Literacy Lecture

Last night I went to a lecture. Here is the description: 

The Language of Schooling and Academic Success

    Louise Wilkenson     
Distinguished Professor of Education, Psychology, and Communication Sciences at Syracuse University
7:30 p.m. Science Center 109

Students in the United States must develop proficiency in English that 
is sufficient to meet the increasingly complex academic discourse 
requirements of American schooling.  Students' school achievement 
depends upon their being proficient in academic language, which is the 
language of classroom instruction and of textbooks.  This presentation 
will describe the sociocultural and linguistic components that define 
academic language proficiency, including the academic discourse 
requirements of schooling. Implications for teaching students whose 
first language is not English, as well as effective classroom teaching 
in general will be addressed.

The speaker basically argued that English Language Learners are often able to learn English well enough for social interaction and to Read for Pronunciation... so they can read out loud something to you, but NOT for Comprehension, so they wouldn't be able to tell you what they read or understand it. She says that this will have drastic consequences against their academic success and so individualized action should be taken to help them. 

She cited the concept of different tiers of words. 

Tier 1: common general words: baby, daddy, etc.

Tier 2: more academic, words

Tier 3: esoteric contexutualized words

She submitted that elementary teachers need to explicitly teach these tier 2 words as early as possible.

While Dr. Wilkenson and her colleagues clearly have good intentions and are working towards something that they think will be beneficial to the communities they have described---English Language Learners (those students for whom English is not their first language)---it definitely reeked of cultural defitism. There is something WRONG with these students that NEEDS to be fixed. And we, the wise educational researchers know exactly how to FIX them. We will fix them, integrate them into the system,  mainstream them, and take away their differences. It is the subtractive schooling that Valenzuela writes about (citation will come). Take away from them all the strengths they have: their native language, home culture, identity; create a deficit for them, identify them as in trouble; and figure out how to subtract their otherness in order to make them just like everyone else.

Look, of course she is right that somebody who cannot perform in writing the way that somebody from a literate, middle or upper middle class family would is going to have trouble in school and be punished academically for it. But that to my mind identifies a problem WITHIN SCHOOLS, not within the student. Are we going to change the student to fit the institution or can we change the institution to recognize the strengths of the student? 

I am attending the following lecture tomorrow and will report!

Thursday, February 19th  
The Black Struggle for Education: Civil Rights, Community Activism, and 
Parental Choice.
4:30 p.m. Science Center 101

Moderator: Cheryl Jones-Walker, Visiting Assistant Professor of Black Studies and Educational Studies

Panelists:  Professor Dionne Danns, Education, Leadership and Policy Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington; Isaac Ewell, Director of the Gates Small Schools Project, and a board member of the Black Alliance for Educational Options; and Professor David Stovall, Education