Blog #7 "Literacy with an Attitude" by Finn

Quotes from "Literacy with an Attitude":

In Finn's "Literacy with an Attitude," he describes his experiences as a teacher and the experiences of Jean Anyon when they observed five schools in New Jersey. Finn's first teaching job was at a school that split the students up into sections based on how well they performed in their classes. The newer teachers had the students that performed the worse in their classes and the teachers with experience had the students that performed the best in their classes. This is strange because to make all of these students get a fair education the students who are struggling need a teacher who knows what they are doing and what they need to do to make their students successful. Finn later became a professor and taught teachers who were trying to receive their doctorate, which allowed him to understand one of his professors.

When Finn first started teaching he was teaching lower level classes and he described how he handled his classes. Finn states, "I made the assignments easy so the least able students could do them. I had 'extra credit' assignments for students who finished early, usually not too challenging, but time-consuming. I corrected and graded and returned every paper by the next class so the students felt that completing assignments mattered,..."(4). Finn made his assignments easy for his students to complete because these students either struggled in school or weren't as interested in school as other students. I like that Finn would return work back with a grade very quickly because when my teachers would take a while to grade work it would be aggravating and annoying. Also, I like how he gives students the chance to do more work if they finish their assignments early, but by making the assignments easy the students may not be getting challenged enough to catch up to their fellow classmates.

While Finn was teaching he was working to receive his doctorate. His favorite professor said something that stuck with him, which was that Finn and the other teachers who were trying to get their doctorate working at poor schools were "hard-bitten". Finn writes, "And we didn't think that John Carter, or any other professor, had anything to tell us about what would work in our classrooms. We were out there in the trenches and we took no advice from anyone who wasn't out there with us. I think that's what John Carter meant when he said we were hard-bitten"(7). Finn's professor John Carter meant that these teachers experienced the schools and communities that have few resources to make their students and classrooms successful. This made these teachers ignorant because they didn't want to take advice from anyone else unless they were in the same position as them.

Finally, Finn described Jean Anyon's experiences of observing five schools in New Jersey. Each of the schools had different financial resources. The five schools were either working-class, middle-class, affluent professional, or executive elite children. Each of these schools had teachers with different backgrounds and relationships to the community they taught in. Each school taught similar topics but were taught in different ways. Anyon finalized her observations of the school and described what the students were learning due to their financial class. Finn states, "The working-class children were learning to follow directions and do mechanical, low-paying work,.... The middle-class children were learning to follow orders and do the mental work that keeps society producing and running smoothly. The affluent professional children were learning to create products and art, "symbolic capital," and at the same time they were learning to find rewards in work itself and to negotiate from a powerful position with those who make the final; decisions on how real capital is allocated. The executive elite children? They were learning to be masters of the universe"(20). These results show that students at these schools were being taught to stay in their classes and to not challenge them or try to get out of them, but to accept that they are stuck in that class their whole life.

I found this reading very interesting. Future teachers need to be aware of their additional job of teaching students how to challenge what society and the world classify the students as. Teachers shouldn't let their students accept or embrace what society thinks of them, they should help them break free of these expectations.