Literacy Essay Research Paper Whether we are

Literacy Essay, Research Paper

Whether we are experiencing a ‘literacy crisis’ depends on ones understanding of the term ‘crisis’.It is obvious from our personal experiences that there are prolems among groups on a broader scale and on a smaller, local individual scale but I do not believe that it is a ‘crisis’ but a concern that needs to be addressed. The media reports construct an image of ‘this’ massive danger to the individual, the State, the national and our standing in global networks because of the illiterate masses’. My concern is that as an educator in a Senior Secondary School I am obliged to prepare my students to enter the workforce with the survival skills that they will need in our everchanging world.

It can be argued that to be literate gives one a feeling of self worth and is more positive than being illiterate which implies individual defiency and failure.Whereas literacy leads to economic progress and development illiteracy leads to social demise. The individual themselves may not perceive it this way but the media definitely do and it is through the implications of their reporting that a have-have not structure is reinforced.

What has caused this concern to evolve to what is now viewed as a ‘crisis’ can be seen in our historical background. Social changes have been rapid since the 1950’s with the influence of television and media now predominating. The authoritative stance of youth has altered, from the ’50s there was a gradual move from the acceptance of society’s codes of behaviour to a youth culture in the 60’s demanding rights – something which predominates today. At the same time retention rates increased and in the 1970’s Labour introduced its social reform or ’social equality’ policy which encouraged all young people to remain at school. Now there is the everchanging and ever demanding technology change- of television,video,computer games ‘distracting’ and influencing us.

Alongside these changes there have been changing economic patterns, a change in employment situations where it is predicted that today’s youth could expect to change jobs at least five times in their life time. The rationalisation of businesse and employment has seen adults suddenly without a job where in the past often a job was forever. We all now need to be multiskilled and to be productive members of the workforce if we want to retain our jobs. With changes like this then naturally there has been concern about the education system which provides the nation with its literate employers. Ours is an information society, it is one that is part on international globalisation of markets, everyone must be productive within this system and to do so it is recognised now that must be literate. Adults must be able to read and write and now more importantly that before to interpret written information because modern technology is superceding a lot more of a communicative skills jobs, it is rapid because of this technology which is forever changing.

Instead of working individually,adults now work as a team to be more productive, to review,analyse and to make the necessary changes to increase productivity consequently we have to be flexible and forever open to change. The conconcept of literacy has changed, in the 50’s an ‘ideal’ literate person was a moral subject but today with all the changes education is linked with economic restructuring and productivity. Surveys or tests now indicate how we are literate and how shools are improving this and on the basis of these there is often seen to be a problen as portrayed in the media. Based on these changes that is what it is, not so much a ‘literacy crisis’ but a change in the expectations of what an individual should be able to do. They are as in Lo Blanco and Freebody state the ‘ New Foundations’ of literacy. The new modes of understanding means that there are more means of communication to be learnt and more meanings all of which put new demands on the individual and consequently on society as a whole. The definitions of what literacy is vary but generally it is ;a quantifiable continuum of acquisitions-skills that enable developmental community ‘function’ and not as many believe the ‘function approach’ concentrating on the ‘old basics’ in isolation which do not sufficiently relate to something concrete’ that can be seen to be in context with the real world. It is therefore the conflict between those with the support for the latter and the real needs of the individual where it then becomes to portray a crisis. Society has changed and will continue to do so’ it is more complex, literacy is changing and this is when it becomes portrayed in crisis. The nature of literacy is so diverse from the expected coding of information in the written format,meaning in texts, the diversity of it across cultures especially in a country like Australia, the social aspect, the personal, the public and the international communication. All of these aspects are what we expect a ‘literate’ person to be competent in and for the education system to provide the basis for. So there tends to become an expectation that schools can do it all and that all children will come out of school competent in these areas. There are some who do not perform and they are the ones often targeted by the media or tests to illustrate this ‘crisis’ that we are having. The reasons are vast- we are multiculturalist, there are the Indigenous Australians, people’s a