Saturday, November 7, 2015

Literacy with an Attitude by Patrick Finn (Connection)

After reading Finn, it reminds me a lot of Delpit, Johnson and Kozol. Finn himself mentions Kozol in this reading. However, Finn's writing style is similar to Kozol. Finn uses personal experience and tells a story to get his point across. I liked hearing his personal experience and helped me understand his main idea a little easier.

"The status quo is the status quo because people who have the power to make changes are comfortable with the way things are." (Finn XI).

This quote could be straight from Johnson. Johnson talks about privilege and how those with privilege often don't realize they have it while those without it do realize it. Finn talks about the rich children getting empowering education which leads to positions of power and authority compared to the rest of the children who get a domesticated education which allows them to be productive but not be troublesome. The rich don't want change because they have everything going for them and don't want to risk properly educating the  lower classes because it may impact their status.


*This video describes how much of an impact the middle class could have if  they were to use their power of numbers to "rise up" and make a change. Something the wealthy are scared of*



"I didn't say to an errant student, 'What are you doing?' I said,  'Stop that and get to work.' No discussions. No openings for argument." (Finn 4).

Delpit would have been proud. Finn understood these students needed explicit directions in the lower level literacy classes. Since they are doing so poorly in literacy, they may not be able to understand the true meaning of a question such as "What are you doing?". A teacher really means why are you not doing what I asked you to do while all the students hear is what are you doing? These explicit instructions allowed the students to understand exactly what is expected of them and gives them the tools of success.


I enjoyed reading this. I like his experience as a teacher and the methods he used to make his students successful. He understood their needs and created an environment suitable for them. It gave them a sense of accomplishment by receiving their graded work the next class and completing assignments that were fit for their learning abilities. I hope I can be like this as a teacher.

7 comments:

  1. I like the connections you presented in this response great work

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love the pictures that you added!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You always find really great pictures that enhance what we read and also helps support your argument.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love the pictures and videos and all the color you add to your blog. Everything that you have connects back to everything you are saying.

    ReplyDelete
  5. love the pics and the connections to our previous reading.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I like your videos, it really connected to your blog post.

    ReplyDelete