literacy

[janeadams]

Hi David,

Naw, I don't feel picked on at all!

Best to you and Sophie!

Jane

[AlohaSteven]

Besides, in order to be deliberately political the correct homonym for the particular usage in I probably shouldn't but "A tough roe to hoe for the teachers"? Hopefully the teachers aren't that political when teaching language skills would need to be capitalized as a name in the eponymous court decision. I am glad the teacher Jane deliberately left the typo intact as a sort of Poe's Law lightening rod, further stimulating thought and discussion. A good teaching technique, that.

It is interesting this topic has neither exploded with outrage at implications of race and culture which have been raised vis a vis illiteracy and education nor become bogged down in the swamp of historical arguments regarding perspective on who, exactly, the illiterates are and which language set is the gold standard of literacy. As with all those recent swarthy brown immigrant Mexicans in Texas not being highly literate in English (Texas historically having been part of Mexico before annexation by the expansionist USA, btw) the lily white Pilgrims whose collective butt was saved from starvation by the native Amurk'un Injuns (as they say in Texas) were basically illiterate in not only the language of the land to which they were coming in search of religious freedom, but the Pilgrims were also functionally illiterate regarding the land itself, what to expect, and how to best cope, adapt, and eventually thrive. Fast learners, though, in at least that particular regard. I contend a big part of that which makes America genuinely great -and America genuinely is great, in so many ways- is the diversity of the many languages spoken by Americans of many different origins and cultural traditions. English as a language in common rather than the only language is a tremendous strength of these United States.

Truer words were never spoken (in any language) than Bullwinkle's when he commented "I still believe that increasing literacy rates on island is the cheapest and simplest method to address many of the social issues we face untouched in this topic but the 800 pound gorilla in the room, Is the possible correlation between literacy, rage episodes and abuse of family members ... another topic me thinks .... but a close relative to this issue."

Such a close relative of this topic, I am sure, that those illiteracy rates among prison populations are highly conspicuous as being essentially the same incidence found by Canadian researchers for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders among the prison population.

In my humble opinion the place to most cost-effectively start in genuinely addressing illiteracy is with maternal health and nutrition. Good prenatal and postnatal care serves to keep intact the whole scope of abilities potential within the child. When we neglect this critical period of development and the child is damaged by exposure to alcohol, cigarette smoke, and other drugs and toxins the entire future of that child is changed (and not in a good way) before it is even born. Quality support and care needs to continue through at least infancy (alcohol ingested in mothers' breastmilk does as much damage to the developing neonate's brain as does alcohol coming via the placental blood supply during pregnancy). Prevention programs informing women of brain damage caused by prenatal alcohol use are just one component of the comprehensive approach needed to eliminate drinking during pregnancy; prevention includes screening, identification, education, treatment and follow-up as needed. The economic savings and eventual pay-off to the community and taxpayer for supporting healthy pregnancies is absolutely huge.

In working with students whose first language is not English, or whose subculture speaks a variant of standard English, I suggest to them that our goal is not to extinguish or belittle the ethnic argot with which they are most comfortable and conversant but rather to expand their range to include another set of possibilities. Sometimes using pidgin will bring better results than using standard English. Having the ability to flip a switch inside one's head and speak in standard English when it best serves the situation, however, can be useful.

Part of my job when I worked as a university professor visiting teachers in the public schools and assisting them to improve their practice (for the record, I also am an experienced public school teacher; it is the height of arrogance for university professors who have never taught in the public schools themselves to attempt to instruct public school teachers about anything) I sometimes encountered a bit of peeved resistance regarding teachers not correctly modeling standard English. For example, a teacher who habitually mispronounces "especially" as "ex-pesh-elly" ends up with a classroom full of students who also mispronounce this word. While not the end of the universe, when they do so during a scholarship interview or job interview this may not serve their best interests. Attempting to work with teachers about their mis-modeling of pronunciation or encouraging students to develop the ability to be literate in more than one form of language is simply rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic if incidence of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (along with other toxic drug effects) is high and increasing in a population.

