Blog 5

George: Easy reading. The idea, again, of writing and discourse comes up right at the beginning…92…inequality in education is produced by differences in culture. So it then becomes the job of the teacher to even out those differences. But how? It’s not just about the teacher attempting to undo this inequality…it’s about the learner absorbing it and carrying it on long after they’ve learned how to do it. But therein lies the issue. I remember reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and initially, not quite getting why these people didn’t just allow themselves to be free…in the way of literacy as well as politically and economically. If they just knew, I thought. Do they know? Do they choose to believe what they’re told because it’s easier? Sort of, but it was more than that, and this was the shocking part for me…they did know. On some low level…they knew. But they were the caged docile animal. They wanted so badly to get out, somebody actually came to do that, opened the cage…but once it was opened…well, now what? This oppression was so normal, well, what would they do without it? Fear of intellectual freedom…it’s almost easier to just be told what to think when you haven’t been taught to do it yourself. And that’s where we/they fall into that whole idea of the intellectually “elite” dictating what others know because the “others” just don’t know any better and don’t have the intellectual freedom and opportunity to do so. Those who have access to knowledge are the ones that dominate (95). But there can’t just be the elite and the oppressed….isn’t there middle ground? There can’t just be the “Ivory Tower” schools (96) and the community colleges that Shor paints as a trap…going just to essentially say you went to college but coming out with nothing more than vocational training along with however many thousands of students chose the same community college path. This is where teachers comes in…to even the playing field between those that are destined for Ivy League success and those who just don’t have access to it, but still have a high level of smart. In order to do that, teaching must be student-centered, grounded in Dewey, and consider all students’ home lives and know that they all can’t be taught the same way and produce the same results. It sound easy on paper…but it isn’t. At least for teachers who teach well. It’s about teaching student’s how to think, to have their own opinions, and be able to back them…it’s non-traditional teaching.

Here we go…this is that other opinion that I totally get…page 102….what keeps people from knowing? I understand that some countries are run in a way that the top few dictate what the masses know. But in the US….as a teacher…I can see kids just not interested and they don’t understand the gravity of the opportunity they’ve been given…and the detriment they can’t see in not taking hold of it. The of course there’s the students who take hold of it and end up succeeding, but feeling like they really had no choice, and they end up in a job they don’t exactly enjoy and never really wanted in the first place…but it pays the bills. So who is oppressed? The homeless people who, at times, are people who just decided to take “control” and do away with bills and people and gossip and make their own way, albeit the streets of a large city? And sometimes they are educated…they just made a choice that felt right. To them, that’s freedom. Who’s oppressed? Ok…I have to read the next one…

Haefner: Ah. Hate to admit this, but I like that it’s short. Ok, so democratic…social equality. A personal essay an example of social equality and therefore should be a part of higher education and be part of writing instruction. The personal essay is a vehicle for self-expression…given the way many kids write today, I don’t know that their essays belong in higher education…some do, many don’t. Huge connection to a Friere and Macedo book regarding discourse and education...it’s not about what’s written, but what is behind the words…where the writer comes from. The influence. Page 511 discusses the fact that the reader of an essay is often more important than the writer. Readers reading based on their discourse and writers writing based on theirs.

So many different opinions…Haefner saying he doesn’t want to make rules for teaching this type of writing, then you have Ede/Lunsford laying down the law. I think the idea is that it belongs in the classroom, but there are variables that need to be considered…obviously a one-size approach will not work…with all the talk of discourse, that’s a given. So how is it integrated into a writing course? (516) Haefner suggests redefining cultural text and de-isolating it by giving students the opportunity to read early essays …including movies, books, art, newspapers…all awesome ideas. Not just letting them see works of theorists, but also the culture behind it all. The biggest idea in this essay was the fact that Haefner suggests (518) that students themselves define the “personal essay.” Let them talk, discuss, ponder, question…I think the idea of writing discourse implies teaching others to accept differences and be accepted (519) and what better way than to allow students to discuss those very differences in an open forum that ultimately leads to the writing of a personal essay.

Berthoff: Good God last one for the day. Ok, so there comes a point where thinking about thinking is just, well, redundant…bordering on boring. I used to know people who sat around and talked about this stuff and holy crap I wanted to put nails in my rib cage. Anyway…

I do completely agree with the quote on page 330…evidenced that students leave schools with virtually no concept of how to think logically and abstractly. I see it all the time with reading…kids just can not think implicitly…it’s clear that unless something is in a text or passage, they don’t know how to read between the lines to lead to logical conclusions not expressively written. That’s a problem. They don’t make meaning. If they can’t make meaning in reading, they can’t make meaning in writing. The very idea that writing is thought on paper means that if there is no real, logical, meaning-making thought, there cannot be real, logical, meaning-making writing. There is no thought interpretation. Page 332-333 discusses how the lack of abstract thinking leads to writing that is redundant, laced with faulty parallels, no links from one idea to another. It’s writing comprehension. Kids need to think about thinking (boring and rib-slashing as it may be) in order to continue to discover language. Interpretation is essential in order to “make sense of the world” (337). So really, it the human job to “know.” Kids should want to know and discover. “Teachers will assure that language is continually exercised to establish likes and differents by sorting, gathering…students learn to define.” (342) Language is writing, discussing, listening, perspective, thought, ideas…it’s, like he says…how meanings make meanings.