Agree, Argue, Assume, Aspire

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When reading a text, there are things that the author presents that we can agree upon that inform our understanding of the text or subject matter, things that we argue with that detract from our understanding of the main idea, things we, the author or the subject in question assumes that either help convey information, or detract from understanding the very things that the book presents and things that we aspire towards in our own lives. When a group of literacy education students and I began to evaluate chapter 3 of the text “Reading and Learning to Read”, there were several things we agreed upon with the author about meeting the literacy needs of diverse learners. The most important element of this chapter was that it is dire for literacy teachers to allow ELL students to maintain a strong identification with their language and culture because then they have a more positive self concept about their ability to learn. Not only did we agree that a teacher should help maintain the child’s first language, but the teacher should also allow the student to feel comfortable in bringing artifacts from their culture to share with the class, and further aid that comfort by facilitating a dialogue between ELL students and English speakers by labeling the classroom objects with both English and the native language of the student.
There were also some arguments we brought for the text that negated from our understanding. For example the text was fair to mention the validity of accents and dialects that stray from Standard English, but didn’t go further in how to go beyond their validity for diversity’s sake, through the written and spoken word or Art. Though we agreed that bringing artifacts from the ELL child’s heritage for show and tell is an appropriate method of inclusion, we still felt some further clarifications were needed on how to amend instances when foreign artifacts would be laughed at by English speakers and the possible psychological damage it could do to the child in opening up to their peers again. An assumption made by the author was that negative feelings regarding accents and dialects would cause a child low self-esteem, but we argued that again, this was not an adequate reason to accept deviations from Standard English at face value because it coddles children and makes them unprepared for the negative attitudes regarding certain dialects in spaces outside of school. We also felt the author in her defense of inclusion classes not only ignored the bullying that could occur, but went as far as to claim General Education students will see the situation as a means to learn that “everyone learns differently.” It would benefit the text if the author showed just how students would make that connection developmentally without proper guidance, and which sort of conversations to have with them.
Towards the end of our discussion we realized that there were still a number of practices in the chapter that we aspire towards in our future practice as teachers. For example, we aspire to make certain our classrooms are comfortable and accepting for diverse learners. We also felt it is of great importance to learn policies that affect our students in order to empower them and ourselves in both our journeys as lifelong learners. Lastly we want to model respect for differences in learning, as well as respect for all accents, dialects, and levels of literacy for our students.

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