“If you Judge a Fish on it’s Ability to Climb a Tree…”
The year is 2006. I am 12 years old, and I have just set out on an adventure called middle school. I have to make new friends, learn a new school, and figure out where I belong. I am in a constant battle between gaining my independence, yet still depending on my parents at the same time. Every day, I have to make decisions that will affect the rest of my life (or so it seems, anyway). I care a lot about what people think of me, and I constantly compare myself to others. Life is hard.
Most of us cringe at the thought of going back to middle school; we have tried our very best to block out these memories. Dare I even raise the question of why cringing at the thought of middle school is the initial reaction by not some of us, but most? Middle school is a time of rapid change and growth. Adolescents are learning who they are, who others think they are, and who they want to be. During this critical time of development, adolescents’ identities are emerging, and academics is a major aspect of their identities. Just like they want to be accepted on emotional and social levels, adolescents also want to feel accepted academically. However, the way schools measure success if often based on traditional literacy — reading and writing. In order to truly serve the diversity of their students, schools must realize that their perceived literacy problem is, in reality, an assessment problem.
Hank Green (2014), does a fantastic job of capturing the essence of an adolescent in his Crash Course video.
In the video, Hank Green says it best when he describes adolescents as dealing with “the struggle of the need to stand out, and the need to belong” (2014). Green goes on to describe that adolescents’ newly chosen identities are at odds with the expectations of others. This point is largely why middle school is such a difficult time for most. Erik Erikson describes this as the crisis of identity vs. role confusion. Sam McLeod (2008) reiterates Erik Erikson’s stages by explaining what happens if adolescents do not find their sense of self: “Failure to establish a sense of identity within society can lead to role confusion.” Role confusion simply leads to an insecure adolescent.
Schools, unfortunately, play into this crisis tremendously. Adolescents are constantly in search of something that gives their life meaning. Literacy proves to be the main currency that gives their chosen identities worth. Schools ultimately restrict these literacies and are unaware of the implications that this restriction has on the adolescents’ social and academic lives. Adolescents use literacy as a form of expression, whether that is through media, visuals, written word, etc. Their chosen form of literacy also carries with it certain social and academic implications.
Margret Finders’ (1997) novel, Just Girls, essentially captures what these social and academic implications are. The novel follows different groups of middle school girls through their time in middle school and documents the struggles that they go through. One overarching theme of the novel was that the literacy the girls choose has certain social and academic implications that come along with them. Two out of many forms of literacy that are used throughout the novel are writing and traditional reading. One example that Finders describes is that signing yearbooks becomes a way to gain social status. “Unknowingly, some are allowed to speak while others are silenced, some to write while others are written upon” (pg. 47). In the school’s eyes, the signing years are a reward. Everybody loves it, and everybody does it. However, it is clear this is not the case: students that are not able to afford a yearbook or those that do not feel comfortable expressing themselves in this way get labeled by their peers as outcasts. Not only that, but when it comes to traditional reading in the classroom, the genre that the girls choose has certain social meanings. The social groups formed by adolescents have certain boundaries that can not be crossed. Reading something that is not characteristic of their social group crosses these unsaid boundaries. One young girl in the novel, Dottie, is not considered “popular”. She prefers to read about sports, and she makes this known one day in class by making a comment on a classmate’s paper. From the teacher’s standpoint, she is a model student who does her work. From her peers’ standpoint, she is an outcast.
Time after time, schools inhibit and restrict many forms of literacy that give certain adolescents worth by making one form of literacy predominant over another. Schools pre-determine the form of literacy that is “best” for students to become proficient in, which most of the time is very traditional and does not apply to everyone. Not only that, but schools, in turn, determine a child’s ability based on these pre-determined literacies. The saying below illustrates this concept and rings true for the education system today.
One prime example of this is a student named Keegan. Keegan is a student who typically sleeps in Biology and is labeled “not scientifically literate” by school standards. However, when another form of literacy is introduced, Keegan begins to flourish. Keegan is given the opportunity to create music using biological terms. He is able to express himself adequately, and he feels smart. This is just one example of how finding other forms of literacy will aid children in feeling smart and thus producing “smarter” results.
The education system today has determined that schools have a major literacy problem. While most would agree, I would like to suggest that schools have an assessment problem, not a literacy problem. NCTM offers a fantastic outlook on what mathematical assessments look like in Principles to Actions (2014). “NCTM defined assessment as ‘the process of gathering evidence about a student’s knowledge of , ability to use, and disposition toward mathematics’…” (pg. 89). Assessments are generally thought of as “ ‘something done to students’ ” rather than something that is used to provide evidence of students’ learning and progress (pg. 90). High-stakes tests that schools weigh so heavily only assess one form of literacy. This ultimately creates a great paradox within the education system. While schools attempt to assess literacy of students, they restrict it due to the testing of only one form of literacy. Every child has the ability to learn. If we believe that, then why do we let tests tell us that they cannot? This must mean that something is wrong with the tests that are given.
Adolescents crave the urge to express themselves. If we take moment and look around us, literacy is here. Student’s are literate in more ways than the school can count. When schools restrict literacy, they are essentially restricting adolescents’ personal and emotional growth and sending them into role confusion. In This We Believe by AMLE (2010), it states, “Every day, millions of diverse, rapidly changing 10- to 15-year-olds make critical and complex life choices and form the attitudes, values, and dispositions that will direct their behavior as adults. They deserve an education that will enhance their healthy growth as lifelong learners, ethical and democratic citizens…” (pg. 12). This holds true today. Students deserve to have an education that is tailored to many different forms of literacy. If curriculum was centered around multiple forms of literacy instead of one, the academic and social lives of students may be quite different.
References:
McLeod, S. (2008). Erik Erikson. Retrieved October 05, 2016, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html
Green, H. (2014). Adolescence: Crash Course Psychology #20. Retrieved October 05, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzyXGUCngoU
Finders, M. J. (1997). Just girls: Hidden literacies and life in junior high. New York: Teachers College Press.
Principles to actions: Ensuring mathematical success for all. (n.d.). NCTM.
AMLE. (2010). This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents. AMLE.
