Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (Summer 2011)

Kindergarten curriculum and hands on activities have historically been composed of diverse learning centers encompassing materials for real life experiences for both genders. In walking through the classrooms an observer can see kitchens with dishes, baby dolls with clothes, building blocks, cars, trucks, water tables, sand tables and science centers. However, with changes in curriculum, these centers are seen more and more in the preschool class rooms and less in the Kindergarten class rooms. The Kindergarten rooms are beginning to look more structured like the first grade and the first grade more like second. When reading about Jake in chapter 5, I began to understand more of the difficulty of his transiton from Kindergarten to grade 1. Kindergarten provided similar discourse to home and a chance to learn sharing and social interaction with a wide range of kids. Realizing that grade 1 at that time would not provide these centers, we still see that Jake had a chance to familiarize himself with school activities in K before going into grade 1. I applaud the fact that preschool still provides these wonderful centers now but not all children have the opportunity to attend preschool. Now what happens with the Jakes that will have a difficult time transitioning straight from home to a more structured K setting? Seems to me that the transition to Kindergarten from home will be even more difficult for boys especially. I know where I live, a majority of the boys live in homes where the fathers hold blue collar jobs. They have a skill. They are welders, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers, farmers and truck drivers. For recreation they work on old cars or go to the drag strip and sometimes enjoy Nascar. Many hunt and fish or play ball as a favorite pastime. These experiences are all part of a boy's literacy background but we as educators fail to expand on that. What type of transition activities will we offer these boys that are so adapted to the male discourse at home? No wonder our males are farther behind in literacy than the females. Transition cannot be nearly as tough for the girls. I am sure they are more used to sitting with mom and sewing or making a grocery list, talking about recipes or listening to women chat. There again, the boys are more used to traveling around with dad and are not always involved in groceries and recipes and sitting at chats. All of a sudden they are sitting at a desk and listening to most commonly, a woman talk. I am impressed that Jake was able to transition in behavior discourse from home to school but we failed miserably in the literacy department by not continuing to supply interests similar to his first learned discourse. I am sure that the kid has a valid reason in his mind that many of the school activities are dumb and he continues to get this type of negative reinforcement at home just because he is there. But are the vocations and values a male child grow up with really negative? Guess it is based on some of our school curriculum, but in the real world we see hard working men enjoying wholesome activities and teaching their sons in the only way they know how. How is that bad? Do we not want our children to grow up and work hard and be a valuable member of society? Our educational system tries to transform all children of similar and diverse discourse, male and female through the same mold. My biggest fear in education is that we are continuing along this path with more structure and harder curriculum a lot sooner for our kids. When are we going to wake up and understand that the diverse discourse of our children must be the impetus for our curriculum? Why are we taking skilled based instruction out of our school? How many years of drop out and failure do we as a nation have to endure before our eyes are opened. I am so fearful for all the Jakes out there that must survive in our educational system.