Literacy

Over the last few weeks we have discussed how a person’s literacies are influenced by one’s history, culture, ethnicity, and socio-economic background. This was never so apparent than in my class last night as we listened to three teachers from various high school communities in the U. S.
One school resides in an affluent community, with access to high end educational programs and tools to help students succeed. Many of the students are taking AP courses, and ninety-percent of the students are college bound.
Another school resides in a working middle class community and has restricted access to additional educational programs. A few students are in AP courses, and seventy-percent of the students will seek further education.
The last school resides in a very rural, very poor community, where getting desks for the students is an issue. None of the students are in AP courses, and most failed the state literacy test.
Each teacher discussed their classroom environment and how they adjusted their lessons to accommodate the students. As you can imagine the vast differences in learning environments is amazing. The first two classrooms are deciphering complicated texts in a variety of methods. The expectations of the teachers are comparable and the students strive for excellence in their work. These students are inquisitive, and ask thought provoking questions. The teacher in the middle class community did say that he had to push his students to get to this point but by the middle of the year they are asking more in depth questions and making deeper connections between text to text and text to world experiences.
The classroom in the rural community is a struggle for the teacher. He has a hard time getting students to engage in reading let alone articulate what they have read. Most of the students read at a sixth grade level and have no interest in reading canonical texts. The students’ home lives do not support reading as important to their education. He said they consume erotica novels by the author Zane. He is struggling to get them to engage in texts required by the state. Added to this frustrating situation there are random breaks in the day, like an announcement by the principal for everyone to go to the gym. He said sometimes they are there for several hours.
Kristen talked about how some schools don’t have access to digital technologies, which I can understand, but I struggle with classrooms that don’t even have enough desks for their students, after all we are in the 21st century. President Busch and others were shouting “no child left behind”—these students aren’t even on the radar.