RE_5539

Chapter one was a difficult read but the basic idea that feelings and social awareness impact learning, particularly in young people, rings true to me. I certainly concur that children are not autonomous entities that learn within a void. The author's larger goal, to encourage "liberatory pedagogies" for the socially inhibited (poor, working class)seemed to undergird the arguments in chapter one. I particularly agree with the author's statement that "It is when theory becomes distanced from what we perceive as our lived realities that it starts to lose its power for us as readers." That thought can be applied to the literacy learning within the standardized classroom when that learning and the accompanying instructional strategies have little relevance for the students because of their orientations, languages and/or personal experiences. This year I've struggled to "make meaning" for my students (and myself) when I've been required to implement strategies that do not seem to speak to the realities that we bring to our classroom. I have experienced first hand the frustration for my students and for me when I have been required to adopt instructional methods and language (all geared to the EOG) that have little to no meaning (relevance/feeling) for my students. If I'm overstating the obvious it is simply because I fear that our overwhelming obsession with accountability (translated into testing) in this state will be the undoing of our public educational system.

In the second chapter,the author reiterates the view that students (people) can not be adequately identified as disconnected objects of inquiry. I appreciated her attempt to align the thoughts of both the critical literacy thinkers and the cultural literacy advocates. As teachers of children, I think that most all of us would agree that children do indeed bring values as well as language practices to school that impact how they perceive the classroom and instruction. The author's reading of Heath supports the idea that children do not learn in a vacuum and that the classroom can and should become a space which allows open expression, opportunity to move betwen cultures. This seems to reflect a similar hope described in our readings in THE SKIN THAT WE SPEAK, which is a hope that the classroom can become a haven for open expression and "experimentation" with language. I would love to think that we experienced critical literacy in my classroom this year when we addressed our language differences with readings, discussions and modeling of different authors from different ethnicities and cultures.
I think that my students really enjoyed the study that began with different readings, followed sometimes by heated debates and finally culminating in orginal writing. I certainly enjoyed the experience and found it far more relevant ( I think the author describes critical literacy education as "empowering") than the test-driven instruction that I was required to follow "to the letter" in the 8 weeks leading up to the EOG.

Though my students are predominately black, I do have two "working poor" white children who struggle with the standardized curriculum. I hope that I may gain greater insight into the plight of these children as I read READING LIVES.

Betsy Baldwin