Starting a new conversation

I've started by summer class, Literacy Learning as Social Practice, and am inspired again about possibilities. I've been teaching some version of this class, improved over time, for 12 years. Each time I get excited to move people from autonomous definitions of literacy to critical social practice views. As the students get younger (read I get older!) and even though they are millenials, I am struck by how hegemonic the autonomous definition is. They are active users, in both producer and consumers roles, of "new" literacies, yet it doesn't feel like "real" literacy to them. It reminds me of Harry in Barton and Hamilton's "Local Literacies". He had rich and varied literacy practices in his everyday life, but didn't feel like they were real or important because they weren't like school. (My apologies to Barton and Hamilton for oversimplifying their points). I love watching as they start to see things differently and that light goes off in their eyes.

Feeling dazed

Just got back from a trip to Johns Hopkins to see a specialiist about my son Marcus. Learned a ton and feel hope for the first time in what feels like ever. A few surprises but we have a plan!

I was getting worried about him being able to construct a positive future outside of institutions. The feeling carries over into my work on the Children's Zone ethnography as I see more and more intolerable marginalization. A couple of young men one of my colleagues works with as student-researchers were attacked and beaten while analyzing data for their research project on violence in Rochester. It went so far beyond irony. It feels more and more that folks just don't care what happens to kids in urban schools. They'll wag their fingers, roll their eyes, or donate their old books, but don't actually care.

The folks in the ethnography keep asking what "it" can do for them. Ethnography can't do anything, but I can. I'm determined to see something changed here. My friend Colin Lankshear gave me a great idea using new technologies that I'll share later. Still working on finding funding. It has real potential to make a difference. But I don't want to just get funding so that my university gets indirects. I have to find a way to set something up that will have lasting effects. Good thing I have awesome research colleagues in Nancy and Kevin.