Return-Path: <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id iA3Mvwd14175; Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:57:58 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:57:58 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3BAE7478.0252D102.0A349A3F@aol.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: AWilder106@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1703] Re: Critical Literacy vs Critical Thinking- a crucial distinction X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Mailer: Atlas Mailer 2.0 Status: O Content-Length: 4042 Lines: 29 Colleagues, I want to rephrase a little of what I said in a previous email because going by a post I received privately I think I spoke in too telegraphic a style. It seems to me that because life is unfair, and the distribution of literacy is an indication of that unfairness, adult literacy teachers choose, by their vocation, to grapple with that unfairness and to ameliorate it. David Rosen chose to put "critical literacy" in his list of what should be accomplished in a literacy class or program. I didn't understand what that might mean to him or others on this list who work in adult literacy. Reading on the topic, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," and even Sophie Degener's chapter in Adult learning and Literacy doesn't really help much, except when Freire describes exactly how he teaches. In social science jargon, how is critical literacy operationalized? I think it was Andres last summer who added some additional thoughts, particularly about health literacy. If critical literacy is part of comprehension, how should it be taught? Several of you told me how that could be done, and thanks. I have always admired Freire's methods, while I find his writing, in translation, hard to read, even hard to study. He came from a different tradition and a different way of seeing the world which aligned I think with a mix of Marxism and Liberation Theology which is not part of the cultural background of North America. However, his methods and his thoughts, as when he worked with Myles Horton of Highlander seem on the mark. (I haven't a philosophic cast of mind.) If you study anyone long enough, listen to them long enough, read enough, think enough, you will find contradicitons. So Freire was heavy handed in his advice, as I recall, about teaching adult literacy in Sao Tome and Principe. Howard Zinn, one of my teachers, and a man I see in my neighborhood from time to time, is a writer and social critic (read his autobiography) who stood up courageously against the Vietnam War..is still a part of an institutinalized power structure as a retired professor who gets a pension. How is the money invested? Is this a contradiciton? Could be. Maybe not. Open to interpretation. Critical literacy? I studied Freire in 1975. for three years after that I taught an African-American curriculum, invented it, in an integrated elementary school,wrote it up. We used primary sources and role play, etc. Critical literacy and project learning I think at a lower level. Same thinking at any rate. I can think off-hand of four real (action) instances of critical literacy: 1) Using a Freirian approach to adult literacy in a refugee village in El Salvador; 2) As reported in an issue of FOB, a group of adult learners get legislation changed; 3) A class of women who make a film about domestic violence; 4) Citizenship schools pre 1964. What came up on another list serv, is the issue of frightened adult students--an emotional condition which can and obviously must be addressed. Some programs have worked this condition into literacy learning; it is a life issue, as being denied the right to vote is a life issue. So if adult literacy is about jsutice/fairness, reading skills are about justice, all by themselves. But when students' real needs/goals are incorporated in lessons, assessed progress is faster (Purcell-Gates et al). Sen talks about development AS freedom--the process of reading is freedom itself. So learning to read is itself political. To pick up George's point, adult ltieracy can be explicitly political to implicitly political. Freire would be at the explicit end of a continuum, and the teacher who learns about neuroscience at the other end of a continuum. Or they could be both the same person. Any other visualizations out there? Again, sorry to have offended anyone, but these do not have to be private conversations, disagreement is certainly possible--how then do we know what people think? Argument can be constructive, it is sometimes essential. Andrea
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