The Hidden Side of Literacy

Every educator will agree that the word literacy is well known in the educational realm. As Lankshear (1989) notes the word ‘literacy’ should be referred to in the plural as it includes a broad spectrum of components. There is empirical evidence that literacy has political, social and cultural influences that impact the value, the attitude and the teaching methods used in classrooms. The low literacy achievement of minority students, especially blacks, in America has been the focus of attention, for educators, for some time. The aim of this paper is to examine the meaning of literacy and identify the transparent and hidden side of literacy as it pertains to students from low socioeconomic communities in America.

Literacy

The word literacy has been traditionally perceived by many as the ability to read, write and understand. However, there is a lot more to literacy than the acquisition of these skills. In time, the word ‘literacy’ has taken a whole new set of processes. According to Lankshear “literacy does not refer to a specific skill or technology. It is an umbrella term covering a vast range of actual reading and writing practices” (1989, p.167). Actually, it was only after reading the assigned articles for this course that the meaning of literacy has changed for me. I now perceive literacy as a very broad term under which there are many subheadings which include several reading, writing and comprehension processes. Language is the root of literacy and through literacy one’s knowledge and action are expanded. Literacy is also influenced by complex social, political and economical factors.

The Transparent Side of Literacy

The transparent side of literacy is the common belief that it is the mere ability to read, write and understand. It seems that this is the misconception that most people have of literacy. In our interview assignment for this course, this fallacy was also evident in the responses of most of the interviewees who were not involved in the academic world. This belief may have stem from the fact that traditionally, in terms of literacy, significant emphasis was placed on the acquisition of reading skills. One of the oldest strategies for teaching reading was the study of phonology and grammar. Finn (1999) refers to this level of literacy as the performative level which is the lowest and most basic of all the levels. There is one school of thought that this approach to reading is an excellent way to begin to acquire reading skills, since the focus of a phonemic awareness approach is to decode and encode words (J. Chew, 1997). However, in terms of the mindset theory, the “mastering [of] the building blocks of code breaking: knowing the alphabetic script visually and phonetically” is referred to as the old basics (Rowan et al., 2000, p.78). It is also argued that there is more to literacy than the “decontextualized and repetitive practices” involved in this mindset (Rowan et al., 2000, p. 80).

The Hidden Side of Literacy

Underlining the term literacy are also social, political and cultural issues that are of great concern. Luke et al, note that “as long as literacy teaching is tied up with the state, the church, and the school, there will be powerful hidden agendas at work, even in the most apparently neutral programs” (1990 p.134). For example, in America, there is an increase in “black underclass isolated from the nation’s economic and social mainstream” (Garland et al., 1988, p. 60). Ironically, the education system is one of the contributors to this ballooning socioeconomic issue among the underclass. One of the main problems is that schools are just not meeting the needs of black youths, instead “they are fostering naive literacy” (Lankshear, 1989 p.175). In Teaching Language in Open Admissions (1972), Rich provides insight into her experience in a working class school of mainly immigrant students. She notes that in this school, her “daily life as a teacher confronted [her] with young men and women who have had language and literature used against them” (1979, p.63). Schools are expected to be institutions where students are treated with respect and are educated so that they can achieve economical, political and cultural advancement. Instead, these students are marginalized by those who they have entrusted to help them become literate. According to Finn (1999), these students are at the functional level of literacy which means that they are sufficiently literate in order to function in their daily lives. However, life is significantly different in the executive elite school where the dominant theme is excellence. Teachers respect students and sarcasm and negative remarks are unheard. Needless to say, these students are at the powerful literacy level, the goal of which is for them to be able to “evaluate, analyze and synthesize what is read” (Finn, 1999, p.124).

