Critical literacy

Part 1:

Critical literacy is a response to injustice and the production of illiteracy in which students and teachers work together to overcome illiteracy by teaching how to read, comprehend and evaluate critical information.  Teachers give students an equal opportunity to learn the skills needed to become active thinkers and receivers of information and create a safe and positive environment for students and teachers to grow together.  Teachers model learning to read, understand, comprehend, analyze, to communicate and to collaborate information in order to become successful members of the community in which they live.

Part 2:

It is very important to use a language in the classroom that students can relate to in order to draw them into the lesson.  Talking down to students will not build a respectful relationship of learning in the classroom, nor will talking over our students.  In Herbert Kohl’s Chapter entitled Topsy-Turvies: Teacher Talk and Student Talk from The Skin that we Speak, the author reminds us that as teachers, we need to be aware of how we speak to our students.  We need to turn roles around and see how our students hear us.  “It is not merely a matter of what you say but of how your language is understood and how you understand the language of your students” (Kohl, 2002, p. 147).  Teachers become performers to engage students and connect with students.  This is essential in today’s classrooms where there is such a variety of cultures and abilities, teachers have to find a way to talk to all students to guarantee an equal opportunity to learn.  There is not a set language that can be carried from one class to another, a teacher needs to be aware of and know the students in order to have the right ‘teacher talk’ for each class.

I think the process of learning how to ‘talk’ is often overlooked.  Children learn to speak, to use words, but they need to learn the process of talking for a meaning, learning to talk to take part in discussions, learning to talk to question what they are learning and express their ideas.  In chapter 5, Tom Sawyer, Teaching and Talking, author Robert Probst speaks about the importance of teaching students how to talk, the importance of teaching communication skills to use in conversation and in discussions.  Teachers need to help the “read-on-through-readers” to learn to pause, reflect and discuss what they read, to question what they read.  By giving students a choice , we give them a chance to find something that interests them, we give them a chance to talk about something of interest and help them to turn talk into a natural skill, they become independent thinkers, readers and ‘talkers’.

Freire’s chapter from the Pedagogy of the Oppressed  spoke of the notion of the “banking concept of education”.  Students are containers or receptacles for information.  The teacher deposits the information, the students files it in their container.  Students do not learn by having information deposited.  They need to learn to use and understand the information through creativity.  Students bank information, recall it for the test and then loose that information, make room for new information to be banked for the next test.  For students to become useful members of the community in which they live, they need to learn how to process information they need to succeed, they need to learn to communicate and to adapt to the changing world and technology around them.  The banking of education controls what students learn, it does not teach them the skills need to independent, active thinkers.

In Success Guaranteed Literacy Programs, Lynn Gatto is a teacher that has found a way to teach students without the district adopted commercial reading programs.  She integrates literacy with all areas, she provides “experiences and problems that engage students in expanding their existing literacy practices in order to construct and use new ones” (Gatto, 2007, p. 75).  Gatto sees the need for the continued growth of skills students need to be successful.  She sees the importance of teaching students to analyze and discuss concepts.  The skills that Gatto teaches her students are skills that are not just deposits, they are ones that students can carry with them and use every day.