Reflections on Science and Literacy

Literacy is an active phenomenon. Its power lies not in a received
ability to read and write, but rather in an individual’s capacity to put
those skills to work in shaping the course of his or her own life.
—Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Wow! I really can relate to this quote from the Science and Literacy article by Marlene Thier. I feel strongly that as a teacher, I am not only charged with teaching content from my area- science, but I am also accountable for showing students how they are responsible for their own education. They should leave my classes as better thinkers and better learners of all content, not just science. Freire said it better in this quote - "to put those skills to work in shaping the course of his or her own life. "

That being my philosophy, I must determine the best path for aiding my students. In the literacy article, Their gives several concrete ideas of how to accomplish these goals. Performance expectations are familiar to me - we worked on developing some of these goals in my previous class- Foundations of Action Research- focused on science expectations. In this article, the focus is on literacy. For me, these performance expectations give the students a clear idea of what they need to accomplish, but it does the same for me as the teacher. I also liked Their's list of guidelines for writing as you read. Implementing just a few of these ideas each semester would improve student's ability to retain what they read, no matter what the content. The third part of this article focuses on metacognition, which is the awareness of the student of their own methods of learning. I really liked the quote from the student that remarked that

“When you read, it should be a little voice in
your head like a storyteller is saying it. If that’s not
there, then you’re just looking at the words.”

I know that too many times my students just look at words. I catch myself doing that too, so these ideas can help me as well.