RES 5530: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (Spring 2009)

This is the word that comes to mind as I consider Jake. As I have read these stories of working-class children and their literacy learning I have become increasingly more frustrated. I am finally realizing the meaning of “text of bliss” as I continue to be made uncomfortable with each new reading. And I am a bit confused myself—not because I fail to understand what I am reading but because I do understand.

Jake’s confusion was a result of the conflicting values of home and school. In some ways, I believe this has been a theme in many of the readings for this course. However, this reading did not “fit” the paradigm I had constructed. Just I was not expecting Hicks to state that Jake’s father read informational books regularly, I did not expect there to be strong family support for Jake’s literacy learning. It bothers me greatly that I was surprised by this. Have I been socialized in such a discourse that I assume if the values of home and school conflict it must be because home practices are not supportive of school practices?

As I wrestled with this text I was most intrigued with Jake’s assimilation into a culture of doing. I can now understand how confusing it must be to be taught at home that one learns by doing and then to be so restricted in the “doing” at school. While there are many classrooms where children are involved in activities that promote doing, the doing is simply a means to an end. And just as with the science journals, the doing often is simply a way to get to reading and writing.

I also wonder if Jake’s father seemed like a contradiction to Jake. On one hand, he was a man who did not need formal education to be successful and to provide for his family. On the other hand, he was a man who loved to read. Although Jake’s dad relied on books for his expertise on the JFK assassination, he was counting on the fact that experience—not books—would be his son’s best teacher. Did these seeming contradictions simply confuse Jake?

As I mentioned earlier, Jake is not the only one who might be confused. I cannot understand why teachers, schools, or entire districts would continue to use literacy practices that JUST DO NOT WORK. I have been thinking on this and can only conclude that it might be the fact that school has become a distinctively middle-class world. I am not sure that I would have truly recognized this before completing the work for this class. Is our resistance to provide “new forms of action in school” (p. 132) as Hicks described because we, as middle-class teachers for the most part, really have no idea of what those actions would even look like. We have been shaped by the discourses to which we have been socialized.

It seems Jake's dad may have been less confused about the matter than many educators as Hicks conveyed his notion "that schools could be engaging environments for learning" (p. 134). Is it possible that this man has some grasp on hybridity and permeable teaching communities?

Lisa Rasey