Literacy With An Attitude

Literacy With An 
Attitude 

Educating Working-Class Children in Their Own Self-Interest

Patrick J. Finn

"I'd like to hope that a child's expectations are not determined on the day she or he enters kindergarten." 

-Patrick Finn

Argument Statement

Patrick Finn argues that there are distinct differences between the literacy education that students receive depending on the type of school they attend.  If a child attends an elite school then they receive an empowering literacy education; one in which trains them for a life in power.  If a child attends a working or middle class school, then they receive a domesticating education; one in which prepares them for a life in domestic or mechanical jobs.  Finn argues that when students begin school in such drastic different systems, the odds are set for them.  

Three Talking Points

1. Empowering education leads to powerful literacy, the kind of literacy that leads to positions of power and authority. (preface, 5)

2.Domesticating Education leads to functional literacy, literacy that makes someone productive and dependable.  (preface, 5/6)

3.  Distinct differences between the education of students in  working, middle, affluent and executive elite schools.

Working Class Schools

-Dominant theme was resistance,

-"Students resisted teachers' efforts to teach and vandalized school property. Children are developing a relationship to the economy, authority, and work that is appropriate preparation for wage labor-labor that is mechanical and routine."(pg.12)

Middle Class Schools

-Dominant theme was possibility.  

-"There is an understanding of the economy, authority, and work that is appropriate for White-collar working class and middle class jobs." (pg 14) 

Affluent Class Schools

-Dominant theme was individualism and humanitarianism.

-"Children develop a relationship to the economy, authority, and work that is appropriate for artists, intellectuals, legal, and scientific experts and other professionals whose work is creative, intrinsically satisfying for most people and rewarded with social power and high salaries."(pg 18)

Executive Elite Schools

-Dominant theme was excellence, top-quality performance.

-"Children develop a relationship to the economy, authority, and work that is different from all other schools.  The point of school work is to achieve, to excel, to prepare for life at the top."(pg 20)