What's your Literacy Andragogy?

We are now into our seventh of 12 posts loosely around 'What is Literacy?'   I'd like to discuss  how educators' philosophies might reflect their classroom approaches.  Educators may hold views about Literacy that reflect their general philosophies about education. Such andragogical approaches might coincide with, and reinforce our views about Literacy.

Andragogical Approaches that emerge from Autonomous Literacy Literacy is a set of skills – therefore literacy teaching is a quantified and separated from Learning Outcomes. The Teaching of Literacy equates to transfer of those skills to other areas of life. Literacy is a unified internationally recognised concept – if everyone were literate, the world would be a better place. The aim of literacy is to produce fitter, more productive citizens. Teachers promote and facilitate more effective critical thinking and reflection in students by allowing access to wider ranges of expression. Knowledge tends to be expressed in ways which reflect western intellectual tradition – codified, categorized and empirically proven. International surveys indicate that an alarming number of our contemporaries are not ‘functionally literate’, and are therefore having a negative impact on productivity.

Andragogical Approaches that emerge from Ideological Literacy Literacy is a situated event – therefore literacy is what emerges from classroom practice and compliments Learning Outcomes. Transfer of skills may occur for some ‘higher’ level learners, but for the majority of lower-level readers this is an unrealistic expectation. Literacy is multiple, situation and context-dependent, and it is dangerous to assume what an ‘ideal’ learner should look like. The aim of literacy is to recognize the complex ways people negotiate their worlds. Teachers engage in shared conversations and explorations of text to encourage relevance and identification with their Learning. Knowledge is not always fixed, and cannot always be quantified, but rather, shifts and is adaptable to purpose. Historically, the alarm at low literacy levels has changed little since Victorian times, and the notion that literacy acquisition equates to social success is a modern ‘myth’.

This is not meant to imply that educators sit neatly in two distinct, opposing camps. Educators shift, negotiate, initiate and embrace a range of different views ideas and relationships as well as teaching approaches.  However, what might emerge as a common feature for the majority of educators is a type of performativity or  resistance to engaging in notions like ‘literacy embedding’, if it is presented as a compliance, or add-on to their already work-intensive environments.  Therefore it is worthwhile describing and challenging some preconceptions around literacy and compliance that have emerged.