I thought about a kid I wrestled with in high school,"Frank". Frank dropped out of high school junior year, and struggled throughout most of middle school and high school. He reached a point where he just didn't care anymore about school and felt he didn't need to know much more than he already did. He was from a rural area and his dad was a farmer, along with his uncles, and grandparents. Frank pretty much planned on being a farmer, or construction worker, or some other sort of manual labor job. Right now Frank has a house, and a four wheeler and is able to go hunting the Monday after Thanksgiving, pretty much all the things he wants and needs are taken care of without a high level of literacy.
Now don't get me wrong, Frank can read, and he can write, but he probably would have many misspellings and grammatical errors strewn throughout his writing, and probably doesn't have a wide range of vocabulary, but you would be able to understand anything he would need to say to you. He may be the text book example of a semi-literate from "Why Johnny Can't Read". SO while being a semi-literate, he is still able to do what makes him happy and live the life he planned without needing to know the difference between their, and there, or how to use a semicolon.
So some questions I have...
1. Does everyone need/should everyone strive for a high/proficient level of literacy ?
2. what constitutes literacy? is it being able to get your point across, and read a menu, and your bills? or is it being able to eloquently string together sentences free of errors, and use of different punctuations?
3. Should high schools hold everyone to the same standard when everyone doesn't have the same ideals, or educational plans?
3 comments:
Upon reading Connor’s post and the questions brought up in the end, I got to thinking about the need for literacy myself. I believe that your second question is pretty much unanswerable, in that there will never be a unanimous vote for what constitutes literacy. Everyone has their own opinion, no one right per say and no one wrong. However, I tend to agree with Connor and find that perhaps the level of proficiency regarding literacy isn’t the major issue, but rather the definition. Why is someone like “Frank” a “semi-literate?” He makes errors, as do most of us. He doesn’t write novels, but then again neither do most of us. He writes when he needs to and reads probably when he feels like it, once again like the majority of us. Yet, by ending his academic career early he is regarded as less literate. Depending on the student, schooling may or may not result in a high level of literacy. Some individuals pick up on the skills independently, or with outside help, like Frederick Douglass. Just because someone does not learn to become literate from an educational institution does not mean that they are not literate, or at least any less worthy of the title than someone with a degree to their name. My uncle graduated from St. Bonaventure yet has done absolutely nothing with his life. He still lives with my grandmother. A degree does not guarantee a brilliant mind. Yet, my bum of an uncle would be considered literate, a term of high regard, whereas the fairly successful “Frank” would not. Such a contrast startles me. Therefore, in answer to your first question, I do not believe that everyone should strive for a high level of literacy, unless it is a personal desire. There is no need, as proven by my uncle and “Frank.” If one wishes to be on a higher level, such as us English majors, then they should most definitely go for it, but other than that as long as one can read and write on a level corresponding to their lifestyle they will be just fine.
Finally, your third question is pretty difficult. As a future educator myself I feel I should be able to answer this question, yet find myself torn. A standard is obviously necessary to compare students, create an average, and mark those of advanced skill from those struggling. However, by doing this the desire to become a high achiever, is born, a desire I just argued is unnecessary. Like Connor said, not everyone has the same ideals making one stray from standards however, if standards disappeared schools would be completely chaotic and probably trivial, as students would have no ranking system to compete for and therefore simply show up, or not, to class, take the test, or not, and graduate with no grades to show their achievements, no way to compare themselves to others. Is this really better? I’d say no, bringing us back to the initial problem of how to define literacy and the importance of proficiency. It seems, as I initially stated, that this problem will never be solved.
Should everyone strive for a high literacy? Not necessarily. I firmly believe the literacy is a skill that is all together teachable. Yes, one can learn the basics of reading and writing in a classroom, but literacy as demonstrated by Frederick Douglas and other good authors is not something that a student can learn. With most skills there is a combination of natural skill, education, and drive. "Frank" had the opportunity for the education what he lacked was the drive and perhaps the natural ability (at least that is what I understand from this description). I am not claiming that no one without the drive can become literate, or without the skill, or without the opportunity. Frederick Douglas is a great example. He didn't really have the opportunity but he managed, through determination and I believe natural ability, to master literacy.
If literacy is a skill, one really only 'needs' to learn it if they will need it to be successful. Frank was a farmer. He didn't exactly need a high proficiency in literacy. But that is only economically speaking. TO make his income, no, Frank does not really need to be 'literate'. However, there is still a social stigma on literacy, where society tends to look down on those with lower levels of literacy. From the Brandt article we can see that IQ testing and literacy overlapped with the testing of young men for war (when there wasn't a high need for soldiers, that is). The same is true today. We, as a society, look at those that are illiterate or semi-literate as being "stupid" or not intelligent.
As to what is literacy, there isn't an answer. Everyone has a different idea of what literacy is. I doubt that Frank would consider himself semi-literate, probably because he has enough reading and writing skills to live comfortably. We, as university students, probably have a different idea of what literacy is. If you want to nit-pick even further. My idea of literacy is different than my roommate's, who is a biology major. Why? Because we use writing and reading differently and have different expectations for what literacy is. For her, literacy is getting the point across with clarity and without any grammatical errors. To me, literacy cannot be separated from style or eloquence. The point just shouldn't be across, but it should be eloquent, stylistic, and it should flow.
On top of this different situations call for different levels of literacy. A novel that is supposed to be read by a large number of people is not going to be written the same way as a scientific article or even a critical critique of that novel. A lot of this has to do with the register of the writing and the readability (there are actually formulas to determine the readability and writing levels of a piece of writing as shown in this page: http://www.tameri.com/teaching/levels.html).
I believe that because of the differences such as those above, literacy is extremely hard to define or test. I do not believe that there is a right or wrong answer to what is literacy.
As to the standard of literacy in schools, I'm not going to be a teacher, but I don't think that you can have different expected levels of literacy for different areas or kids. The same standard needs to apply to everyone, otherwise someone somewhere will be discriminated against. Now, as Frank proved, a low literacy doesn't exactly mean a low quality of life.
I think that everyone should strive for at least a proficient level of literacy although it may not be needed to function in everyone's day to day life. Higher levels of literacy spawn more creative thought and ability to express oneself, and is a tool of infinite use. As for a personal level of literacy, I would say that it involves being well rounded in the areas of reading and writing, stringing together eloquent sentences would be considered educated instead of literate, in my opinion. In regards to the standards of high schools, I feel that they should hold everyone to the same standards regardless of what that individual desires to do after graduation. As mentioned above, literacy is a tool of infinite applications, one of which is bettering oneself. This refers to becoming a better person as well as improving their station in life.
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