to think somewhat logically and write in that manner. Here's how I spent the last hour. Education is interesting, right?
It was interesting to read a somewhat dated article on the decline of cultural literacy in American schools because it seems to conflict with the concerns that educational policy-makers are writing about currently. Hirsch makes a good argument that students must have a somewhat uniform subject matter basis so that as adults they may communicate amongst society effectively by having common knowledge to base their conversations around. It is true, the ability to communicate both in oral and written form are necessary in order to get things done promptly and efficiently, to spread ideas and keep current with the newest advances. With the passage of this No Child Left Behind policy, schools are focusing less on teaching these pertinent common knowledge type things, and instead relying on exit exam test scores to act as determinants of a satisfactory literacy level.
Though I agree with Hirsch on these specific opinions, I found that he may be viewing his idea of the changes between 1950's American society and the 1988 society to be at a level of higher standards of which they actually were. Obviously, he is a very learned man who has such a vast knowledge in order to have made that list "What every literate American should know". But I think that his vast bank of "Trivial Pursuit" type knowledge clouds his realistic vision of what this country has always been about. I suspect that it may not be the intention of these policy makers to want the whole of our society to participate in real, thoughtful conversation. He refers to a theoretical main goal that high school graduates should be able to read the newspaper and not only understand the underlying story, but also all the references that have been alluded to while telling the story. I understand that he didn't write this article last month, and that if he read our newspapers today he'd probably be horribly dismayed by the lack of quality that he was warning, and slightly predicting about the future. I'd also like to see his face when he watched an episode of a reality TV show from the last Fox season.
I didn't read newspapers back in 88 because i was only 8 years old, however, from the history I've learned about this country, things have not changed that much. There has always been a certain level of ignorance that has been encouraged by educational policy makers in order to distract from more important issues. Sure, maybe a higher percentage of people in the 40's recognized a higher percentage of topics on his list, but they were still gathering Japanese-American citizens and segregating them from the population due to WW2. The point I am trying to make is that I think he missed the point, while Donald Gallo hit it right on.
Gallo's opinion is, that in English classes, reading the classics is not the only route to take in regards to encourage children's literacy. He argues that "the classics are not about Teenage concerns! they are about ADULT issues. Moreover, they were written for EDUCATED adults who had the LEISURE time to read them. They were also, not incidently, written to be ENJOYED-not DISSECTED, not ANALYZED, and certainly not TESTED. When I became an adult, I became interested in adult things...and I finally appreciated them (the classics). )78 I particularly enjoyed that he supplied his own list of more interesting and appropriate literature for children and young adults. I also appreciated that in his list, he named some of the books that i specifically remembered seeing in Ms. Mundelt's classroom library, namely Starchild and Monster. I picked these books up because of the facinating titles, and I read the summary suggesting that Monster is about a kid who experiences Juvey. Gallo points out that important lessons of societal affairs and social interactions can be just as effective in this more current, interesting literature.
Gallo wasn't suggesting that classics should be outright ignored in schools, and neither am I, however we should be realistic and take a clear look as to what our society is really like. A vast majority of people, both adults and children, don't really read the way they did in the 40s, but watch movies, TV etc. If we want to heighten literacy and the love of reading, as teachers, we need to compete with the excitement of Fear Factor, and the similar. It's sad, but we all know that it is true.
During my first field work session at Tennyson, I was in the 9th grade classroom and Ms. Munkelt was describing to me privately that on some days the kids just don't feel like reading, but all in all, they eventually make their way back to the book. One of the female students was listening in and she exclaimed, "You win some, You lose some, but you live...you live to fight another day." I smiled and recognized this quote from the 1994 classic, "Friday". Sure, this movie is not the most appropriate entertainment for 14 year olds, since it somewhat glorifies drug use, however, I was impressed. Her response was immediate, and I found the comment remarkably fitting to what we were discussing and the comparison to how it is used in the movie was clear. The reason I found this moment in the classroom relevant is because it goes to show that you don't necessarily need to quote Richard the III to make yourself be understood amongst intelligent society. An appropriate reference to sustain your point is enough in order to convey your point as long as other people have read the same books as you, watched the same movies, had the same school curriculum, and have the same memory capacity as you. Ideal, yes, realistic, no.
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