and therefore it was a naive form of literacy. Simply put, I missed the point. Critical literacy asks us to take a moral stand about what we find important in literacy. We have an obligation to ourselves and to the students we teach to become critical thinkers in search of the truth. Lankshear (1989) states that, “promoting critical literacy is the educator’s first calling”. For some busy teaching professionals, this has been put on the back burner and they have become passive in their presentation and selection of text. Currently I am on a Science Text Selection Committee for our School Board. This committee consists of a variety of classroom teachers, special education teachers, consultants and administrators who come together to view publishers presentations, pilot products and critique new available texts. I am impressed with the Critical Literacy components that are embedded in the new available Science Textbooks. The publishers are catching on and so are we.
The first five chapters of Finn’s book “Literacy with an Attitude “ described with stunning accuracy the various class levels of students we teach and our patterns of pedagogical response. Succinctly stated, “Reading about this type of class tracking in schools is one thing. Realizing that you have experienced it is truly another.” (p.24) Over the past 23 years I have taught in various Schools with several School Boards across the Province: I have taught the working class students, both rural and urban, to follow directions and respect authority. I have taught my middle class students to value knowledge in a text book and not to question it and I have basked in the halls of the affluent schools celebrating the arts and valuing the student’s input and creativity. I was shocked by the realization that these were not just random acts made in the teachable moment. I take solace in the fact that my beliefs as a teaching professional have permeated through the various classes and communities. This “right-brained” divergent, thinker believes that “just because it is different doesn’t mean it is wrong” By valuing dialogue and building in social skills and conversation through Tribes and Cooperative learning strategies we can give a voice to the students in our classroom. We can teach all students that there is value and power in the spoken and written word. Finn (1999) had some pretty grim statistics on the percentage of schools (20 %) in the United States that have adopted the progressive education philosophies that value the whole child and allow for differentiated instruction. Ten years later have these statistics changed?......have ours?