Reflections 2

FALL 2004

 

The key reflective component, for myself, pertaining to Discourses and Sociocultural Studies in Reading by James Paul Gee, is that literacy discourse is very much social innature. We have ways of (1) talking about people and things, (2) acting with people and things, and (3) ways of acting towards people and things, all of which are sociocultural responses. That was pretty straightforward. So far, so good. In addition, this speaks, to me, of the importance in learning to view the experiences of other people as their way of making sense/meaning of the happenings around them. This acceptance, of other views, further validates who they are.

I was most confused when Gee wrote that there is “no reading in general, at least none that leads to thought and action in the world” as I beg to differ. I am an avid reader of spirituality based material. As a result of this personal engagement, I find that I am relating to text outside the sociocultural norm, of which Gee speaks. I could, therefore, easily be seen as “deviant” in my beliefs in this area, given that they do not mimic those of the organized religious multitude. This continued reading at a personal level has led me to a change in thought patterns, which, also, has resulted in a change of action. To be quite frank, I still have no idea as to what Gee means.

It certainly takes much effort on the part of an author, for example, to be recognized in a certain way. In my reading of deeply spiritual and unorthodox material, I am actively engaged in recognizing the efforts each individual author has made; hence, my personal “configurations” or patterns are changing. Over the course of these spiritual journeying years, I have learned to become most reflective when engaged in the reading process.

With regards to The New Literacy Studies, I was, at first, very much interested in reading about the new capitalism, especially as it was of the same understanding that “reading, writing, knowledge, work, meaning and value” are important components with regards to the social turn away from the old capitalism (individual behavior and individual minds). In my continued reading of this article, I was quite shocked, as well as angry, to discover that so-called new capitalism leads to very poor pay, temporary (service type) work, total commitment to the business, very little social responsibility towards less-advantaged citizens and creation of cultural/class-based affiliations among wealthy individuals around the world. 

New capitalism, apparently, thinks very little about these increased social injustices. It seems to me that validation of people, as important individuals, is key to resolving the numerous social injustices of the world; something that does not exist in either old capitalism or new capitalism. As long as social injustices remain, there will always exist a “we versus them” mentality. As a planetary member, I feel all have to work towards eliminating social injustices. We can begin to tackle this daunting task by powerfully educating those that will become the future teachers and leaders; namely, our students.

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