Compliance Literacy - the New Orthodoxy

In this series of 12 posts, I would like to discuss what 'Literacy' is. How it is used in education and wht its future direction might be.

Literacy  and numeracy advocates find themselves in a strange time and place. They want to promote their wares to a world that considers they've bought them already. Rightly, perhaps, people are suspicious of anyone claiming to be selling yet another model. So 'small business' literacy and numeracy, and individual practitioners are sometimes openly belittled. A colleague recently described an academic role focussing on new andragogical approaches as 'a toy job'.

The market for literacy and numeracy is booming, but only, it appears if you have corporate might behind you, and are able to coerce people to submit to 'literacy and numeracy' as an add-on to their already over-taxed existences. Interestingly,  this 'grown-up literacy' appears to be something people can respect and get behind. Perhaps because it is neoliberal, corporate and branded, and our socialised literacy-selves have been conditioned to respect the power of the logo..

This 'Compliance-literacy' is part of the drive to market literacy and numeracy as a commodified product, fast, packaged, pre-digested and processed.  It is junk-food literacy, which otherwise healthy educators  consume without question.

Meanwhile, well-meaning advocates for literacy and numeracy are the visible targets for a growing resentment against 'Compliance-literacy', even as they attempt to reclaim literacy as a social and situated entity on behalf of their colleagues and their students.

Anyway, speaking of situated, real-life  literacy and numeracy - consider this link...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/food-stamps-kroger-grocery_n_1911355.html