Close examination of literacy also reveals that teaching strategies are complex, varied,
and can be used to achieve different goals. This is another hidden side of literacy that plays a major role in the explanation of how literacy is geared to a privilege few. This argument is supported by Cummins (1989) and Finn who have identified one of the solutions to this problem as the “need to increase [underclass] students’ powers of critical thinking and higher-order cognitive skills” (1999, pg, 126). What do these researches, if anything, tell us about the education system? Literacy involves a more elaborate and highly complex form of instructions. However, there is a very important distinction between the way knowledge is imparted to students of working-class, middle-class and affluent professional schools (Finn, 1999).
Finn exposes how the teaching strategies used in schools are helping to retain the status quo of students in underclass communities. In so doing, he first established the fact that the populations of most working-class schools are students from underclass communities, which are mainly immigrants, the majority being blacks. Finn’s message is supported by Rowan et al., (2000) and Lankshear who suggest “current economic policies and conditions are creating, and in some countries consolidating, an underclass” (Lankshear, p.167). In working-class schools, the teaching methods limit thinking as the focus is basically regurgitating information given by teachers. According to Goodman’s books, Growing Up Absurd (1960) and Compulsory Miseducation (1964), this type of education “[prepares] students to fit into society and the workplace rather than to critique and reform it” ( 1964, p.21).

Similar to Finn (1999), Goodman blames the education system for focusing more on reforming underclass students, than enhancing their literacy skills so that they can rise above their political, social and financial position (1964). Some of the methods used, in schools catering to the underclass, require little or no critical thinking. As such, the answers to questions can be copied directly from the text; the evaluation of assigned work is the step by step repetition of notes and the use of lots of photocopied worksheets is prevalent. On the other hand, powerful literacy, taught in elite schools, teach students a schema for literacy. In so doing, at a very early age these students develop higher thinking skills such as questioning, analyzing, drawing conclusions, inferring and synthesizing (Finn, 1999).

Conclusion

Many of the advocates for the underclass agree that one of the primary barriers in achieving literacy among the underclass is the fact that meeting the needs of the bureaucracy takes precedence to improving the literacy skills of those involved. However, this side of literacy is not transparent especially to those who are being discriminated by social practices within the educational system. It is like being in a no win situation, as students in the working-class schools look towards education for their ‘freedom’ – to be free from the dependency of the welfare trap; to be free from gang warfare; to be free from ghetto living and most of all to be free from literacy challenges. However, it is the same policies, practices and methods in the schools that undermine the ability and potential of these students that are yearning to be literate.
Furthermore, in recent years, many studies both quantitative and qualitative have highlighted the issues surrounding literacy and the underclass. In some cases, very effective solutions have been noted and supported by statistical data. However, this issue remains and in fact is escalating globally without any successful intervention being implemented. It leaves one to wonder what is the true purpose of educational reforms and policy decisions regarding this topic. One possible response to this question is that these reforms and policies are geared towards ensuring that the power, prestige and privileges remain in the elite schools so that in the long run, students in elite schools will remain in positions of authority and decision making.


References

Cummins, J. (1989), The sanitized curriculum: Educational disempowerment in a nation at risk. Richness in Writing: Empowering ESL Students: New York: Longman, pg. 19-38.

Chew, J. (1997). Traditional phonics: what it is and what it is not. Journal of Research in Reading, 20(3), 171-183.

Christie, F., (1988) Language, access and success. Language and Education pg. 1-12.

Finn, Patrick (1999), Literacy with an Attitude: Educating Working-Class Children in their Own Self-Interest, SUNY Press, Albany.

Garland, S., Therrien, L., & Hammonds, K. (1988), Why the underclass can’t get out from under. Business Week, New York: McGraw Hill.

Lankshear, C. (1989), Reading and Writing Wrongs: Literacy and the underclass. Language and Education (Vol.3, No3.).

Luke, A. (1991). Literacies as social practices. English Education: National Council of Teachers of English. pg. 131-147.

Rich, A. (1979), Teaching language in open admission. On Lies, Secrets and Silences: Selected Prose 1966-78.

Rowan, L., Knobel, M., Bigum, C., Lankshear, C., (2002) Mindsets matter: an overview of major literacy worldviews: Boys, Literacies and Schooling: Open University press. Pgs77-98.

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http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/33/58/5a.pdf Retrieved on May 25, 2009.