Graduate, But Not Literate…
What do you recall thinking about on the day of your high school graduation? Were you focused on summer plans or vacation trips? How about the sometimes dreaded temporary job? I’m sure most of you already had all of your college preparations laid out so not too much agonizing to be had there. Basically, the beginning of summer after senior year is more or less one of laid back tranquility. Now try and recollect your first day of freshman year in college. Was your very first thought of that very first class, “There’s no way I’m prepared enough to be here” or “I sure hope I learned everything I needed to in high school”. For most people this can be common and for many the worrying is unmerited. However, throughout the United States being called a high school graduate does not share the same meaning.
According to David Rutenberg, author of High School Literacy (2009), in 1992 the amount of high school seniors performing at or above the proficient reading level was 40%. This proportion ended up actually decreasing to 35% by 2005 (p. 1). These figures are shockingly low to begin with, but what’s more, they clearly decrease over time. One of the obvious reasons that this is bad for those high school graduates is how it affects their immediate future. As explained by Mark Kutner in Literacy in Everyday Life, “Adults who have proficient levels of literacy are roughly 5 times as likely to earn $1,950 or more a week when compared to those with below basic levels” (p. 3). When tallied up that is north of $101,000 a year.
Undoubtedly, there must be a number of reasons for statistics such as these and Suzanne Plaut does her best to give us one example. In her book The Right to Literacy in Secondary Schools she describes how “too many secondary schools suffer from what a colleague of mine calls the “fast food” syndrome. We feed our students junk thinking- quick, easy, but lacking much nutritional value” (p. 3). This notion accurately indicates how students can miss out on an essential understanding of literacy. With quick, feeble lessons that do not delve deep into any thought provoking techniques of learning it is quite possible that students fall behind and are simply “moved along”.
Besides the types of lessons given and how skillfully they are being taught, a focus should also be placed on how well our students are actually learning. By this I’m referring to the difference between auditory, visual, and tactile learners. The ability of a child to grasp various concepts can be difficult so in order to help them in any way possible it is necessary to discover which way suits best.
To this point, a great quote by the late Albert Einstein states, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”. This shows a great understanding and reason for the reserved mindset students can sometimes accumulate when dealing with their courses. Whether they feel like they can’t absorb what is being taught to them or decide to “shut down” mentally due to being overwhelmed. Keeping them engaged in the material can be a simple but hugely necessary step towards furthering a student’s growth.
As Nick Sousanis writes in his book Unflattening, “When we stop questioning, we become transfixed, rendered inanimate, flat” (p. 110). For kids to be curious and question their material might make all the difference in education. He goes on to say that, “To prepare good thinkers we need to cultivate good seers” (p. 81). This can suggest that we must be prepared to help students help themselves and give them the necessary tools to do so.
References:
Kutner, M., Greenberg, E., Jin, Y., Boyle, B., Hsu, Y., & Dunleavy, E. (2007). Literacy in everyday life: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. http://nces.ed.gov/Pubs2007/2007480.pdf
Plaut, S. (2009). The right to literacy in secondary schools: Creating a culture of thinking. New York: Teachers College Press.
Rutenberg, D. (2009, January). High School Literacy: A Quick Stat Fact Sheet. Retrieved July 1, 2016, http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED507600.pdf
Sousanis, N. (2015). Unflattening. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
