Tozer Reading Response
While, and after, reading this piece by Tozer, I did two things, first I thought of how this applied to me as a future teacher, and second I found a couple articles online about how we have progressed since then. I will address both lines of thought individually.
First, I wondered how this could be applied to me, as a future teacher of history. Most people think that history is just a list of names and dates that must be memorized for the test, and then can be forgotten. I would disagree, naturally, and claim that history can be just as useful in creating educated and informed citizens as geometry and biology. Of course, there must be some memorization of facts, such as George Washington was the first president of the United States, and World War II was fought against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and the Empire of Japan, but these facts must be then used in a more constructive way, in order to teach the students a way of critical thinking. The students might not care, nor truly need to know, that during World War II thousands of Japanese-Americans were interned in concentration camps, but they should know how to recognize the causes and events leading up to that. They should be able to apply it to other, contemporary situations, such as the post 9-11 reaction to the Arab community. It is in this way that History is every bit as important as geometry and biology. Geometry teaches the students how to build arguments, from the axioms to theorems, and biology teaches students to understand and accept their bodies, then how to recognize and deal with different diseases.
Regardless of my opinions of history, I also wondered how the new laws regarding No Child Left Behind affected the standings. In December 2005, the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) published the report “A First Look at the Literacy of America’s Adults in the 21st Century.” NAAL uses three categories to judge English literacy: prose, document, and quantitative. Prose is, in essence, the ability to read newspapers or other printed material, essentially the “Cultural literacy” as described Tozer (p. 256). Document literacy is the ability to read and understand labels, such as prescription labels. Finally, quantitative literacy is the ability to read and understand text with numbers imbedded, such as computing and comparing cost per ounce of food items (New Report on Adult Literacy Levels). In the 11 years from the last publication by the NAAL, the improvements have not been incredibly inspiring. Here are some figures given by another report showing the impact of NCLB (Helping Adults Become Literate):
- Overall, average quantitative literacy skills rose 8 points from 1992-2003.
- Adults scoring “basic” or better—i.e., showing at least those skills necessary to perform simple and everyday quantitative tasks—rose from 75 to 79 percent.
- African Americans’ prose and document literacy scores increased by 6 and 8 points, respectively.
- Asian/Pacific Islanders’ prose literacy scores increased 16 points.
- Average prose and document literacy scores for Hispanic American adults fell by 18 and 14 points, respectively, between 1992 and 2003.
Although the improvements have not be inspiring, the results show that it is possible to improve literacy rates, although not overnight, it will, undoubtedly require a great deal of work on the part of teachers, parents, and the government in order to get all adults, and future adults, literate.
Readings:
Tozer, S. E., & Willis, A. I. (1995). Liberty and literacy today: Contemporary perspectives. In S. E. Tozer, P. C. Violas & G. B. Senese (Eds.), School and society: Historical and contemporary perspectives (2nd ed., pp. 247-264). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Websites:
New Report on Adult Literacy Levels, First Since 1992, Shows Need for High School Reform. (15 December, 2005). Retrieved 10 January, 2006 from http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2005/12/12152005.html
Helping Adults Become Literate. (December, 2005). Retrieved 10 January, 2006 from http://www.ed.gov/nclb/methods/reading/adultliteracy.html
