"Liteacy with an Attitude"

After reading Patrick J. Finn’s book, Literacy with an Attitude, I find it interesting that I believe it was both and an easy and a challenging read. It was easy in the sense that I read through it effortlessly. What made it hard were the challenges that it raised in both my beliefs and ideologies about learning.

One theme that seemed to weave itself throughout the entire novel was that of accessibility. Before reading this book, naively, I believed that simply attending school would allow for any student to improve their lot in life; if they just worked hard enough and wanted it badly enough, they could and would succeed.

Finn’s novel brought to life the realization that accessibility to a ‘good’ education is not a given. It depends greatly on one’s upbringing, social class, school environment and also the teacher. Hard work it seems is not a prerequisite to success in education. Instead, Finn explains that a student’s future can in essence be predestined according to the school he/she goes to and the job his/her parents hold. This is a very scary notion for me because the more I think about it and compare it to my present teaching situation I am starting to see some validity in it.

When I first began teaching, the school could be considered one for the better to do working middle class. They valued education and thusly pushed teachers to provide the best education possible for their children. Now I currently work at a school whose students come from low income and/or welfare homes. Education is mandatory; however, its importance can be questioned. Students come to school because they have to. Many of them seem to be floating through the system, happy to simply pass from one grade to another. In contrast, at my previous school students believed that if they worked hard enough, they would be able to get into University and in turn find a well paying job (just like their parents). The gap Finn described in his book came to life for me.

In all, Finn’s novel opened my eyes to the need for teachers (myself included) to examine the social practices that are at play within one’s school and in turn question why certain strategies and practices are being followed while others are ignored. We need to become more reflective in our choices and actions, but most importantly, be open to change, even if others around us are not so willing. When I first entered the profession, I was full of energy and enthusiasm. I wanted to incorporate many of the progressive strategies that I learned in teachers college, yet over the years I have been falling under the pressures to conform to the more ‘traditional authoritarian’ or ‘gatekeeper’ approaches. This book has provided the much needed spark to rekindle my flame.