Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me??

I feel that as part of a critical literacy study, words and labels are extremely important. I do not just mean what words we use to define critical literacy, but words we supply our students with to describe things. Critical literacy is all about how we view documents, but also how we view the world. As a history teacher, as I have mentioned, it is important that we teach our students how to view and analyze what we see and hear. Using critical literacy in the classroom and our everyday lives has two main prongs. The first prong involves the baggage and attitudes we bring when we view a document. The second prong involves how that document shapes our attitudes and our views of the world and us. As I listened to some of Vivian Vasquez’s clip pod casts I began to think about language and how we use language to define who we are and how we think. I had been listening to several pod casts about feminism and how we define sexuality and the terminology associated with it. I did not connect these issues to my in class experience until this weekend.
I find that my students use words carelessly. The call each other names which I do not think they really understand. They make jokes about each other: skin tone, nationality, gender, ect. They joke about be “retarded” or about be a “gay”. These terms may seem almost innocent enough, my students are still young and raw when it comes to political correctness, but when should they learn. These jokes and name calling are offensive. I realize they live in a sheltered world, but when/who will teach them that what they say and how they say it matters. Now the students on the other end of the jokes proclaim they are not offended. Is this because they are so used to these jokes that they do not care, or is it because they just don’t care. I am offended by the language these children throw around. Then it hit me: this is critical literacy in their everyday lives.
Comedians jokes about these things. Their parents probably mention these terms, throw them about carelessly. I have even heard teachers say inappropriate things to students and around students. All of these things add to students’ critical literacy baggage. They heard it on TV, the radio, in the movies, and from people all around them. I believe it is important when addressing critical literacy and the responsibility of becoming functional and analytical adults that teachers should address the language that is used in the classroom. The words these students use have a historical background: one that is derogatory and painful to those on the receiving end. I realize while I am teaching my students to look closer and examine what they read and hear that my students need to be taught to question everything. The words people use can have an adverse affect on someone. That jokes are not always funny. It is high time someone step up to the plate and tell these kids that what they are saying is not right. They need to learn to weigh their words; to understand what they are saying.
I am not sure how to do this. But I suppose it will be one day at a time.

Teaching to the Fourth

Teaching to the Fourth Power offers intriguing insight on how to make teaching matter. This personalization of teaching is both on the part of the teacher and of the student. Teachers need to realize that they are not puppets or actors reciting a script. There needs to be creativity and challenges by the teacher for the students. Teachers are always students at hearts. We are constantly learning new things in order to improve on our tool kit. The bigger, more creative, and well researched the tool kit the better the teacher. We are empowered to think critically and that skill needs to be passed down onto our students. We need to be aware of culture, according to the article. That the local culture often clashes with the dominant culture the learning environment. As part of our tool kit, teachers must force this clash of the cultures in the classrooms. Especially in history, the clashing of cultures shapes destinies and made us who are we today. It is important that we teacher students to look at historical events, primary source documents, and popular culture in a critical light. In my own classroom, I know I neglect certain cultures in favor of the dominant. But the textbook and the state tests do not reflect these cultures, only the main, dominant ones. It is a dilemma I am not sure how to approach.
Teaching to the Fourth Power also discusses the students’ involvement in learning. A student must become actively involved in the content; class must be a personal experience in order to impact the lives of students. Students need to posses the tools of critical analysis. They must realize and accept that sometimes their culture or personality is ignored in the mainstream of education. There is where it is important for teachers to teach their students to understand dominant culture and set out to change it. Connecting life outside the classroom to the life inside the classroom is vital. America is still a country of immigrants, a melting pot. Students can make a difference in changing how America views its past and perhaps even its present. The article mentions Paulo Freire’s work on social action in the community. In a history class, there is a lot of room for social change and activism. Teachers must remember that they are shaping the future. We should instill in them they change we want to see in the world.
There are many things that teachers can do to influence and educate their students on things outside the classroom. It is our responsibility to teacher students to honor who they are and where they come from. Critical analysis is an excellent way to do this. By understanding the main, dominant culture pervasive in schools; these students may have the chance to change that. They could change how history is written. An intriguing thought: history not written by the victor but the forgotten.