Test Your Multicultural and Social Literacies - Become a Responsible Citizen!

Do not share. -ALDA 1EducVted 20 Lesson no.: 3 Time allotment for mastery: 9 hours (6th – 8th week) Literacy for the 21st Century: Multicultural and Social Literacies Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO) At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

1. Understand and respect differences based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, social class, religion, and ability; and
2. Improve communication with peers and adults, cooperative teamwork, and become effective, caring, concerned members of your communities.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Alvin Toffler

“We must prepare young people for living in a world of powerful images, words and sounds.” UNESCO, 1982

Since the beginning of recorded history, the concept of “literacy” meant having the skill to interpret “squiggles” on a piece of paper as letters which, when put together, formed words that conveyed meaning. Teaching the young to put the words together to understand (and, in turn, express) ever more complex ideas became the goal of education as it evolved over the centuries.

Today information about the world around us comes to us not only by words on a piece of paper but more and more through the powerful images and sounds of our multi-media culture. Although mediated messages appear to be self-evident, in truth, they use a complex audio/visual “language” which has its own rules (grammar) and which can be used to express many-layered concepts and ideas about the world. Not everything may be obvious at first; and images go by so fast! If the children are to be able to navigate their lives through this multi-media culture, they need to be fluent in “reading” and “writing” the language of images and sounds just as we have always taught them to “read” and “write” the language of printed communications.

New Ways of Learning This explosion in information has presented a major challenge to the world of formal education. For centuries, schooling has been designed to make sure students learned facts about the world-- which they proved they knew by correctly answering questions on tests. But such a system is no longer relevant when the most up-to-date facts are available at the touch of a button.

What students need today is to learn how to find what they need to know when they need to know it-- and to have the higher order thinking skills to analyze and evaluate whether the information they find is useful for what they want to know.

How will schools do this? First, schools and classrooms must be transformed from being storehouses of knowledge to being more like portable tents providing a shelter and a gathering place for students as they go out to explore, to question, to experiment, to discover!

Secondly, to use a phrase from the great Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, teaching must be distinguished from “banking.” No longer is it necessary for teachers to deposit information in students’ heads. Retaking the principles of democratic pedagogy dating back to Socrates, wise teachers realize they do not have to be a “sage on the stage.” Instead their role is to be a “guide on the side:” encouraging . . . guiding . . . mentoring . . . supporting the learning process