Tuesday, March 27, 2007

March 25th Blog Quiz

As I read BRINGING THE OUTSIDE IN and Friedman's Chpts. 5 and 6, I wondered why teachers and administrators cannot see the connection between the new literacies and our futures in a flat world. Friedman points out that "a focused domestic strategy aimed at upgrading the education of every American, so that he or she will be able to compete for the new jobs in a flat world" is so important. Put this together with what he says about how if you are the one unemployed, unemployment is not 5% but 100% and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how important it is to prepare our students for the new flat world in which they will be dealing with information rather than raw materials (or should I say information will be their raw material).

When you read Friedman and his free market ideas, you cannot help but agree with him about the necessity of free trade, and how it will bring more jobs to this country instead of less. We truly are competing with people in every single country when we compete for jobs - there truly is no American job any longer. The sooner we bring this fact home to our students the better their chances of being prepared in this new world of information.

I do not see much of this sort of thinking in classrooms today, however, and given our knowledge of the kinds of jobs available to those in school today, that frightens me. We can no longer settle for preparing our students in the old "tried and true" methods and assume they will be okay when they enter the work force. I can see how my own education from years past has woefully prepared me for the job market as it is today, and I can truly understand the need to update and make myself competitive with an ever growing global community of laborers.

At the same time, all of this is so exciting - to think about being prepared for a job not yet invented; and it is also staggering when you think about how the information and knowledge you have today is going to be outdated by time you get your degree.

However, when you look at all of the possible careers (and careers yet to be invented) from which today's students have to choose, it is a wonderful and scary world they are about to become part of. And, as teachers, we need to be aware of "the kinds of good middle-class jobs which successful companies and entrepreneurs are creating today" ... and we need to understand "how workers need to prepare themselves for those jobs, and how educators help them to do just that". If we cannot do these things as future educators then we will send our students out into the world of labor woefully inadequate in their skills and enormously hampered in their ability to obtain a job. It is time for all of us who are going to be teachers to examine our ideas of literacy and become more in tune with the kinds of things our students are reading (what makes them skilled in literacy). We need to be willing to look at all aspects - whether it is the comic book they are making of their time in school, or the picture someone like Gus takes of a bulldozer when asked to bring in a picture of "what he knew and believed about reading". If a picture can cause a student to enter into a 45-minute discourse on how reading is about tearing things apart and rebuilding them once he has enough information from the teacher and other students to do so, how can we not consider photography or comic strips as forms of literacy.

I thought the chapters were wonderful and the BRINGING THE OUTSIDE IN article was insightful and made me more aware of the kinds of things which can be considered when trying to assess whether or not our students are successful readers/writers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't it be great if we could wave that magic wand and instantly classrooms would enter the 21st century Darlene.

I agree that it is frightening that so many classrooms I visit seem to be stuck in the middle of the last century. I don't mean the absence of technology although I mean that too.

I mean that students have no agency, the literacy tasks are static and have little to do with the kinds of skills and sophisticated literacies one needs in a flat world, the expectations are so very low--esp. for urban kids...I could go on and on.

What do you think students need to be doing in ELA classrooms to remain "untouchable" in a flat world market?

I hope you are feeling much much better!!