Literate: to be or not to be….

I can picture reading the Au article in our social studies class too. A lot of the things that we have been learning about multi-cultural education are in this article. This article stresses the importance of multicultural literature in the classroom and being aware of the various backgrounds our students have. We must also be careful that when choosing books for our classroom, that the books are accurate. I remember during our literacy class, we saw a book on Pacific Northwest Native Americans. It said that they were nomadic and lived in teepees. In actuality, they aren’t nomadic nor live in teepees. We need to make sure that we provide books for our students that are accurate and culturally sensitive. If not, we risk our students learning stereotypes.

I think that learning is a choice – you either want to learn or not. Being actually able to learn is a different story (i.e.: learning disabilities). I remember reading an article over the summer for our learning class and it talked about a man from Mexico who refused to speak English. It wasn’t that he was stupid or had difficulties learning, he chose not to learn English. His thinking is that if he were to learn English, then he grandchildren would never learn Spanish and their heritage would be lost. To me, it was his choice to safeguard his heritage. Au’s definition of literacy includes “one’s willingness to use literacy”. This man isn’t literate in English, because he wasn’t willing to learn.

I believe that teachers need to provide as many meaningful and interesting opportunities to incorporate literacy in the classroom as possible. In my main placement, my master teacher has at least 30 minutes every day set aside for writing and 30 minutes for reading. The students have a particular assignment (for example small moments), but the students get to choose their subject. They get to write about whatever they want, as long as they do the assignment. This is key to giving students the opportunity to write about what they know and are familiar with. They get to be the expert and you can build off of this. They get to learn more writing skills, while possibly informing their classmates (and you) about a topic or even about themselves.

But then there comes a time for standardized tests and teachers are pushed to raise scores. All the stuff that is really useful gets thrown out the window. When you have to spend over three quarters of your day on reading and writing (and don’t get to fit in the other subjects like science, art and social studies) the fun is lost. When is too much time, too much time? How do you find the balance to teach what is going to be the most useful to your students?