Received: from imo-r07.mx.aol.com (imo-r07.mx.aol.com [152.163.225.103]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with ESMTP id h3TNlhU17202; Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:47:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: from AndresMuro@aol.com by imo-r07.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v34.22.) id p.1a7.137b46ba (15877); Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:47:25 -0400 (EDT) Received: from aol.com (mow-m08.webmail.aol.com [64.12.184.136]) by air-id07.mx.aol.com (v93.8) with ESMTP id MAILINID74-3e053eaf0f0d199; Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:47:25 -0400 Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:47:25 -0400 From: AndresMuro@aol.com To: nifl-aalpd@nifl.gov, nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov (Multiple recipients of list) Subject: Re: [NIFL-AALPD:271] Re: educator's roles in politics and advocacy Message-ID: <24E33CB2.0A9EA0EB.0AB94E44@aol.com> X-Mailer: Atlas Mailer 2.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from base64 to 8bit by literacy.nifl.gov id h3TNlhU17202 Status: RO Content-Length: 3631 Lines: 20 I have found Eileen's post interesting, and the subsequent exchange just as interesting. I think that in reading her response, we must engage in the question of what literacy really means, and, in our practice, how do we mean it. One way of interpreting "literacy" is to say that it is the decoding of sounds, and leave it at that. Those who advocate this definition may have no interest in the current exchange. Others argue that literacy has to do with the many possible interpretations that we make of those sounds, about how we learn to make the different possible interpretations and about which forces lead us to make those possible interpretations. If we buy this definition, then we should try to read "between the lines". In other words, we should try to explore the possible interpretations that the message has and how it may or may not affect us. I, for one, have a different interpretation than everyone else. Of course, I cannot be sure that this is what Eileen meant, but it is what my context has lead me to conclude. I assume that in the USA we operate on two realms. One is the secular, practical, rational realm, and the other is the sacred, mystical, ideal, metaphysical, faith based, etc realm. We have the right to talk about our faith, but must respect other faiths, without interfering. Our interference with others, ie, laws, rules, policies, deals only with the secular, practical, rational realm. While these two realms intermingle more, I am generalizing, they are difficult to separate. However, I believe that Osama Bin Ladin can claim that the American way of life is contrary to his faith. GWB can state that certain Middle Eastern countries belong to the axis of evil. Eileen can claim that god told her that GWB is a moron. People should have the right to make these claims so long as they do not take action in order to bring physical harm to those we disagree with. Eileen made a "faith based statement" and kept it at that level. On the other hand, Osama and GWB made faith-based statements in order to take action and bring harm on to others. On a slightly different note, in El Paso, many have spoken in favor of the war and in support of GWB. Those who speak in favor of the war have been displaying the flag, making it a symbol of support for the war. In other words a symbol of the country that is supposed to represent freedom of speech has been co-opted to mean support for the war. Moreover, in El Paso, people who support the war have the freedom to publicly support the war. They know that they are somehow protected to speak freely about the subject, and they ought to. However, those who are against the war do not feel the same way. They fear that speaking against the war could bring harm to them. Even if this is not true, the feeling implies that there is a lack of democracy in this country. In other words, there is a lack of freedom to say certain things or express certain beliefs for fear of retaliation. We claim to be fighting to liberate some people in a different country, but we will not allow those in this country to speak freely. This seems to be a contradiction in terms. If this is so, we first need to make our communities safe and free, before we go somewhere else. Tying it back to literacy, I think that, somehow, people learn that they cannot publicly and safely say, "I am against the war". They must have learned that somewhere. They did not only learn to chunk phonemes together into a statement, but that chunking phonemes into the above statement is risky. Anyways, that's all, Andres -- go here: www.geocities.com/andresmuro/art.html
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