Text of pleasure: the text that contents, fills, grants euphoria; the text that comes from culture
and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of reading.
Text of bliss: the text that imposes a state of loss, the text that discomforts, unsettles the reader’s
historical cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of his [sic] tastes, values,
memories, brings to a crisis his [sic] relation with language.
~Roland Barthes
Reading for pleasure has been a practice I have grown into over the last 10 years of my life. Prior to that I viewed reading as a school task and not something that was done at home. My parents only read the newspaper, so I assumed when I was an adult I would acquire the same practice, until then I did not have to worry about reading outside of school. When I did begin to read for pleasure I discovered the world of mysteries. I feel in love with the suspense and the realistic feeling that genre gave me. It became a habit of mine to start reading a book and simply not close it until I was finished. I was consumed by the plot and typically became frustrated once I read the last page. This frustration came from the sadness of not being able to read anymore about the story line as well as not having anyone to discuss the book with. During this time I was working at the county juvenile detention center. Many of the books I read I saw a comparison with the teenagers I interacted with daily. Many of them were being detained because of a crime involving violence, theft, and yes, murder. Reading mysteries allowed me to escape the realities of my job. In the book, I knew the characters were not real, so punishments did not phase me. The job was an emotionally draining. Reading allowed me to still ponder the events of work, but in a fictional way.
I know that reading can allow me to travel the world and experience things I would not otherwise be able to. I also know it can broaden my knowledge base and increase my awareness of the world around me. Reading such material is enjoyable, but I had not thought to consider that bliss reading. That was prior to reading material for this course. I have found the material I read in this course to cause me to experience discomfort and unsettle my prior assumptions about people and ways of life. Exposing the truth through reading is another reason I enjoyed reading mysteries. That is what the material read in this course has done for me as well, exposed the truth about the lives of my students. Throughout my career I have worked at lower social economic status schools, so I was aware of the needs the students had. The lack of support from home, the lack of resources they had access to, the emotional baggage they bring to school, were all facts I had accepted and took into account when planning instruction and interacting with my students. However, that was the extent of my thinking. They were poor, so they had a bad home life. During the last few weeks, those basic thoughts have been challenged, and caused me to reflect on myself. The realization was, while I understood they had a special needs because of their home life, I still expected them to function in the classroom with no problems. I also expected this to happen rather quickly. Not once had it occurred to me the discourses of their home life and school life being in conflict. I do value building relationships with my students, but I do not believe I saw the true importance of that until doing the reading for this course.
Joanne Dowdy was the beginning of the above stated revelations. Reading about her experiences of trying to navigate between her cultural being and the desires of those around here was interesting. Having to control her use of language to fit the desires of the society around her was a point of frustration for her. She even compared it to acting like a stranger. Why should we feel like a stranger when using language?
Lisa Delpit’s struggle with her daughter’s language and reflection on her reaction hit home with me. Many of my classrooms have been predominantly African American. I appreciated the way she suggested creating entire units of study around hair care and the cultural history. Some similar thoughts had crossed my mind at various times in the past, but I never truly saw how important it could be until now.
One of the most interesting articles I found was the Annette Henry article. When I made my post about this article, I started off by talking about a young girl at my current school who is African American. She surprised the school with her singing abilities. I reflected on the interactions she has had at school, none of them being all that great. She responded that no teacher had ever asked what she liked or had an interest in. She felt speechless in her classroom; she had been left to sit passively while teachers dealt with the behavior and needs of the boys. This particular girl’s behavior defined who she was. While she did not have awful behavior, she was rather energetic and off task. She historically became known for that. I had heard so much negative talk about her; it was not until the last few weeks of school when I was working with her did I realize she was on grade level. This student has been solely defined as a “bad” student, and left voiceless when she has a lot to say and offer.
The readings from Reading Lives challenged my thinking as well. Again, I have had many students who were similar to Laurie and Jake. The working class life they grew up in had a critical impact on their school life. I valued being able to get a look in to their home life and see the struggles they had navigating the two discourses of their life. It made me reevaluate my thoughts on lower social economic status students. Actually that is one correction I realized, I was lumping them all into one category; poor. I did not make a distinction between poor and working class. The biggest revelation I had in reading about these students was; their home life has value and gives me a better understanding of who they are. Too often I dismissed their thinking and tried to make them conform to my expectations. That was a great wake up call for me. I personally rebel when someone or something is trying to make me conform to their values, why would I impose that on children then? I have realized the importance of valuing the desires the students have that are directly formulated from their home life. The struggles they experience between their two worlds are affecting their literacy development. As educators we want our students to succeed. School districts buy the latest and greatest new curriculum and resources. I am thinking that maybe instead of doing that, we should get to know our students and their families more and work on building relationships. Our eyes would be open to their struggles and we would have a firsthand look at their needs.
Michael Lemke