It is important that we as teachers reach into the world of the students so we can relate to them and build a curriculum that is more suitable to them and their needs. This is for a social and cultural benefit and does not stop at including more technology in the classroom. Literacy can come in many forms and this article spends time defining what it is and what it means for our students. What I found important was that being educated in advanced literacy was not enough for success. So many more factors come into play to helping a student succeed in and outside of the classroom. Where they are in the world (ie: post-Katrina New Orleans) affects how and what they learn and how much high literacy will really help them in their future. Literacy does not equal having more power, and the article discusses how knowing literacy can give other people more power rather than yourself. It seemed to be really heavy talk when we are discussing how to teach children in the classroom...
The article then goes on to define different terms that are being discussed in the article. I agree with the three key points of culture: ideal, documentary, and social. The difficult part is working all of these points into the classroom for every student since every students' cultural background will be different. It also discusses that there is much more to academic literacy than practices leading to academic achievement. This goes along with the points made that literacy will help people differently depending on where they come from, where they are, and where they are going. this is why I agree with the last part of the article about teachers needing to be researchers. Maybe not to as much of an extreme as the article suggests, but we as teachers must research about our students to know how to best help them academically, socially, and culturally. Teaching the same thing to every student every day every year will not benefit the students in the way that it should. We need to be adapting at all times for our students. (easier said than done)
A good example that the article gives of using the students' outside knowledge and culture to the advantage of the classroom was through teaching the students arguments. Every student knows how to argue, but they may not know what each part of an argument is and what it takes to make a formal argument. Going with information and ideas that students can relate to and are interested about will get them to learn more and be more motivated in their work. Having the students argue about real world events was a good idea to getting them more involved in the lesson while also getting them to learn.
An important message that the article brings up is that change needs to happen if we are going to help the students. We need to adapt to new technology, new events in the world, and new cultures so the students will stay involved and feel like school is another part of their culture and not an old relic of the past. While classics are important and still can be used in the classroom to read about history or learn about English forms and ideas, they shouldn't only learn about the classics. We need to bring in new things with the old to keep the students involved and excited to learn about literacy in the classroom. If a teacher insists on sticking with the same old ways year in and year out, they better have a good explanation for how it benefits their own students.
No comments:
Post a Comment