Traveling Thoughts

I'm in Toronto for a critical literacy workshop my friend and colleague Vivian Vasquez invited me to participate in. I'm looking forward to showing the documentary David and I did on Lynn Gatto, A Life Outside, and to see what they say about Elliott's performance clips.

I'm stretching myself a bit to include "youth" literacies, but he's such a great example of what youth are doing with language and literacy in spite of school. My students really engaged with him and are genuinely committed to finding ways to teach that can engage the "Elliotts" in their classrooms. He's such a smart kid, one that school has simply failed. Literacy, performance poetry in particular, and his commitment to it has inspired him to recommit to school success even though he sees it as something he just has to do. That we still have to tell kids they just have to get through school seems unethical to the extreme. What can we do to change this stance? I can't buy into the US government and private corporations' attempts at dismantling public education, so I guess I have to believe schools are worth the trouble.

Having way too much fun

I forgot say how much fun I was having exploring the various places I suggested to my students! I set up a Facebook page and even got some friends. I'm not sure why that surprised me so much, but it did. I asked my daughter to join and, at first, she said no. Having your mother on a friends list wasn't cool. But, in the end, she did and it made me feel great. Folks who complain that we are losing value in interaction and social relations with all this technology "stuff" must not be spending too much time in cyberspace. Seems like the more time I spend, the more connected I feel to the people in my life and to people in general. Sure feels good whatever it is.

I started using Google docs and can't believe how well it works. Nancy, Kevin, and I were sitting together writing on the same document and watching the changes pop us as we sat there. It was way too fun. Since Google docs isn't supported by Safari I started using Firefox and like it much better. I even figured out how to embed hyperlinks in the blog on this browser and I couldn't get it done on Safari.

Gotta love this Web 2 stuff!

Changing mindsets

I'm so impressed with how my students have taken up the virtual assignment I tried in my summer literacy class, and now I'm learning a ton from them. It's like what Colin was saying about Ranciere's book 'The Ignorant Schoolmaster"; I don't have to know everything to teach it. We are all learning together about the nature and implications of a web 2 mindset and having a blast doing it. I am at least. I know it's an assignment for them, but it sure feels like they are enjoying unpacking the literacies involved.

Amazed

My friends Colin and Michele amaze me. We had a video conference on Skype with them in my class tonight and they made our heads spin. They are always one step ahead in their thinking and I leave conversations with them rethinking everything. At AERA Colin caught me off guard with a comment about critical literacy as a played out modernist discourse. I thought about it for weeks afterward. Tonight I got more insight into what he meant when he talked about the difference between "languages of power" and "practices of power". I got this.

But I still left wanting to rethink everything and feeling self-doubt. It feels like Colin and Michele breezed past talking about critical literacy as a kind of instructable idea to doing critical practices in everyday life while I was taking a nap or something.

I'm desperate to see things change and am tired of people talking about injustice and social reproduction as they drive their SUVs around "those" areas of town. It is simply no longer tolerable that urban schools, neighborhoods, communities, and families are ignored or pathologized as some problem to be solved. So I have to do something and critical literacy seemed like a way to get there. Yet it is still rooted in autonomous literacy and an outsider mindset. Maybe I've been closer to what they are talking about than I think and just need my mind blown more often so I can see better.

Still got lots of thinking to do but I remain amazed by my brilliant friends.

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.

Short on laughter

Not so much laughing these days.

Work is good but very hectic. We had the distinct privilege of hosting Gloria Ladson-Billings this past week and she was outstanding. Her many meetings and the public talk woke people up. So this is a good thing...

I was humbled by an event honoring my installation as the Michael W. Scandling Professor of Education. My brother came from LA which was particularly meaningful to me. I decided to "go for it" in the address I gave. I purposefully opened up a more personal voice and a firmer acitivist voice that I think surprised some folks. It wasn't a surprise that I put forward such a challenge I guess, but I realized that most of my colleagues had never heard me speak before. They've certainly heard me "talk back" at meetings, but never on my own work. The man for whom my chair is named was there and that made it particularly special to me. I've known him a long time and we share the same commitments. So this is a good thing...

The children's zone ethnography is going very well. "The Plan" (http://www.rcsdk12.org/rcz/DOCS/RCZ%20Community%20Plan.pdf) is finished and public and fundraising is in full swing. Lots of complex identity work going on and I am still a kid in a candy store doing the research. Nancy, Kevin, Jana, and I are working on a paper for AERA that we are really excited about. This is definitely a good thing...

My son is in crisis and this is not a good thing. It's too long a story to write here, but it demoralizes me as a mother and as a researcher. Sometimes the mountain just seems much too high.

Time Flies

Seems like I blinked and months flew by. The ethnography project is in full throttle and we are breathless. Data collection has ramped up significantly as the community approaches the deadline they set for presenting the plan. I'm in constant awe of the work they are doing. I wrote in my field notes the other day that "this is the revolution". 130 people have collaborated on a total community reform that gets at racism, class inequity, education, health, safety, youth development, parenting, employment, housing...it's incredible. I can't believe the gift we have as ethnographers. Methods books just don't get at this part.

On a personal note, I was given an endowed chair in the name of someone I know really well. It's pretty exciting. And we've started another documentary on SLAM poetry. The Rochester kids got accepted in an international SLAM and they stand a good chance of going far in the competition. Who knows, they may even win.

Flying along and having tons of fun.

Road Trip

The bus trip to see the Harlem Children's Zone (http://www.hcz.org/) was amazing! I got to ride with 40 other folks from Rochester, most of them residents of the Rochester Children's Zone (http://www.rcsdk12.org/rcz/). We laughed, talked about everything, and generally had a wonderful time. As one of "the ethnographers" as they call us, I rode along, interviewing, observing - I'm like a kid in a candy store. It's been a long time since I've been able to do real ethnography and this project is a real gift.

