10-second review: “They do not have to accept the notion that they are an exception to the rule if they are successful in learning.”
Title: “ ‘Every City Has Soldiers’: The Role of Intergenerational Relationships in Participatory Literacy Communities.” M Fisher. Research in the Teaching of English (November 2009), 139-162.
Summary: Examples of group activities in which successful practitioners of literacy participated with the audience. The purpose of these groups was to demonstrate that literacy activities like poetry reading are within the reach of everyone in the community. They can be successful in literacy.
Comment: The 10-second review quote set me to thinking. Where and when does the culture of wanting to fail in school set in? It occurred to me in my high school years and I did not come out of it until I was a junior in college. For some reason, I decided to be “cool” and “cool” meant taking a nonchalant attitude toward school and learning.
I think the solution begins with goals or lack of them. When you don’t have any idea what you want to do with your life, you are not motivated to follow the prescribed curriculum.
When I began my career in teaching, my first high school English class stood out. I had these students as freshmen and then again as juniors. They were responsive, gobbled up everything I could teach them about spelling, writing, vocabulary and literature. When they graduated, I took the time to scan the information that accompanied every photo of the graduating seniors. I was astounded at how many of them could clearly state their career goals, whether nursing, journalism, engineering, farming, etc. If I had been asked that question at the end of high school, I could not have responded.
Fifty years later, I took out the yearbook from that first class in high school in preparation for their 50th reunion and was equally astounded that so many of those students had achieved exactly what they set out to do. I think there’s a lesson in that. RayS.
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