The Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola article posed a discussion of literacy in terms of an internet-based information center. Are our young people capable of acquiring the skills necessary to access this information pool and navigate through it?
I grew up in Montana in the 1990's/turn of the century. I can remember a time when my classrooms did not contain computers. We didn't need to use smart boards and projectors to master the curriculum, but there was change in the air. The older I got, the more technologically advanced my classrooms became. Rather than learning basic typing skills on an enormous computer with a black and white screen with no internet access, I began to see new and innovative technologies popping into my computer labs. When the Microsoft foundation donated computers to our classrooms, our dynamic changed. Our teachers were encouraged to start presenting materials with this new medium. The encyclopedias that I had been so painstakingly instructed with became all-but-useless. By the time I was in high school, we were turning in assignments on the internet! What a change we experienced in such a short time (13 years). If I had been born just a decade earlier, I shudder to think of the abysmal technological literacy I would claim as my own. From my point of view, the push to create a technologically-literate generation of citizens was a successful one.
On a baser level, they argue about the term "literacy" in and of itself. Are there other ways that one can call a person literate without using a print based medium? Can we value these other forms of literacy as much as we value our own regime of print-based information?
I really dislike the equation of a sense of "print-literacy" with intelligence. If we look to our own heritage (an English one) there was an enormous paradigm shift in narrative relation when the Normans conquered the Anglo-Saxons in what is now Britain. These Normans brought with them the written word; a new technology that changed the nature of storytelling and the way we related the stories of our forefathers to our children. Before the written word arrived, a Bard(who was very highly respected) would basically make his living by telling stories that contained the histories of his people. To showcase his talents, the bard would memorize novel-length stories that sometimes included a list (a list of gifts, names, events etc. ) The amount of memorization involved to learn these stories was a phenomenally huge undertaking that a print-literate man can barely even fathom, let alone accomplish. I have a hard time considering such "illiterate" tales with anything but the highest amount of respect. If you think about it, the advent of the written word replaced the memorization and made any man who could read into a storyteller. Is this ingrained ability really more worthwhile than the arduous efforts of memorization?
I agree with your statement about print-literacy equaling intelligence. Literacy does not give us an understanding of anything besides how words are formed. For example, just because I can sound out a word I've never seen, that doesn't mean that I know what the word means. Just because I can sit down and read a book, that doesn't mean that I will understand the authors purpose if it is not spelled out for me on the page. So while it is important to be literate in our society, I would say being educated in other things besides literacy is of even greater importance. Like the bard who made an effort to learn the stories of his people. Being able to understand the significance of those stories has a much greater impact on the lives of other people than simply being able to read the words off the page.
ReplyDeleteI think its an echo of a time not too awfully long ago when only the gentry were likely to be educated or have the ability to read. The ability was a scarce one, and even the dimmest of print copiers had some sort of influence over those who could not read or write.
ReplyDeletePicture an educated monk in a town of people... they'll do what he says because only he can read this book that tells you what you are and are not allowed to do... It gets better! Not only can he tell you what you can and cannot do, he can promise you never-ending torment, both in this life and the next if you don't believe him.
The archaic notion of literacy simply as the ability to read and write is a very literal way to say that knowledge is power.