Blog 1- Jovan Tica

            Hi everyone my name is Jovan Tica and I was born and raised in Northern California in a small town called Live Oak.  I come from a diverse background my father is from Serbia and my mother is from Mexico.  They both immigrated here at a young age.  I am the second oldest of four children and at the end of this semester I’ll be the first to graduate from a university.  I spent nearly seven months of 2012 in Europe visiting family and studying abroad in Luneburg, Germany.  To say the least it was a great experience that affected me in many positive ways.  I am very excited about this semester because it will be my final one and then I will begin the next stage of my life.

Things I like to read include biographies and autobiographies.  A passion of mine is sports so I read a lot of material on that topic with a focus on football.  I also coach youth sports like soccer and baseball so I have read a few books written by some of the greatest coaches in this country.  I would say the purpose of my reading is to find material that can help me in everyday life.  I have very little enthusiasm for the fiction genre; it is not my cup of tea.  I do however have an open mind to material I do not usually read because I believe that everything you come into contact with in life can teach you something.

What I found to be the most interesting thing about the article we read last week was the fact that he was questioning the established and accepted definition of literacy.  It is very thought provoking and after reading the article I conjured up scenarios such as this: what if there were two people in a jungle, one was a businessman from a metropolis and the other a man who grew up in the jungle.  Each man would have his own idea of what it means to be literate.  The businessman would think that to be literate one must know how to read and write while the man raised in the jungle would think being literate is understanding wind direction or understanding animal calls.  I believe that the definition of literacy depends on whom you ask.