POST #6: "LITERACY WITH AN ATTITUDE" PATRICK J. FINN

 "Literacy with an Attitude"

Patrick J. Finn

Argument

      Throughout Patrick J. Finn's writing in "Literacy with an Attitude" we, as an audience, get a flavor of his personal experiences as an educator in working class schools, and his methods of teaching. These methods may either be familiar or foreign to those who read through his text, because as he outlines later on, there are different observable ways in which students are educated and how they are educated depending on their social class. I was very surprised reading through this section of "Literacy with an Attitude" for I had no idea that there were schools in existence that performed as he describes them to. It was bewildering to imagine a classroom where a student prepares a lesson and teaches the rest of the class said lesson. 

    Finn describes the four levels of the educational social structure as "working class," "middle class," "affluent professional," and "executive elite." The main point that Finn manages to drive through his writing is how each level of schooling teaches different content in different ways in order to prepare children for an almost predetermined future. 

    When discussing the working class schools, Finn explains how students must be given direct orders by educators in order for them to prove themselves as figures of authority. Many students in these schools form a resistance to said authority. Most teachers at these schools were local and shared a mentality that when their students would grow up, they would only ever get as far as they, themselves did. 

The middle class schooling is what I felt I related to the most. Teachers still grew up and went to school in the same area they teach in. Information is heavily reliant on textbooks and mobility around the schools/ rooms is limited. Middle class schools prepare students for a middle class working career in order to keep the economy going. Classes very rarely veered away from using textbooks. 

Affluent professional schools are defined by their emphasis on creativity and discovery, which they felt was hindered by text books. These children were from more socially powerful families and were trained in schools to be socially powerful themselves. They were taught by teachers from all different locations to be the creative minds in the world. 

Finally, Finn explains the executive elite schools to be training children to be "masters of the universe." These children were given advanced concepts to learn and would be required to write lessons themselves and teach them to their peers. Their teachers were polite to them and very rarely gave orders. They had free mobility to move around the school at their leisure, but most of all, they were educated to be the best, most powerful, and of the highest social standing.