Sunday, October 2, 2011
Blog Post for 10-02
After rereading Gere’s article, again, I came to the realization that education and literacy are constantly changing. She gives several histories about how education and literacy has changed over the last three hundred plus years and, although she does not come out and say it, the way reading and writing has changed from the 1700’s to now. Rodriguez’s article actually explains what he went through to get his education and explains how getting it made him nostalgic. Both articles made me rethink why students go to school. “Workshops outside classroom walls frequently succeed with those individuals deemed unsuccessful by their compositions instructors,” (Gere 77). My first thought when I read this this last time was ‘if this is so true then why do students go to school and spend a lot of money on getting an education if they’re just going to fail at writing to go to a workshop and succeed?‘ Students go to school to get an education in something that, sometimes, they love, such as becoming an author. Or other times students go to school to get a degree in anything they think will help them get a good job, such as business. Lets say a person wants to become an author, they take composition classes, to improve their writing. But then the teacher or professor tells the student that they can’t write. So to me, its almost like, then why bother taking a class if your just going to fail it? Then it hit me; students take reading and writing classes because if they don’t pay for it, it doesn’t count toward their degree at all therefore they can’t graduate. This bothered me. Knowing that so many students that take reading and/or writing composition classes fail (after paying for them!) just to retake it in a workshop. I think after reading it again, this is what bothered the most. In Rodriguez’s article, he mentions that his mother gained her high school diploma and “On her own, she determined to learn how to type. That skill get her jobs typing envelops in letter shops, and it encouraged in her an optimism about the possibility of advancement,” (437). So, determined as she was, she got a job working in a California state government civil service position. It was just a typing job, but she was proud to have it. “On the dictating tape, a voice referred to urban guerrillas. My mother typed (the wrong word , correctly): ‘gorillas”. The mistake horrified the anti-poverty bureaucrats who shortly arranged to have her return to her previous position. She would go no further,” (437/438). Although she knew how to spell very well, she made a mistake. This mistake ended up costing her which is her reasoning for pushing her children to get an education. This proved just because a person was literate and could read and write didn’t mean they could do whatever they wanted. Today, there are many spelling’s for one word, such as gorilla (guerrilla) and they all have different meanings. No wonder the hardest language to learn today in American English! Literacy has also changed in the last three hundred plus years because the American English language is changing, slowly, but its still changing. This is what literacy means to me; a person must not only be able to read and write, they have to know what the definition of what a word is.
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Tiffany M-
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard the word literacy I use to think it just meant reading and writing, or that a person was able to read and write. Looking where we are today I think the word literacy can mean so much more than that. I thought that to become literate you had to go to school for 12 years and really learn everything your teachers were saying. “These writers bear testimony to the fact that writing development occurs outside formal education.” (Gere, page 76) From reading the two articles I think it shows a person can learn to read/write in school but they can really develop their skills outside of the classroom. I think that reading these articles can also change your definition of the word education. In Gere’s article many women didn’t have a formal education yet they were still members of their community and could focus on writing about things they did know about. It makes you think how a person can go through so many years of schooling yet they still may seem un-educated. Then you have someone who barely went through any schooling but they can raise a family and earn a living.
After reading the Rodriquez’s article it got me questioning how education or becoming literate can change someone, not only for the better but maybe for the worse. Rodriquez lost touch with his family because of his education barrier between his parents. “A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn’t forget the schooling was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student. (p 432)” It makes me think of other students like him who become separated from home and how that can cause great tension on family life. I don’t think that Rodriquez felt better or more important than his family but I think in other situations that could occur. It makes me wonder if some parents feel they have to become more educated in order to keep their family together.
Overall, I think the word literacy can mean a few different things. I think it can mean something different in each scenario. I think a broad definition is still simply to just be able to read and write. Although maybe someone never really learned to read or write but they learned a trade such as carpentry and they do that every day and they provide for their family. Yes, it might be tough to not know how to read or write but everyone has a different story and maybe someone had to drop out of school in the 3rd grade to take care of their sick mother and their siblings. Some people can learn things and succeed in life without having any real formal education. “On her own, she determined to learn how to type. That skill get her jobs typing envelops in letter shops, and it encouraged in her an optimism about the possibility of advancement,” (437) That quote about Rodriquez’s mother shows that you can learn any skill if you really try and put in effort.
Throughout out the course we have been challenged with what it means to be educated. Both, Gere and Rodriguez write about their experience with education and the role school takes. Depending on the author school may be vital to receiving a proper education. I partially agree with both authors and believe school plays an important role, but also a persons desire to learn outside of school.
