Literacy with an Attitude : Educating Working-Class Children in Their Own Self-Interest

by Finn, Patrick J.

• ISBN13: 9781438428055
• ISBN10: 1438428057
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-09
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

The classic, indispensable guide for teachers, parents, and community organizers concerned with educating working-class children, Literacy with an Attitude dares to define literacy as a powerful right of citizenship. Patrick J. Finn persuasively debunks the time-honored paradigm for teaching poor and working-class students. Our job, he argues, is not to help such students to become middle class and live middle-class lives-most don't want it. Education rather should focus on a powerful literacy-a literacy with an attitude-that enables working-class and poor students to better understand, demand, and protect their civil, political, and social rights.

Author Biography

Patrick J. Finn is Associate Professor Emeritus of Education at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Finn was named the Robert F. and Augusta Finkelstein Memorial Lecturer for Fall 2008 at Adelphi University. He is the coeditor (with Mary E. Finn) of Teacher Education with an Attitude: Preparing Teachers to Educate Working-Class Students in Their Collective Self-Interest, also published by Suny Press.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition	p. ix
Preface to the First Edition	p. xv
Title, Author, and Hard-Bitten Schoolteachers	p. 1
A Distinctly Un-American Idea: An Education Appropriate to Their Station	p. 9
Harsh Schools, Big Boys, and the Progressive Solution	p. 27
Oppositional Identity: Identifying "Us" as "Not Them"	p. 39
The Lads	p. 53
Changing Conditions-Entrenched Schools	p. 63
Class, Control, Language, and Literacy	p. 81
Where Literacy "Emerges"	p. 95
Where Children Are Taught to Sit Still and Listen	p. 111
The Last Straw: There's Literacy, and Then There's Literacy	p. 121
Literacy with an Attitude	p. 129
Not Quite Making Literacy Dangerous Again	p. 137
Schools and a Square Deal for Working People	p. 155
Citizens' Rights vs. Social Class and a Free-Market Economy: Acknowledging Conflict and Seeking Equity	p. 167
Twentieth-and Twenty-First Century Heirs to the Corresponding Societies and a New Paradigm for Educating Working-Class Students	p. 177
Teachers Who Agitate: Freirean Motivation in the Classroom	p. 199
Agitating Students and Students Who Agitate	p. 217
Agitating Parents and Parents Who Agitate	p. 227
Scaling Agitation Upward	p. 241
Important Concepts and a Few Lines from Les Miserables	p. 255
Notes	p. 265
Bibliography	p. 291
Index	p. 307
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