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November-December 2006 Selected Content
One Mother's Search for the Meaning of Literacy - Sherry Kinser
I stand before a shelving system that I built years ago just for paperbacks. Over a thousand titles dance before my eyes: fiction and non-fiction, the past, the present and the future, authors old and new, all of which I have read or studied. Shakespeare, Twain and Homer nestle with King, Crichton and Tyler. Books on social studies, history, health, science fiction, pop-psychobabble and more than a sprinkling of literature from other cultures march in neat rows, gathering cobwebs and dust.
As an avid reader and an English major in college, I have collected many books. I was thankful to have a ready-made library when I started home educating my ten-year-old son, Alex, four years ago. However, I realize the course of studies and reading I took in my life are not going to be the same ones he will choose. I have no plans to restudy many of these paperback books, and he's probably never going to be interested in them. I question whether my books will ever be of value to him.
Impulsively, I make a decision to thin out the books. It is not a question of space; I am thinking in practical terms about their usefulness. It takes me hours to go through them, and many are hard to discard simply because of the memories they hold (and of course, I get lost in a passage or two). But I persevere, and finally I have a pile of over seven hundred books I think I can part with. This has not been an easy process. As I look at the heap of books, I have a deep sense that I'm looking at who I am.
Although the thought of parting with so many books is painful, my main concern is the educational needs of my child. Books and knowing how to use them--whether for pleasure or reference--are an important part of our curriculum, but as I am going through this momentary insanity of thinking I should get rid of some of them, I begin to also question what it is Alex should be learning in order to be considered literate in today's society. This question leads me on a wild investigation into the meaning of literacy.
A few nights later, I am researching this subject on the Internet. I quickly become convinced that there is so much material these days no one could read it all, let alone a child who is also supposed to be learning a multitude of other things. My conviction is supported by a passage I find on a "best books list: favorite books and must-reads." It says, "A lengthy list is compiled... If you have read everything on this list, you can consider yourself truly kid-literate, and you will be too old to be considered a child."
Later, on one of my shelves upstairs, I see a book by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., titled Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Hirsch defines cultural literacy as follows: "... namely, the network of information that all competent readers possess. It is the background information, stored in their minds, that enables them to take up a newspaper and read it with an adequate level of comprehension, getting the point, grasping the implications, relating what they read to the unstated context which alone gives meaning to what they read (p. 2)." I agree with Hirsch on this point, and of course, this is what I want for my son.
In the back of the book is an appendix titled, "What Literate Americans Know" over sixty pages of double-columned words and phrases that we are supposed to know enough about to give them a context when we read them. Naturally, I want to see how literate I am. The first six lines of the appendix are dates: 1066, 1492, 1776, 1861-1865, 1914-1918, 1939-1945 (pg. 152). I know all the dates immediately except for one--the first date has me completely stumped. I can't pinpoint what it is about 1066 I should remember in order to be considered literate.
My friend Ryan is sitting on the couch, so I decide to quiz him. He's up on his history also, but he finally says, "Isn't that the year frogs learned to fart?" I have already made a flashcard with this date, and I write, "The year frogs learned to fart." I hang it on the wall where I know Alex will eventually ask me about it--it is important to catch a child's attention--and then I can launch into what is significant about this date, once I find out.
I know exactly which book on my shelf to reach for, and I am right. The Story of English, by Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNiel, supplies me with enough information to get started. (I remember my professor giving a passionate lecture on this date as soon as I read about it again.) 1066 has nothing to do with frogs learning to fart. It is, in fact, traditionally known as the Battle of Hastings. I look in a few other history books, and then I turn to the Internet. The next day, I get the chance to perform before Alex and Ryan exactly what took place that historic year. My excellent cast consists of our two dogs: a yellow lab missing a front leg and a small black-and-white fox terrier. As kings come and go, and my paper sword flashes, and dogs die heroically, history is retold through the eyes of a mad woman on a hunt for the meaning of literacy.
Ryan looks at Alex and says, "See, I told you that was the year frogs learned to fart." They both start giggling, as male students often do, and my performance sputters to an unconvincing end as I bring up the topic of the Doomsday Book. I decide to drop this subject; I don't want to ruin a nice afternoon.
The next day I ask a friend if she knows what is significant about the date 1066. She does not, and furthermore, she isn't even worried about it like I am. I, on the other hand, am feeling personally insulted that I hadn't known the first item on a 60-some-page index of what every culturally literate American should know. I decide in my devious way to explore this further. When I go to the library to pick up more books on the history of 1066, I take the time to ask the gentleman who has been checking out my books and helping me for the last twelve years if he knows the date. He does not, and what's worse, he seems offended that I should bring him up short like that--which was basically the same feeling I had. A similar reaction happens when I go to a bookstore and quiz a man who wants to know if I need some help. (Actually, he overheard me muttering about Hirsch when I saw his book on the shelf.) He doesn't know the importance of this date either, and again, acts like I am unintentionally trying to insult him. I give up my quest after this incident, and decide it isn't such a bad thing if you don't know the first date on Hirsch's appendix.
Research aside, while I am waiting for some boxes to pack the books in, I get another great idea. I want to take a photo of my son with all the books stacked around him and a sign that reads, "Mom says I don't have to study all these books." I carry about four armloads of books downstairs and arrange them in tall stacks, but the stacks keep falling over. I discard the idea of trying to take a clever photo.
Now I have two heaps of books, one upstairs and one downstairs. A friend comes by and starts looking through the downstairs pile. She keeps holding up books and making remarks--mostly to the effect that I am nuts, and that I have no idea what Alex might choose to study in the future. I can see her point, and waves of maybe-I-better-keep-these-books start to surge through me.
By the time I get some boxes, I've changed my mind about getting rid of all the books. My research into the meaning of literacy brings me to the conclusion that Alex is becoming literate, probably much more so than I even realize. What I have come to understand most though is that, while Alex may never read Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Eliot's Middlemarch, he is going to get some of the influence they have made on my life. That's part of what it's all about when you raise a child, regardless of what he reads. None of us ever knows what the future might hold, so for me to decide that these books will never be of value to my child is ludicrous. Thirty years from now, when he picks up a book on being literate to see whether he is or not, I hope he remembers that 1066 was not the year frogs learned to fart.
© 2006, Sherry Kinser
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