ReplyDeleteA person is not automatically educated if he/she attends school and a person who does not attend school is not uneducated by default. For instance, Rodriguez attend school for many years and achieved school at its highest level, however was he more educated than the writers who belonged to the Tenderloin Women's Writing workshop that Gere writes about? I would argue that the women in Anne Ruggles Geres article, Kitchen Tables and Tended Rooms: The extracurricular of Composition were in ways more educated than Rodriguez. The Tenderloin writers were older women with limited schooling who gathered together to write and read critically to become better writers. In my opinion they became more educated than Rodrigues because they learned to be critical. Being critical while reading and writing allowed the women in the group to push their writing and improve in every way possible. The women wrote for recreation and naturally when you do something for fun you tend to do it better than say a teacher assigning a 500 word essay. The women had interesting stories and ideas to tell, but they lacked structure and technique. With little guidance through workshops they were able to write excellent pieces of original literature.
While, the women in Gere’s article learned to be critical in their reading and writing, Rodriguez approached his education differently. He learned for the sake of learning and failed to analyze and be critical throughout his education. His education was more school oriented and followed every word the institution and teachers recommended. “ He relies on his teachers, depends on all the he hears in the classroom and reads in his books. He becomes in every obvious way the worst student, a dummy mouthing the opinion of others” (Rodrigues 446). Instead of learning he learns to imitate and that in my opinion becomes his biggest fault. He never realizes that there’s more to an education that reading and memorizing the thoughts of many authors. The value of an education is when a student draws from the material and can understand and relate to the subject matter. Rodriguez never learned that part of an education. He was concerned with reading for the sake of reading while The Tenderloin women wrote to learn.
While the women in Gere’s article provided their readers with original pieces of writing, Rodriguez was only able to recite the thoughts of others. A clear difference in the purpose of education can be seen between the two. Education was also presented to in two different ways in both articles. While Rodriguez attained the highest level of education the Tenderloin women were all troubled women with very limited education.
Blog post 2
- Fred Brisuela
Tim Gonring -- October 2 Post
ReplyDeleteMy understanding of literacy and education has changed a lot since reading both of these articles. They have both enhanced my knowledge of the subject, but I feel like the Rodriguez article did not really change my mind as much as the Gere article. It has slightly changed, however, I don’t feel like it has changed in as much a way to where I think differently. A lot of what Rodriguez wrote I think is more personal to him and does not necessarily apply to all people. “The boy who first entered a classroom barely able to speak English, twenty years later concluded his studies in the stately quiet of the reading room in the British Museum. Thus with one sentence I can summarize my academic career. It will be harder to summarize what sort of life connects the boy to the man (Rodriguez, 431).” To me, that seems rather unique. I mean there isn’t that many people that experience this sort of life that he had. Not knowing much English I think influenced him to follow what his teachers told him to do.
I think the fact that Gere’s article involved many people in his research influenced my opinion more because there was a mass group of people that were affected in a positive way. “Positive feelings about oneself and one's writing, motivation to revise and improve composition skills, opportunities for publication of various sorts, the belief that writing can make a difference in individual and community life (Gere, 78).” That one quote shows that the community is affected rather than one single person and I think that credits the article more than the Rodriguez article.
Education and literacy to me go hand in hand. Education can almost be the process of gaining literacy, and vice-versa. Education in both articles mean two completely things. The way the education was acquired in the articles is two very different stories. The thing that you can take away from both articles, though, is that education can be acquired much more successfully if the want or desire is there. “My methodology for looking at composition's extracurriculum owes much to recent accounts of literacy practices outside formal education. Investigations of community literacy practices by Shirley Brice Heath, of workplace literacy by Glynda Hull, of multiple discourse communities by Patricia Bizzell, and of "unofficial literacy" by Ruth Hubbard all provide angles of vision for looking at composition's extracurriculum. They suggest the need to uncouple composition and schooling, to consider the situated-ness of composition practices, to focus on the experiences of writers not always visible to us inside the walls of the academy (Gere, 80).” To me this shows that composition should be so important that it should be separate from schooling. Composition is so important that it should not even be a part of the main curriculum.
Literacy to me is the knowledge and the ability to understand what you are being taught. Education is the act of acquiring that knowledge. Whether or not someone is interested in the education directly affects the literacy the person has. If the person loves education and wants to learn, the chances are that their literacy is high. In the groups in Gere’s article and in Rodriguez’s personal experience, the act of gaining this literacy was wanted and made the people involved feel accomplished and happy. It is this way that people need to be persuaded to act in order to gain literacy and do well in education according to these articles.