I truly believe that the article “Success Guaranteed Literacy programs” by Lynn Astarita Gatto was the best article we have read throughout the course. This is the story of a great teacher, Lynn Gatto, who is able to teach students in ways other than using the specific literacy programs that her school “forces” teachers to use.
With NCLB in place, schools place such an extreme emphasis on test scores and student achievement and in order to reach expectations placed on them by the state, they pressure teachers to use ‘guaranteed’ literacy programs. Gatto is a teacher that is strong enough to take a stand and quite simply say ‘no!’ Rather, Gatto chooses to “make sure the children in my class have multiple opportunities for literacye vents and practices within social contexts (pg. 75).
Gatto “encourages dialogic instruction, where the children can express their opinions and disagree with others, self-select the turn-taking during conversation, initiate topics of conversation, offer ideas for activities, and discuss question concepts”. Put simply, Gatto encourages discussion in the classroom and allows an atmosphere where students can speak their minds openly. The importance of discussion is also seen in the chapter in Adolescent Literacy by Robert E. Probst. In this chapter, he writes that “we need to teach our students to use conversation to build better ideas collaboratively than any of us will come to on our own” (pg. 59). In Today’s education, discussion and collaboration need to be a primary focus as they play a great role in our lives.
Gatto explains that she doesn’t use textbooks. Even so, her test scores are equal to or surpass the school and district norms (pg. 75). While standing outside the norm, Gatto has still had parents keep their children in the school for the remainder of the year, even after moving out of the district. This shows how great of a teacher Gatto must be. She explains that she
Created a classroom environment rich in literacy practices without using prescribed textbooks and commercially produced materials during the fourth grade year of my last looped cohort group. Considering the individual students, planning carefully, selecting appropriate materials and activities, and adjusting activities are all important aspects of what I do to establish a successful literacy program (pg. 77).
It becomes obvious that it is extremely necessary to provide a range of literacy methods and to reach beyond the cookie-cutter method of using textbooks. This is not always the most beneficial teaching method. This can correlate to our reading about Carter Forshay by Pearson-Billings in which Carter Forshay got to know and understand how his students learned and could then adjust his teaching to allow them to be as successful as possible.
Furthermore, as Gatto is expressing her lack of interesting in the ‘guaranteed’ program she is told to use, Freire explains his disinterest. “It is the people themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system.
Where did education begin going wrong that so many people can express their concerns for our teaching? Why, when there are so many passionate teachers, are there so many downfalls to our education system? And why, if this is the case, can’t it be fixed? Slowly but surely, our education system became to be one in which many teachers do not approve so slowly but surely, it needs to become an environment in which teachers do approve, in which the curriculum is altered to the students needs to teach them in the best way possible.
An interesting comment in this article is “in order to understand any of the math and science, literacy was useful and necessary” (Gatto, pg. 78). This corresponds to the article we have previously read by Moses. Moses expresses the need for math literacy and clearly Gatto feels as though literacy is necessary in order to be successful in math and science. This is great because many teachers think that literacy is not a component that is necessary to become fluent in mathematics but this is NOT the case. Literacy is everywhere, even in mathematics and the importance of literacy in every subject needs to be noted.
Gatto also describes how beneficial it can be to teach interdisciplinary lessons (pg. 81). We haven’t done much reading on that throughout the course but I think that it is important to note and do more research on, as this can be a great tool to teaching literacy.
Gatto’s methods can absolutely be incorporated into the classroom. While I don’t think it is a good idea to go completely against administration (especially when not tenured!), I do think that it is vital to stand up for what you believe in. In Gatto’s case, she believes (probably correctly) that these ‘guaranteed’ literacy programs don’t work as well as her methods do. It is great that Gatto gets to understand her students and that is how she comes up with ways to teach. Every year, her teaching will be different as her students change and every year her lessons will have to be altered slightly.
Every future teacher can learn enormous amounts from this article by Gatto. This article offers many ideas that should be looked into by teachers and future teachers need to remember that it is important to stand up for what you truly believe in. As a teacher, you are the one that knows the classroom the best and it is your responsibility to make sure you cater to their needs.
Because I mentioned earlier in my writing that interdisciplinary teaching is worth a bit research, I would like to include this video from www.edutopia.org
http://www.edutopia.org/integrated-studies-introduction-video
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