A dime spent on effective FASD prevention yields thousands of dollars in savings and increased revenues over the subsequent several decades. Communities can make few investments as wise as investing in FASD prevention through effective support of healthy pregnancies. Really want to see increased literacy? Reduce incidence of FASD. Guaranteed instant results which last a lifetime.



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It is not our part to master all the tides of the world but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.
J.R.R. Tolkien

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[centipede]

It's a trajedy, and there's reason to believe that its roots began with the establishment of the Department of Education.

[PaulW]

Trajedy? Lightening? Grammer?

It's getting worse.

[Bullwinkle]

Ya know...... from my perspective of being one that cant spell .... Having to wait for spell check to come along to bolster my own literacy as well as being diagnosed with dyslexia and being tri lingual (moving thru four cultures). I still have my challenges - I see a mangled word here and that is par for the course - grin

Literacy to me means understanding a paragraph when one reads it.... amazing how many folks are taking difficult political stands changing the way we live, all the while they cant make it past a paragraph or more importantly a house or car note. (23% of the US population according to a '93 study)

Politically: Not being able to read they head for the nearest media outlet buying into a dose hype as the networks are geared to making ratings, not providing a balanced overview

pretty good way to ruin a great country and state if you ask me

pictures at 11

[mgeary]

My 2 cents: I believe some of our society's illiteracy is due to the culture of entertainment and the advent of television. I work with many people who can recite the latest Will Farrell movie line-for-line, or know the arcane game statistics and health details of their Fantasy Football players, yet write memos at about the 4th or 5th grade level. They are not stupid people, they simply have never focused their attention on literature. Heaven forbid anybody should read a book for entertainment. My own experience is that the book is always better than the movie.

And I don't think this is a Hawaiian or even American phenomenon. I know large parts of Latin and South America, and Europe, too, which essentially shut down when the FIFA World Cup games are played. And most of the world, even though they may hate Americans, surely love our movie and television industries. Syndicated re-runs of old television shows like "Dallas" are big hits in other parts of the world. Go figure.

I know it's a lot more complicated than just sports and entertainment distracting from a focus on literacy, there are huge impacts from education funding, class size, curriculum, teacher skills, parental involvement, etc. But I think there's a real problem with peer-pressure in schools where it's not "cool" to be smart, to be good at math, to be a reader. The kid who has focused his/her attention on sports and excels in that arena is rewarded with adulation, even awe, by their peers, yet the kid who does really well academically is frequently ostracized as a nerd. Why is that? I don't know how to change that corrosive and destructive part of our culture.

Aloha! ;-)

[Bullwinkle]

Two words - "cultural expectations"

the "box" having an "off" switch

Aloha, back to jackhammering a drive see you manana!

[Devany]

Statistics are very easy to spin and there are a lot of them out there. Having read the above posts I remain puzzled at why the statistics listed are so very low for our islands. Kaboloink, are those literacy rates or illiteracy rates? As I read the study, it appeared to me that they were illiteracy rates, which is quite different than literacy rates. It states: Percent lacking basic prose literacy skills.

Many other island countries have extremely high rates of literacy (not illiteracy), even those for whom pidgin is the norm and some where multiple languages are spoken. Tonga has a literacy rate of 98.9, Samoa 98.6, Bahamas 95.8, Fiji 94.4, and the Philippines 92.6. Lest we not forget Cuba who comes out at the top of world literacy with 99.8!!! The source for these rates is Wikipedia, but other studies I have seen concur with these rates.

Here is an interesting report on American Literacy: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93275.pdf

What went wrong in Hawaii??? Who were they testing? How were they testing?

According to Robyn Jackson, Some startling statistics, University of Dayton, Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop, retrieved 2008-02-05 in the United States as a whole:

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.

If that is true... it is extremely sad.


Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany

www.myhawaiianhome.blogspot.com
www.eastbaypotters.blogspot.com

[centipede]

You got me, PaulW. Serves me right for posting at 2:20AM when I should be watching cartoons on TV.

quote:

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Originally posted by PaulW

Trajedy? Lightening? Grammer?

It's getting worse.

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