Literacy and Identity

I knew I was in the right article group when I clicked on the very first link under the “Literacy and Identity” header, and found myself unable to stop reading! While I have (surprisingly) enjoyed all of the readings I’ve browsed through, the one that has inspired the most conversation among our group has been the Wikipedia entry on the “Looking Glass Self”. This psychological concept/theory type thing essentially makes the claim that, as people, our identity is derived primarily from our perception of other people’s opinions about us. In other words, if I feel like others see me as valuable, interesting, capable, etc., I am way more likely to see those positive traits in myself, and to develop an identity as a valuable, interesting, capable person. This can work conversely as well, of course – I will also begin to see myself as incompetent/ignorant/etc. if I believe that is the way others see me. This all gets really crazy when social media becomes involved, because we construct profiles with an eye toward what we want other people to think of us – but then, because of the profile we have created, we imagine that other people see us in this certain way, and we actually begin to develop an identity based upon this perception. So, weirdly, the act of constructing an identity with the conscious or unconscious intention to be seen by others (like on a social media site or, alternately, through our manner of dress, the bumper stickers on our car, or the posters on our wall) actually ends up affecting the way that we see ourselves!

Crazy stuff, man.

There are a number of ways that identity in this sense and literacy are connected, and as far as I can see, the concept of the Looking Glass Self intersects with them all. One of the coolest things that my professor Al Schademan told me awhile back (and which I’m sure I’ve already written about in this class at some point) was that, as teachers, our job is not just to teach students how to do a thing, but to help them craft an identity as a person who can do the thing. My goal is not just to teach a student to write a paper; I want him or her to identify as A PERSON WHO CAN WRITE.

One of the reasons that I really love this concept is because I can see it at work all around me where learning is happening in the wild, not just in school. I’m the training coordinator for my job at the TBar, and after training probably about a zillion people over the last two years, one of my favorite parts has become watching newbies grow from the position of brand-new outsiders who don’t quite belong, to developing an identity as a TBar employee. As new employees are trained in the literate practices of TBar, and as they slowly pick up on the procedures, jargon, and inside jokes particular to this new space, they slowly begin to develop a new identity as a person who has a role and can belong in this workspace. The other really interesting thing I’ve noticed is that the employees who end up staying the longest seem to be the ones who have developed the strongest sense of “TBar identity”, while the employees who develop little to no “TBar identity” (as far as I can see) seem to quit and move on pretty quickly.

You may have noticed, too, that certain companies really excel at building an identity in their employees, and this seems to have a really positive impact on employee loyalty. Starbucks is one that I’ve noticed; I can’t even count the number of people I know who proudly identify as Starbucks baristas, and wear their green apron like it’s a badge of mocha-stained honor.

Anyway, back to the Looking Glass Self. I think all this is related because, in what I can tell from my training experience, people seem to grow and excel the best in environments where they are being given a lot of respect, affirmation, and constructive criticism. In the situations that I have seen, if a new employee starts off on a bad foot in some way and develops ill favor with the senior employees, they rarely recover completely from this, and frequently end up quitting before fully developing a positive “TBar identity”. This seems to mean that the newbie’s perception of other employees’ opinion of them has a direct effect on their ability to learn, grow, perform well, and as a result end up developing a positive identity as a person who can belong and contribute valuably to their work space.

I’m not sure exactly how this relates to school, but I feel like it must. Here’s what I have so far:

1. Developing an identity is one of the primary goals of learning.
2. Developing an identity is one of the key components of being able to learn in the first place.
3. A negative identity with relation to a thing can prevent someone from being able to learn it.
4. The way that I interact with a student/trainee/other human can directly affect (either positively or negatively) their experience of learning, and consequently their identity.
5. Yeah.