Online Discussion #1
JT
Online Discussion #1
1) One of the key emphases made in the collection of articles is that
we can utilize literacy to transform people’s lives and oppressions.
As Freire (Seminal studies packet, Friere’s article, bell hooks
article) believes, we can develop an education in literacy to help
enabling and oppressed individuals to understand, respond to, and to
control the circumstances and directions within their lives. This
ideas was also echoed by Street, who claimed that literacy was a part
of a “power relationship” (Street, “Teach the Forms of…”) and can be
used as a means to solve societal problems, such as poverty. Further,
related to this theme that literacy is a transformative means to end
oppression and empower others, is the idea of position and power. In
the same Street article, Street quotes Luke and Carrington (2000)
(under the “Education Responses” section)’s ideas about “position-
takings,” who questions what kind of literacy might help “remediate
one’s position.” This circles back to Friere and his ideas and
pedagogical approach of the oppressed and using literacy to challenge
their oppressed position. Thus, the big idea here is using literacy to
relieve oppression and transform one’s position through the
empowerment of literacy.
For me, I understand this to be a simple yet very profound. It is
basically the idea that knowledge brings power, for the more you know,
the more power you have since you are able to find access points due
to your understandings, which give you understanding of resources and
possibly how to negotiate and utilize these resources. Although this
sounds logical and is true, to me, this actually still seems as if it
is a rather challenging and difficult in a greater societal sense.
However, through teaching, I feel that if I can help my students learn
skills, expose them to ideas, and help them develop a love of literacy
and see that literacy can help them see new things, learn new things,
provide access and new opportunities, write change, then I feel that I
am empowering them and thus greater society. And moreover, I feel then
that I am also helping people become transformative in their positions
and negotiators of the situations in their lives, thus alleviating
them of oppression from “ignorance.” In a way, I am helping them see
the light as well as help them develop a voice. So, through literacy
and other multimodal texts, I feel that I can help my students become
agents and feel and understand their world and give them means to
change their worlds. Thus, I feel that these key ideas have helped me
understand how to teach with a greater societal sense (I must have a
curriculum that negotiates to my students’ needs, is not disabling,
and develop a more societal action/level 4 curriculum that is more
multicultural and agenic) and serve my students on a more responsive
and conscientious level.
2) The 3 articles that I am interested in reading to help improve my
pedagogy and self as well as to understand how I can utilize literacy
to challenge oppression and unleash empowerment and agency within my
students. One which I find intriguing is “Letting in the Sun: Native
Youth Transform Their School with Murals,” (Lopez & Hall, 2007), for I
am interested in how to use visuals, art and culture based learning to
help find the hidden curriculum (the hidden messages we and society or
school teach children) and instill empowerment. I want to also learn
further how to tap into artistic learning and other modalities of
literacy, learning how a non-print literacy can help bring a child to
the “paradigm shift” of themselves the authors claim. I am interested
in this for over the few years I have taught, most of my children seem
to really benefit from artistic learning and gravitate to this genre.
Thus, I feel that many students might have an artistic strength, and I
want to utilize this strength to help both literacy development and
social and self empowerment.
Another article I am interested in reading is “The Hidden and Null
Curriculums: An Experiment In Collective Educational
Biography,” (Ahwee et. Al). I am interested in this since I would like
to understand the depth of how the hidden and null curriculum affect
my student’s learning as well as use this knowledge to check my own
biases and teach in a less disabled way. Further, since I am a socio-
culturalist and believe that children learn through others and their
environment and society, I believe that this is an important element
in the education of anybody, for I believe that the hidden curriculum
can often be a root to many barricades and issues within student’s
lives as well as the key to understanding or knowing the sources of
assumptions and beliefs. If I am more in tune to these and I can
develop a better awareness of conscience of the hidden and null
curriculum, then I feel that I am teaching in a more socially and
ethically responsible manner. Plus, being enlightened to this
curriculum will help empower me to be more agenic for my students and
through my students, as I discussed above in question #1.
The last article that I am interested in reading and exploring
further is “Disrupting the (hetero)normative: Exploring literacy
performances and identity work with Queer Youth,” (Blackburn, 2002).
I am interested in this article for a number of reasons. First, the
subject of sexual orientation in a negative way come up quite often in
my class, and I am often at a loss of how to educate children to see
past the negativeness of this. Although I discuss this topic and try
to teach tolerance about this issue for I believe in teaching peace,
tolerance and acceptance and that every group has a valuable offer and
perspective to give each person and their learning, many of my
students still voice hatred and fear for this issue. So, I would like
to be empowered to help teach my students tolerance, understanding,
and accepting as well as to stop the oppression of this group. I would
like to learn how to use this type of literacy in a successful way,
for in the past, it was not a successful endeavor. Further, sooner or
later I may come across a student who is lesbian or gay, and I want to
know how I can empower this child and give this child a sense of
strongness in a classroom, school, or society that may oppress the
child.
3) I believe that the authors of the articles (the three that I
mentioned? Is that what you mean?) would find valuableness in the
discussion and the pedagogical transformations that we make for
ourselves that we implement within our students and lessons. I believe
that they would see this as valuable for we are actually discussing
the how and what we can do as well as delivering the change. The
authors, I am sure, realize that they are the ones to bring conscience
to us, the educators. Thus, these authors expect us as teachers and
movers and shakers of society to deliver the valuable ideas that might
stir up society. After all, these authors do write about
transformation, and thus must expect or want to see transformation in
society. So, with these ideas in mind, the authors would like that we
are discussing and debating the merits of their work and how to best
instill their ideas into societal practice. Further, the authors would
like that we are negotiating our pedagogy and rewriting it to help
reshape society and empower others. I also think the authors like that
we are also empowering ourselves as educators and people, finding new
directions and avenues to take with our teaching and minds. Lastly,
the authors would like the fact that we are using literacy, written by
themselves and like minds, to help transform others and release
oppression as well! After all, this is their main goal!
4) Some pedagogical implications I can draw from the readings are what
I have mentioned above: that I can utilize literacy to empower and
motivate my students, that I can utilize students strengths and
learning styles as well as multimodal literacies such as visual art to
help develop literacy and empowerment and transformation, and that I
can use literacy to teach tolerance about other marginalized groups to
help create a more accepting and understanding society and empowered
individuals from marginalized groups. As a multicultural and
multimodal-multiliteracies educator, I am interested in how I can
offer a more personalized education and one that is closer to my
students’ needs and interests. I believe that if I can use these
implications I list above, then I can help my students develop a more
conscientious mind, which could be a domino effect in society and
thus end much of the oppression within society, and thus making the
world a happier place. Implementing this pedagogy will also help my
students to feel more personal satisfaction and feel more confident in
learning and themselves. Lastly, implementing these changes will help
connect people and develop more understanding and tolerance, which I
believe not only helps others feel more open to learning, for after
all, I believe we learn through people and our environment (for when
we know and understand others, perhaps we are more accepting of
learning about and from then- a spin on the socio-culturalist
perspective!). And, this is important for the type of global and
technological world we live in today. As our technology develops, the
more we become impacted and faced with other cultures, and thus we
need to learn the tolerance skills and understanding to work together
as well as to utilize each other for mental and social growth. In
helping my students connect and learn to be more conscientious,
perhaps I will also unlock a sense of wonder and passion, which will
help them to become the life-long readers, writers, and knowledge
seekers I want my students to become!