We drove 6 hours down, visited the HCZ, met Geoffrey Canada, ate at Sylvia's, then drove 6 hours back. It was a long day but well worth it. I am continually impressed with the commitment of the Rochester people to transforming the lives of children in the northeast sector. They no longer accept the poverty, crime, poor schools, and dismal life opportunities in their community. I feel privileged to be able to tag along and feel a tremendous responsibiity to get this right.

Canada's project is amazing. They've done some truly phenomenal work. I'm concerned though about the overwhelming emphasis on testing and packaged curricula. He basically gave up on public schools (although he says he hasn't) and started a charter school. They do still send folks into the public schools in Harlem, but as "providers". He uses the term "conveyor belt" of services to describe what they offer; basically this means they start with new parents and go up to senior citizens. They really have done some amazing transformations of people's lives.

There are some significant differences between Harlem and Rochester though. Chief among them is money. Canada has $100,000,000 and a $35,000,000 annual budget. It's mostly private money he has raised with a huge amount from a friend from college. Plus he built his own building on 119th street for $42,000,000. No way Rochester has this kind of money. The other main difference is Canada himself. He is a strong, charismatic leader that is holding the whole thing together. Rochester doesn't have that either. What we do have though is a strong team. In the end, this may be the greatest strength.

So, last blog of 2006. Happy New Year!

Policy Hangover

So I did the mayor's literacy summit. It's taken me a few days to figure out what I wanted to say about the whole experience. Overall I think I did okay. Twice I've run into people in the "street" who were there and who wanted to talk about what I said. Actually, both of them wanted to know on what I base my claim that there is no evidence that offers causal links between illiteracy and criminality (!), but more on that in a minute.

Being able to talk to policy-makers is something I've have been struggling with for a long time. I have wondered why policy makers typically do not ask folks like me to give input on their policy plans. Instead, they use “numbers” that use “folk” knowledge about literacy and how to understand it that ignores what research has told us for more that 25 years. My colleagues in policy point out that administrators, politicians, and news people don’t know what to do with qualitative research like mine or with the kinds of texts I typically produce. Cynically, I think they just don't want to believe that their long held ideas about superiority of the white middle class as the norm might need to be rethought, let alone eliminated.

Back to the summit...originally, no one on the committee had thought to ask a literacy researcher let alone me, but one of my colleagues pushed the issue. I was the only literacy researcher represented at all. The other panelists were institute directors or program directors who do not do literacy research, but rather analyze large databases to determine trends. I was shocked to hear two long-discredited arguments put forward without the blink of an eye [my eyes were wide open in astonishment]: 1) that illiteracy is a cause of criminality; and, 2) that African American parents do not talk to their children and they have to be taught how to do so. Not only were these assumptions taken as commonplace, in spite of my explicit naming of the fallacy of these points, but also NCLB and the resulting Reading First mandates were not of concern at all. It felt as though 30 years of research and practice had not happened. There were no teachers in the room either.

I kept my mouth shut for the most part in hopes that I would have a second opportunity to talk to the mayor and his committee about how to understand literacy and how to think about making citywide policy. We'll see. So far, my phone hasn't rung.

Turkey buzz

So I've tried a couple of times to post from my treo to no avail. It must be this beta version of blogger. I was at NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) and tried to post some reactions to some sessions I saw; frankly I wrote a nice posting during a boring one! Alas those ideas are floating around in cyberspace somewhere.

It's the day after Thanksgiving in the US and I'm working on this talk I have to give to the Mayor of Rochester's Literacy Summit on Tuesday morning. I feel like it's my one shot at making a difference. I know that's not literally true, but it's the first time I've been asked to give a talk to such a policy making audience. The mayor's public mission is to make Rochester "the most literate mid-sized city in America." But the path they are taking uses a definition of literacy as decoding, and they are using old, long discredited arguments about links between "illiteracy" and criminality and locating the "problem" in children and families. They didn't think of asking me originally, but my colleague pushed the issue. So now I'm on the agenda. I'm worried and nervous. I'm trying to figure out how to say what I need to say in a language and tone they will hear; all in twenty minutes! I've basically decided that if I can get the Mayor to question what he means by literacy and to think for a minute before he buys the commercial line hook, line, and sinker, then I've done something worthwhile. Maybe he'll want to talk further.

Wish me luck.

Sunday musings

I tried to add a post late last night from my Treo, but kept getting an error message. I wrote about writing from a Treo and how it connects to what Lankshear, Knobel, Kress and others call new literacies. It was interesting to be writing on a such a small screen and getting frustrated at how small the screen was. I'm so used to composing on a computer that now screen size is an issue. Kress is certainly right when he says we have moved from text to screen in contemporary times.

In my work with teachers, new and veteran, I wonder how to avoid pedagogizing new literacies or simply colonizing out of school literacies for school purposes. Whose purposes are those anyway? I have already seen "lessons" in keyboarding and other "skills" that make me worry about what on earth schools think they are supposed to do. I think Gee's right when he says school are irrelevant these days. Necessary for success in a new capitalist world, but irrelevant to any sort of authentic meaning. Yet somehow, I don't want to give up on schools. Or maybe it's the children in them that I'm worried about. I see a lot of damage being done these days and I can't live with that.

Introduction

I've tried to start a blog a few different times. Tried one that was personal and one that was professional. This one is both. As a literacy researcher, I am interested in exploring literacy practices of everyday life. As a professor at the University of Rochester (http://www.rochester.edu/Warner/faculty/larson.html) I teach courses in teacher preparation and doctoral courses in research methods and curriculum.

I called this blog "literacy, life, and laughter" because I want to write and think about all these things and to hear from others about what they are writing and thinking about along these lines.