When reading these chapters, my mind was drawn to the one person in my life who has had to adapt to many different discourses and learn how to function accordingly: my mom. When my parents met, they were from culturally different worlds. My mom was from a working class family, while my dad came from an upper class family. My mom needed to learn how to navigate the world of country clubs and cocktail hours. Yet, while she needed to shift from one discourse to the other, she still needed to socialize with those that she grew up with. As Hicks illustrates, she couldn’t lose both, she became a hybrid of such, just as the kids in Hicks’ study did.
Then, when I was seven, my parents got divorced. My mom suddenly found herself illiterate in life skills. She did not know how to pay bills. She did not know how to get a job. She felt as if she didn’t have an identity other than being a wife and a mom. Her first job at an eye doctor’s office had a steep learning curve. She had to learn how to get along with all kinds of people outside of her socioeconomic environment. She needed to take direction from a boss that was much younger than she was. She needed to learn how a professional practice operates. As my mother’s discourse expanded, so did her confidence. She became literate in the things that were initially her biggest obstacles. Literacy cannot only be defined as how well someone reads or writes. My mom had established her reading and writing skills in primary school, but in her situation, she needed to become more knowledgeable in the skills of interviewing, maintaining a job, and managing money, to succeed in her world. As Hicks describes, literacy is a social and cultural practice, not only a school based activity. My mom is a first hand example of how she needed to become literate in certain areas to navigate her surroundings.
In some respects, my mom’s ability to transition between different cultures is similar to code switching. She might not adapt her language completely, but she adapted her actions, expanded her skill set, and extended her cultural awareness. Yet she was still able to fit into many different worlds. The students that Hicks’ studies are in a similar situation. I’m interested to read more…
-- Carrie Brown
Comments (5)
Carrie,
What a great connection you made with your mother's personal journey as a newly married woman and then as a single woman adjusting to the working world. When we reflect on the discourses of our own personal lives and those of our family and friends, it makes the subject of Hicks' study much clearer to understand. I think our students are learning that shift and anything we can do to help them will create more engaged and focused learners. Thanks for sharing your mom's story.
Posted by Michelle Carlson | June 22, 2011 12:40 PM
Posted on June 22, 2011 12:40
Candy Kee
I have a best friend that grew up within two miles of me. We were very close and went to school and church together. As time went on we attended Appalachian together. I began to notice however, that in highschool she began hanging out with the Liberty and Ramseur crowd. We were from Coleridge. Liberty and Ramseur were a whopping 10 and 15 miles over the road. We all went to the same highschool. The kids from Ramseur and Liberty regarded themselves in high esteem and were always slamming the Coleridge kids. Anyway, my friend began to change the way she talked from examples like "dawg" to "dog" and so on. Soon she became their hybrid and fit in better there than her own community. She actually worked herself out of her own community and she never came back. I guess this has always been a mystery as to how diverse we all are even within a 20 mile radius. I'm also mystified as to how someone can change so quickly and denounce their own upbringing. I guess it is a status symbol. The point I am again trying to make is that cultural differences do not always lie in skin color. It is almost overwhelming to me as to how many cultures exist within a race. It would be so great if students in classrooms could socialize and interact more from the lowest to the highest grades. We are all so concerned about the talking in school. We punish and assign more work or send kids out or give bad grades to the ones that want to talk or are vocal. Wish we could give them more opportunity to learn more about each others likes, dislikes, food, sayings or all the things that define a person and their culture. This would truly be a wonderful literacy experience in the classroom. Perhaps this type of learning experiences would better prepare our kids to live in a diverse world. I wish someone had just shown me how to eat at a county club growing up. When I did get the chance to go it was a painful experience for me because I was unsure of proper protocol. I admire your mom for being able to keep on keeping on and widening her horizons after the divorce. I'm sure she is more literate now than ever before.
Posted by candace kee | June 22, 2011 3:40 PM
Posted on June 22, 2011 15:40
For me, your real life example brough to mind what Hicks wrote at the end of chapter 2:
"Too often, critical theorists in education aim for social analysis and critique, but from a vantage point that is more distant from those material, lived realities."
In this last portion of the section it seemed that Hicks wanted us to remember that we should not lose our perspective on reality when studying children's literacies. Your story about your mom is a good reminder that we need to make sure we are helping all of our children to develop a variety of literacies that will be necessary in the world outside of school. We need to make sure we don't lose ourselves in educational theories and forget that our main purpose is to help these children become literate in as many areas as possible.
Posted by Andrea Schlobohm | June 22, 2011 9:33 PM
Posted on June 22, 2011 21:33
Carrie-
What a wonderful example of growing through literacy and discourse your mom has provided. Often major change is easier for children, they tend to adapt quicker than we as adults do when situations don’t turn out as we had thought. It is a testament to her character that your mom was able to adjust not only once but twice so far in her life. I think it serves as a reminder that we all need to be more open minded about where others are coming from, especially our students. Getting to know their particular situations can be the key to providing the best learning opportunity possible.
Posted by Ruth Ann Timmons | June 22, 2011 11:18 PM
Posted on June 22, 2011 23:18
Wow, Carrie -- your example shows that you really understand how cultural discourse works! Superb!!!!
Posted by Dr. Jackson | June 23, 2011 7:58 PM
Posted on June 23, 2011 19:58