I was sitting in my wilderness literature class last night painfully watching my 60+ year old teacher struggle to figure out how to do something on the new Microsoft Word in front of the entire class. After a few minutes of everyone watching him flounder around, a boy in my class shouted out what we’d all been thinking of how my professor could correct the “problem.” Still not understanding, my teacher just closed out the entire Microsoft Word and moved on with his lesson clearly frustrated and distraught.
What does this remind you of? To me, this was a real-life example like Deborah Brandt’s claim that higher standards of literacy are needed as the economy ages. Brandt writes, “Fierce economic conditions, including the changes in communication they stimulate, can destabilize the public meanings and social worth of people’s literate skills” (26). When my professor got hired to teach maybe 30 years ago, there was obviously no need to be computer literate; knowing how to use Microsoft Word was definitely not in his job requirements. Today, however, knowing how to use core programs on a computer is a must in most professional jobs. For my generation, this is not an issue as we grew up with computers and understand them easily. For my teacher’s generation though, computers are like a foreign object; working with them doesn’t come naturally and as a result, the “social worth of their literate skills” is lowered if they can’t handle this new form of literacy.
Therefore, the standard of literacy that is required to get a job today is much different than it was a couple decades ago. However, is “literacy” becoming more complex as society changes, or are new forms of literacy simply replacing old forms and more knowledge isn’t really being expected out of the newer generations?
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4 comments:
I don't think that they are SIMPLY being replaced, as much as with technology you just have to know a broader spectrum of different types of literacy. I bet your teacher is a whiz at putting together a slide show on an old school picture projector, but might not be able to do so with a powerpoint. For the most part though, I think they are just adding on, as apposed to replacing which leads to a problem of having to teach a broader spectrum of types of literacy in essentially the same amount of time they had 30 years ago. Time that could be spent on straight up algebra and geometry, can get taken up by learning how to use the program spreadsheet, which is not a section of the SAT's, or any form of mass testing of students literacy today.
I don't think we can saw either/or when it comes to the complexity or replacing of literacy. It's a little of both. Some forms of literacy are replaced. A great example is how we write. Writing used to be entirely by hand, which is why there was such a great emphasis on handwriting. Then, with the invention of the typewriter, there was a shift caused by new technology. However, handwriting did not disappear just because the typewriter was invented. Then came computers. Computers have made typewriters archaic. When a student sits down to write a paper, they don't sit at a typewriter, they sit at a computer. Here, the typewriter was replaced. However, handwriting is still used, even with the computer. Students have in-class essays, notes, etc. Outside of the classroom people write lists, write out directions. All of this is done with handwriting. Computers did make writing more complex. A lot of time we use computers even when we are writing by hand. For directions, I will have to use computer literacy to find them, and then I will write the directions down on a piece of paper (why? because printer ink is a lot more expensive than a box of 15 pens).
This means that our generation is expected to know how to write by hand and with a computer (usually by a fairly early age). I do not believe that writing by hand will ever become archaic (at least not in my lifetime or probably the next couple generations).
You both bring up some great points and I do agree. To respond to your post Meg, I don’t think handwriting can ever be replaced either. Now that I’m thinking about it, handwriting is such a unique and individual “art” that could never be replicated on a computer. In contrast, typing on a typewriter is not individualistic and could easily be replaced by a computer. Therefore, I think the technology that can be improved, like slide shows to power points, will be replaced whereas those that aren’t necessarily improved, like handwriting won’t.
To address the original post, I think that our increased reliance on technology to make our lives easier has been forcing older educators to adapt new teaching styles. I hate to agree that we all love our technology such as computers and phones and would hate to live without them. Honestly the only time I write by hand is when I'm taking notes in class or taking a quiz. The question that is raised for me is whether or not new technology is even necessary in school.
We have read in Why Johnny Can't Write about how students' test scores have been declining over the years. I believe it is possible to attribute this to an increase in technological usage by young adults. However, to contradict myself, we have also seen how television and movies can be used to inspire writers.
I guess what I mean to say is that, teachers and students got along just fine for hundreds of years with a piece of chalk and a pencil. This affirms Brandt's assertion that changes in technology and time have a drastic affect on literacy standards and teaching methods. Increased technology in the classroom may make things easier, but at what cost?
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