The criticisms of Hirsch’s work, “Cultural Literacy: What Every Student Should Know,” are numerous and varied, however there is value in his belief that strong literacy skills are supported by an individual’s foundational and ever expanding cultural knowledge and that this foundational knowledge is intrinsic to an individuals strong performance in academics settings. Although building a foundation of “Cultural Literacy,” as Hirsch presents it, is strikingly flawed in that it excludes multi-heritage and minority perspectives, his idea that cultural literacy relies upon the building-up of cultural, historical, social and literary knowledge is well founded. Hirsch's theory lacks, however, a critical acquisition component, which is essential for the amount of concept accrural he advocates.
However, Concept Imagery could bridge the gap and be an extremely valuable componant to Hirsch's Cultural Literacy theory. Although, it would be best to first bring his theory up to date and then integrate Concept Imagery as an implementation strategy for an academic framework losely based on Hirsch's ideas. Without this visual component to learning, students will continue to struggle with retaining the information that is, as Hirsch says, “transmitted” to them. Their foundation in cultural literacy will remain shaky as long as educators rely solely on Hirsch’s concept of education as “transmission” and “reception” based, not understanding based. Concept Imagery is essential to strong understanding, especially when surveying material that is unusual or irrelevant to students' modern lives -- which easily describes much of the subject matter on Hirsch's infamous list; because, as Albert Einstein famously stated, "if I can't picture it, I can't understand it."
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
On Being "Chirographically Thinking and Speaking Human Beings:" A Response to Walter J. Ong
Writing is not an innately human activity.
A spoken truth is fleating, temporary.
Lanugage technology pushes us farther away from human nature.
So great!
True & Fascinating!
Yes!
Mechanical contrivances allow for human expression.
Writing divides, identifies & isolates.
No?
Language trumps music! More deeply internalized form of human expression.
These are just a few of the lively comments that are scrawled on the pages of my copy of Walter J. Ong's paper, "Writing is a Technology That Restructures Thought." I could not stop with the marginalia in this one. His work uncovers a wealth of jewel-like insights into the the role language (written and oral) plays in the cognitive, psychological and social development of humans. When he writes, "If [modern literate humans] are asked to think of the word 'nevertheless' for two minutes, 120 seconds, without ever allowing any letters at all to enter their imaginations, they cannot comply. A person from a completely oral background of course has no such problem," Ong skillfully reveals to his readers what it would be like without their foundation in graphic language. His imagery quickly conveys the sense of a mental white board, an interior space where all the letters and words dance to the surface when summoned-up with a verbal or conceptual cue. Without the development or mastery of the written word, our minds would function in a very different way. I cannot help but wonder what that white screen would contain in an oral society. Pictures? Colors? How would we choose our words without the concept of how they are visually represented? Would emphasis be placed more on sound or precise meaning? Or, would we utilize different forms of artful expression altogether, demoting verbalization to an inferior mode of communication? Through Ong's simple example it becomes strikingly clear that we modern humans are constantly engaging visually with the alphabetic representation of our language and that the oral & visual cannot exist seperately in our modern literate minds. This point of interconnectedness is just one of the many fascinating kernals of thought Ong presents in this work; and upon further reading, marking-up the pages, I became keenly aware that his astoundingly well written ideas are not only foundational to linguistic theory but extremely relevant to the conversations we are having in class on literacy and language acquisition.
A spoken truth is fleating, temporary.
Lanugage technology pushes us farther away from human nature.
So great!
True & Fascinating!
Yes!
Mechanical contrivances allow for human expression.
Writing divides, identifies & isolates.
No?
Language trumps music! More deeply internalized form of human expression.
These are just a few of the lively comments that are scrawled on the pages of my copy of Walter J. Ong's paper, "Writing is a Technology That Restructures Thought." I could not stop with the marginalia in this one. His work uncovers a wealth of jewel-like insights into the the role language (written and oral) plays in the cognitive, psychological and social development of humans. When he writes, "If [modern literate humans] are asked to think of the word 'nevertheless' for two minutes, 120 seconds, without ever allowing any letters at all to enter their imaginations, they cannot comply. A person from a completely oral background of course has no such problem," Ong skillfully reveals to his readers what it would be like without their foundation in graphic language. His imagery quickly conveys the sense of a mental white board, an interior space where all the letters and words dance to the surface when summoned-up with a verbal or conceptual cue. Without the development or mastery of the written word, our minds would function in a very different way. I cannot help but wonder what that white screen would contain in an oral society. Pictures? Colors? How would we choose our words without the concept of how they are visually represented? Would emphasis be placed more on sound or precise meaning? Or, would we utilize different forms of artful expression altogether, demoting verbalization to an inferior mode of communication? Through Ong's simple example it becomes strikingly clear that we modern humans are constantly engaging visually with the alphabetic representation of our language and that the oral & visual cannot exist seperately in our modern literate minds. This point of interconnectedness is just one of the many fascinating kernals of thought Ong presents in this work; and upon further reading, marking-up the pages, I became keenly aware that his astoundingly well written ideas are not only foundational to linguistic theory but extremely relevant to the conversations we are having in class on literacy and language acquisition.
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