October+9+Jamie

Jamie Frank October 9, 2008

From Gee, __Situated Language and Learning__ page 60 "Horizontal' Learning experiences are those where one does not make initial progress up the ladder of skills, but stays on initial rungs awhile…They may in one form or another, be essential to learning, or at least essential for learners who are "at risk?".

From Heath, __What no bedtime story means__ page 77 "A pervasive pattern of all these features is the authority which books and book related activities have in lives of both the preschoolers and members of their primary network".

From Street __Schooling of Literacy__ page 112 "Why and how this particular version of literacy practices is reproduced and sustained in contemporary society is…crucially bound up with issues of power in the wider society."

Discussion: The Street quotation is an important one, because it is the issue of power that influences the situations that lead to these arguments. Since, in the United States, we have the habit of assuming the "Maintown" model to be the best one, people from "Maintown" and who were educated in this way are those who hold power which influences how we view literacy. This being so, the inherent effect is that those students of non-Maintown upbringing are automatically disadvantaged. As illustrated in the Heath article, the nontraditional forms of literacy learning experienced by those outside of the Maintown culture is often disregarded by educators, and these students are labeled "at risk" due to their nonconformity with the structure of learning valued by those in power. As Gee points out, educators need to expand their views of ways of learning, to appreciate the skills gained from nontraditional experiences, or the cultural diversity their students may possess. What is so troubling by the value given to the Maintown experience is that this issue is so aligned with issues of race and class in American culture. For example, an upper class child is educated from his/her earliest age in the methods employed in the classroom, and to "love books". This child is successful from day one, and achieves more, despite his/her obvious class advantages. Concurrently, an urban poor child learns nontraditional ways of learning, and despite his or her extensive knowledge, is seen as "at risk" or "behind" when s/he starts school. Then, as Gee points out, s/he is given uninteresting work in order to "catch up" and grows to hate school, and in the future, to be less successful. Thus, this system of "equal education" creates a system that rewards those who participate in the hegemony, and devalues everything else.

Questions: 1) In the example of the three towns by Heath, in order to best reach the Tracktown or Roadside children would the teacher have to adapt the classroom structure to the cultural experience of the children? How would this work in a school with classrooms of students from all three towns? 2) As Gee mentions in regards to the sandbox and fishbowl of learning experiences, how would one create this in a school setting? Can children always learn by playing? Are there any instances where traditional methods work better? 3) Since so many of our educators were themselves educated in the traditional model of literacy, how can they learn to embrace language as an active part of the students lives, instead of something separate, as Str