FNED 546 Weekly Blog Assignment #8 - Literacy with an Attitude by Patrick J. Finn

 QUOTES REFLECTION

Patrick Finn’s discussion of the American caste system and the educational separation that fuels it details his journey from drill sergeant rookie teacher to well-meaning educational revolutionary – with a drop or two of conspiracy theorist mixed in. Here’s his basic premise, leaning heavily on the findings on Jean Anyon:

“My explanation of why literacy is not seen as dangerous among the working people and unemployed of the United States is that we have developed two kinds od education. First, there is empowering education, which leads to powerful literacy, the kind of literacy that leads to positions of power and authority. Second, there is domesticating education, which leads to functional literacy, literacy that makes a person productive and dependable, but not troublesome.”

It’s not quite as simple as the privileged Eloi and subterranean Morlocks from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, but Finn does subscribe to the notion that students receive basic instruction that keeps them in the economic level they were born into – quite possible by the culture of power (see Lisa Delpit) and the status quo benefit that the “haves” enjoy. Finn didn’t always feel this way, but the more he recollected his own teaching experience, the more Anyon’s perspective grew on him:

“At first, Anyon’s conclusions seemed wildly radical and oversimplified to me. I was not willing to admit that limits so tangible and so obvious existed in classrooms in the United States. After all, America is supposed to be the “land of opportunity” where you can achieve whatever career goals to which you aspire. This class culture distinction sounded as severe as the caste system in India. However, the more I remembered various teaching situations I have been in, the more clear class culture perpetuation became.”  

Some economists (Robert Reich specifically) absolutely agree with this concept – that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the once-burgeoning middle class is shrinking rapidly, essentially getting squeezed by both their neighbors:

“In the past twenty years numbers have grown at the top and bottom. The number in the middle has declined. Those at the top have gotten a whole lot richer. Those in the middle are in about the same place economically, and those at the bottom have gotten a whole lot poorer. (Robert) Reich observed that among the fastest-growing occupations in America is that of security guard. Small wonder.”

REFLECTION: Finn bases much of his argument (or agreement with Jean Anyon’s argument) on the different type of instruction teachers give (or are encouraged to give) at upper/middle/lower schools. Could the solution be as simple as better teachers offering better instruction to middle and lower class schools?