Phil wrote,
>Critical literacy is a different matter.
> Critical literacy can _definitely_ protect people; illiteracy cannot and
> will not. That's why critical literacies are largely shunned
> throughout the
> world.
I respectfully disagree with an idea that print literacy is the same as
literacy. I think that literacy can be oral and print (and in any
combination of them,of course). I also argue that critical thinking is not
rooted in print literacy. It can a be a good question if literacy in any
form is connected to critical thinking. Definitely, I personally
encountered with cases of oral critical literacy (i.e., critical thinking
expressed and embedded in the form of oral literacy and supported by it).
Literacy as mastery of stories, narratives, and texts has many faces.
Without doubts that in our society (unlike in some other traditional
society) a lot of official bureaucratic communication of power is done
through print literacy. However, things may change dramatically in a few
decades from now. For example, a few colleagues of mine, here at University
of Delaware, work on developing a new technology for oral examination in
schools that will allow kids with some "learning disabilities,"
disadvantaged with reading and writing practices, to take school tests
orally via computer interface that will then automatically assess their
answers. The idea goes beyond multiple choice exams. Also, in some places
in US you can already encounter talking ATM. In addition, incoming
multimedia with multiple communicative channels and redundancy may also
undermine monopoly of print literacy on societal communication (especially
official one).
As Nate recently wrote we should be careful in not making historically and
cultural particular as universal. I think we should critically investigate
of modernist ideological discourse bashing "illiteracy". I think it was a
tool for fighting traditional societies and probably contributed to
colonialism. I do not want to romanticize traditional societies either but
I do not think it is only either-or approaches. By the way, we should not
scare ourselves to death by Third, Fourth, and Fifth, and so on ways of
doing things (I'm teasing at our recent xmca discourse suggesting that any
attempts to deviate from traditional "right" and "left" ideologies will
unavoidably lead to the EVIL like nazism) :-)
What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil Graham [mailto:pw.graham@student.qut.edu.au]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 1999 8:02 AM
> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: Campaign Against Public Schools
>
>
> Ricardo,
>
> I'm not saying that literacy will automatically ensure protection against
> ideological violence, but what I _am_ saying is that the ruling class have
> historically enjoyed the priviliges of literacy, which is a communication
> and therefore an organisational technology (ie a technology of control for
> _them_ . Therefore it matters not in the least to the ruler whether the
> ruled are literate or not). Critical literacy is a different matter.
> Critical literacy can _definitely_ protect people; illiteracy cannot and
> will not. That's why critical literacies are largely shunned
> throughout the
> world.
>
> I think the question "what are schools for?" is the question that needs to
> be answered; not whether we ensure (or at least strive for) equal access
> for all to the very best of education.
>
> Smashing public education will do more damage than it is possible to
> imagine. Thanks for the refs, I'll read them with interest.
>
> Phil
>
> At 17:56 18-05-99 -0200, you wrote:
> >You wrote:
> >"An illiterate society will be no more well equipped to protect itself
> >from the violence of ideologues than will a literate one. To argue to
> >the contrary is crazy."
> >
> >Well,
> >Recently I give a look in a book published under Valsiner and Oliveira
> >responsability in with there are very interesting articles on Literacy.
> >The book name is LITERACY IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, by Ablex Publishing
> >Corp., Stamford, Connecticut and London, England, 1998.
> >
> >The articles "Schooling, Literacy, and Social Change: Elements for a
> >Critical Approach to the Study of Literacy" by Angela Kleiman (pgs.
> >183-225)and "Conceptual Organization and Schooling" by Marta Kohl de
> >Oliveira (pgs. 227-245)sign "larger and more complex structures, and
> >cultural differences" - and not so stable relations between Literacy and
> >one's awareness/consciousness of ideologies violence action.
> >
> >
> >Ricardo.
> >
> >
> Phil Graham
> p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
> http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> "Another damned fat book, eh, Mr Gibbon? Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh,
> Mr Gibbon?" - The Duke of Gloucester to Edward Gibbon upon the
> publication
> of "Decline and Fall".
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
>