Sunday, April 10, 2011

Literacy With an ATTITUDE

For this weeks blog I just wanted to do a reflection and talk about what was in the pieces that we were supposed to read.  First off i really like what was in the preface of Finn's Literacy with Attitude.  I thought that this was a very powerful piece and and really goes along with a lot of what Delpit says with the culture of power.  One thing that i found in the preface that looks exactly like what Delpit would say is this, "The status quo is the status quo because people who have the power to make changes are comfortable with the way things are. It takes energy to make changes, and the energy must come from the people who will benefit from the change."  This quote sounds exactly like something Delpit would say because she is big with the culture of power in how the people who are reaping all the benefits don't want to do anything to change these things.  Then the people who need change don't have any of the resources to do so.

Another thing that caught my attention was right at the beginning of chapter one.  This was when he was talking about naming his book and he started to talk about Jonathan Kozol.  I thought that this was interesting because in class we have talked about him a lot in class.  This particular piece was talking about his book Savage Inequalities and how it is unfair how different races are being taught differently.  This is something that Johnson has said a few things about in how we need to educate everyone equally.  Finn and Johnson are on the same page with this and Finn actually uses these things in his own classroom where he treats everyone the same and tells them specific directions.  This is something that really needs to be done to help create a better balance in our world today where people are on the same level as each other.

When going back and re reading my blog i realize that it is more of a connections piece than i originally thought it was going to be.  In class i want to discuss how there are so may people that can be connected to this piece.  I would also like to talk about education and how it needs to be equally distributed to everyone and have it be equal.  If schooling was equal for everyone then our world could be much different than it is today.

3 comments:

  1. I agree that there are a ton of connections with other readings this week. At the end of your blog you talk about making education more equal. I see a lot of the inequalities that are discussed this week in the schools I am in. How can we make it better? Would more funding make the difference? (It might make some difference, but I think we have been pouring money into schools without it making much of a difference. Something else needs to change maybe in addition to funding.) Is it the attitude of the teachers themselves? The teacher at my SL probably wouldn't do any of the "affluent" education with her kids because she thinks they wouldn't be capable of such independent work. In other words, I've found that the attitudes of the teachers in working class schools tend to be that the students can't be trusted. Do you agree?

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  2. I really like your quote that you used to relate to Delpit. I made the same connection but I didn't use that quote but I really like it. Just thought I'd share that. =)

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  3. I agree with you likeing the preface, my mind was racing with relations to it that it took me a long time to get thru the preface. I found this a positive thing though because I was so engaged in what I was reading.

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