RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2010)

Right away in these chapters I realized that I had a similar background as hooks when it came to how hooks used reading as an escape for her, trying to make connections from what she read to how it affected her own life. My parents divorced when I was very young and so books and reading were distractions for me when my family was going through difficulties. Growing up I was also an overweight child who had trouble creating my own self-identity. Books allowed me to take the place of a character that was nothing like me. Throughout adolescence I was never without a book in my hands, realizing now that my actions were my forms of escape and where I could retreat to another place.

When it wasn’t possible for me to do something, books allowed me to have those opportunities. I can remember being in upper elementary school where all of my friends and I were reading the Baby-Sitters’ Club series. We would each assume a character and pretend we were that girl. Looking back on it now, the girls in the books were not very different from what we were at that time. So books didn’t necessarily have to take me somewhere, but allow me to make a connection whether it be the story, characters, etc.

When I read Hicks comments on Laurie’s desire to be a “good girl” I was dumbfounded. She mentions the children reading the school creed every day in the classroom. This hit too close to home for me. School wide we always begin the day on our morning announcements with the reciting of our school creed, “I believe I can be a good student. I believe I can achieve. I believe by working hard I will succeed. I will work hard today. I will do my best. I can learn. I will learn.” So as a school we have set a discourse for our students to perform their very best at school and our levels of high expectations for them, not taking into account what is affecting them outside of the classroom.

The last two years I have had the pleasure of teaching a little girl who reminded me so much of Laurie. This child wanted so much to be a pleaser. Yet she struggled with this due to her literacy abilities. She had a very interesting home life. Her mother and father were both high school graduates from a fairly rural town. They both worked in a local grocery store where mom was a manager and dad was a stocker. She had no previous experiences of interacting with other children besides her little sister. When she started Kindergarten she was not able to write her name, knew no letters, no colors, no numbers or shapes, demonstrating little at home learning prior to school. It wasn’t this child’s fault that her parents had not worked with her to give her a head start before beginning school, yet she was the one who had to suffer the consequences. And for the last two years, we tried to play catch-up so this little girl would be able to feel confident and successful. When her Kindergarten year ended, she was promoted to first grade. She was placed with me again in first grade as I looped up with my students. This past year she did gain a year’s growth of learning, yet will begin second grade reading below grade level. Not significantly below, but still not where she could be if she had had some sort of learning in her home environment prior to school. And as for her little sister, my student goes home and plays school with her, giving her the head start she never got at home.

For so many of our students, reading and writing are the only escapes they have from their reality, just as it was to many of us when we were children. Whether that reality is good or bad depends on the child’s situation of course. As a teacher I want to make sure to help that child reach that fantasy destination they desire going to through their literacy learning. And I don’t want it to be in ways that demean or belittle a child’s identity development which can be so fragile. I just hope that I will have the tools and resources I need to help these children along in their journey.

Nikki Leggins