New+Literacy+Skills+Needed

Strategy: New Literacy Skills Needed. By: Yucht, Alice, Teacher Librarian, 14811782, Dec99, Vol. 27, Issue 2

3Rs "We are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet." -- Margaret Mead, anthropologist. Even the very What and How we teach are being drastically changed by the advent of electronic information formats and technologies. Those traditional 3 Rs -- Reading, writing, and arithmetic -- just aren't enough any more. I think we need to teach (and emphasize) 3 more Rs: art (visual literacy), Reasoning (critical/creative thinking) and especially Responsibility (which used to be the purview of home and church, but seems to have gotten lost, somehow). Marshall McLuhan's famous statement -- "the medium is the message" -- is certainly true when we look at how instructional methodologies have been affected by the development of information technologies. The earliest forms of teaching were oral: the teacher told, the students listened and then together they talked about the subject. Direct and personal physical proximity was important, and comprehension easily assessed through verbal exchange and body language. Information was also personalized: the teller decided what was important to pass on, the listener had to decide whether to 'trust' the teller, and even whether to listen at all. The development of print documents (whether done by hand or printing press) meant that the students no longer needed to be in the same room with the teacher. Now the learner could choose when and/or where to learn (assuming the book wasn't chained to the wall), and even what to learn, with access to a wider choice of topics. But while the print medium codified 'what is important' (e.g. if it wasn't valued, it didn't get printed), it also restricted interaction: You can't have a dialogue with a piece of paper. As the skills of reading and writing became more commonplace, so the educated/literate person (as opposed to the one with the biggest fists) became the embodiment of power. (Simple arithmetic was always considered more of a practical skill than an indicator of literacy.) The development of photography brought a whole new dimension to print literacy. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then imagine the power of a thousand pictures! Moving pictures expanded the possibilities even more, making it possible to "see" ideas and events beyond the everyday realities. Using images as well as text can truly illuminate (pun intended) a subject and make comprehension so much clearer. The learning process, though, is still static. From papyrus to faxes, vinyl records to CDs, paintings to DVDs...you can look, see and understand, but it's still delivery without interactivity (i.e., here's the information, but you've got to take it in the order in which it's presented). Ah, but now we've got digital hypertext, which melds text with images and sound, all in a user-controlled format. The traditional basics of Reading, writing and arithmetic now also require art and Reasoning skills to make sense of it all. And we've gone from linear (start at the beginning and work your way sequentially to the end) to nonlinear (holistic exploration, following any paths you choose) methods of information presentation. Meanwhile, many state or provincial Departments of Education are attempting to define exactly what they believe a public school graduate should 'know' by outlining specific "Standards of Learning" or "Core Content Curriculum Standards" for each subject. Local school districts must now develop their subject curricula to reflect these standards, and teachers are expected to identify the specific items or indicators they are addressing in each lesson. At the same time, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) jointly developed a set of nine overarching Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning that they believe exemplify what a successful and socially responsible student should be able to master. Content Standards and the Information Literacy Standards both recognize the impact that information technology has had on ability to learn (in and out of school). Both address the need for students to go beyond those traditional 3 Rs in order to be effective information consumers and producers in a society where knowledge will be the coin of the realm. No longer are the teacher and the textbook the primary and/or arbitrary sources of what it is necessary to "know." And because the technology has made this transmission of information so easy, it's even more important to stress that sixth R: Responsibility for the appropriate use of all that information out there. How do we, as librarians, pull it all together? We have to be able to show teachers how to infuse our Information Literacy Skills with those Content Curriculum Standards, because most teachers (and administrators) have not even heard about the Info Lit Standards we think are so important! But these new Literacy Skills are not add-ons to an already jam-packed curriculum; rather, they are the summation or end results of an effective education. We've been doing some of it all along, as we collaborate on projects with teachers. We've been doing lots of it in our own Information Skills curriculums, making sure that students know how to access, use, evaluate and even produce information. We've even been teaching that sixth R, Responsibility, all along...from emphasizing the need to bring books back on time so others can read them, to stressing the necessity for accurate bibliographic citations in order to acknowledge the resources used. For an example of how Content Standards and the Information Literacy Standards can work together, take a look at the extensive "Information Literacy Standards and the Core Content Curriculum Matrix" done by the Educational Media Association of New Jersey, available online at http://www.emanj.org/s1april99.html.This exemplary document was developed both as practical public relations and as desperate self-defense: when the New Jersey Department of Education published their first draft of the new Core Content Curriculum Standards, school librarians around the state were shocked to discover that libraries weren't even mentioned in this educational directive! Although there were statements like "students will gather information in order to..." the issue of where and how they'd find that information was not addressed. So EMAnj began a very proactive campaign to convince the 'powers-that-be' that libraries must be part of the total educational process. School librarians attended hearings, presented position papers, lobbied and even (truth be told) nagged, until the standards were finally revised to include the use of libraries across the educational spectrum. Nobody argues when I tell classroom teachers that we both have the same ultimate goals: the development of informed citizens who are independent and socially responsible learners. We need to work with our teachers to help our students develop the skills and abilities that they will need to function in the global information marketplace...especially because those kids will eventually be administering our pensions, and I want to be sure that they have the skills to do that wisely and well!!! ILLUSTRATION (BLACK & WHITE) 13249946351324994635 By Alice Yucht