3rd= Teachers/Educators

Thirdly, I think teachers and educators have had a major influence...possibly even the most important influence, on my learning and perception of literacy. From the superintendents and school board directors who help make decisions about the curriculum, all the way down to my pre-school teacher, I have been directed and instructed to read/write certain things because of their decisions. I think the education system is one of the largest influences on children learning literacy, because it IS the society they are surrounded by. I know some of the readings we have discussed talked about how society forms the concept of literacy for individuals, but at the age of 7, the school and one's classmates are the society they are learning in. At that point in my life, I didn't even know the word 'literacy', or even what it meant to be 'literate'. But I did know what an assignment to read a certain book meant. Children don't critically learn to think about texts until much later in their development. I know it was one of the arguments we looked at, whether to teach children to think critically as they learn to read, or teach them critical thinking after they master the skill. At this point in a child's development, I believe it would be awfully difficult to get a child to answer critical and intellectual questions about things they have read/written. I mean, at the age of 11, I was still day dreaming about what game we would play at recess. I don't think that children could handle learning to analyze texts as they simultaneously learn to read. Also, I think children learn a lot from their teacher's actions and viewpoints, which also plays into the idea of society conforming their young minds. Children look up to adults, especially one's they see 9 months out of the year. They want to please their teacher and to be accepted in the classroom, and how do they accomplish this? By acting and responding in ways that validate their wishes. If they want the teacher's approval, they need to carry out certain societal actions that deem the student as a 'good student'. Now I'm just going on rambling, but I think there are major institutionalized isssues working at hand. If critics want to improve or critique the education system, they need to first analyze the development of human beings, and how they socialize into the world, BEFORE thinking about what they should read/write about.