The Push Against a Changing Literacy

It astonishes me that a group of academics discussed issues in pedagogy that are still  (please note my exasperation) being discussed today. In 1994, the Internet was just emerging onto the general public, but this group was ready to talk about tomorrow. In 2013, it seems as if we’re still anticipating the same tomorrow.

I hear this sentiment all the time from my teacher friends and family, have read it in many texts, and The New London Group discussed it eighteen years ago: “there [is] not a singular, canonical English that could or should be taught anymore” (63).

Eighteen. Years. Ago.

There’s a lot of talk right now from those who push the “basics”—reading ‘riting ‘rithmitic. They’ve succeeded before and they’re looking to succeed again. There isn’t any one set of basics, one set of reading or writing (or even math) because we all bring our own perspectives. We all read differently. We all write differently. But maybe most especially in the era of standardization, this isn’t acceptable to far too many, many with far too much political influence and rhetorical know-how to convince the otherwise uneducated masses. We must all speak a standard dialect of English to be acceptable. Do you remember the uproar with Ebonics? Because I do.

Along those very same lines, Louise Bennett once protested in a late 70s radio broadcast that “English is a derivation [of another language] but Jamaica Dialec is corruption! What a unfairity!”

Preach!

It’s a systematic method of oppression to demand a standard. But, you know, it is important that everyone can understand their news anchor. My classmates had a hard enough time reading Louise Bennett’s work (to the point that they did not even try). So, there seems to be a point there. More of a point is that this woman made incredibly poignant points in all of her works, and they were points only those who could speak her language and understand her perspective gave a shit about. And a few others, of course. My point is, however, that since she was not of the standard, few of those outside her group chose to hear her. They said they couldn’t understand her, so they didn’t give her the time. Calling a language or people “standard” or “mainstream” is completely problematic. It immediately creates an outgroup which breeds judgement. We also send a message that to speak the language or to be literate of other societies and perspectives isn’t productive. In the process we create drones, robots, people who can’t speak with, negotiate with, or befriend anyone but those who think and look like themselves.

I had to laugh a little while reading the New London Group’s paper, not just for the sad fact that almost two decades later we’re still fighting against the idea of the standard, but for other statements, such as “Our job is not to produce docile, compliant workers” (67). It’s not. But don’t tell those who create education policy that. Don’t tell those who create policy that we shouldn’t be solely focused on “a vision of success that is not defined exclusively in economic terms.” Don’t tell them about how the back-to-basics movement of the ‘70s and ‘80s that was abandoned because it was more about the teacher than the student and did not work. Don’t remind them that we now live in a global economy. Don’t remind them that “the most important skill students need to learn is to negotiate regional, ethnic, or class-based dialects…this is the only hope for averting the catastrophic conflicts about identities and spaces that now seem ever ready to flare up” (69). It’s unrealistic to assimilate our students into a “standard” unless we expect to also assimilate the world to our standard–which we sometimes seem to want to do.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

So while I’m totally with the New London Group, it saddens and concerns me that we’re still discussing these things, still fighting. And while technology and the world expands at an exponential rate, we’re only being left further and further behind. The token efforts made by those in charge accomplish little, if anything. The insistence to stay with what feels safe is driven by fear, and to be fair it’s a fear I think the majority of us feel from time to time. I really hope I’m brave enough to remember that fear is only going to keep us behind—which is exactly what all of us are trying to avoid.