Csikszentmihalyi said, "If literacy is for the sake of children, how come we so rarely bother to find out what they want to use it for?"
In this chapter the authors asked every boy to keep a journal about all of his literate activities. These include reading, listening to music, playing video games, going to concerts, and surfing the internet. They found that boys were most commonly excited and passionate about their literacy tendencies outside of school, but inside of school they merely saw the literacy as a tool rather than something to be passionate about. Even though, in the previous chapter, the boys said that they valued the theory of literacy, in practice it was not something that they were interested in because it did not cater to their immediate needs and desires.
Interestingly, the boys mostly connected literacy to their school lives, and not to anything that they did outside of school. Most of them didn't record certain things in their logs. I think that this is due to the fact that boys think that literacy is feminine, so why admit to doing things that relate to it even outside of school? They will not associate things that they are interested in with being something to do with literacy. Why would they? Another interesting thing is that they boys didn't really want to include things that they liked within their schooling. They didn't want to bring in things that they liked into the school setting, almost as if school would ruin that for them.
The boys talked about how they do certain things that they are comfortable and strong in. They talk about things that they feel competent in, and avoid topics that they are not sure about. They would rather talk about their interests rather than something totally foreign to them, even though they are hesitant to do so in the school arena. The boys felt like teachers were supposed to help them feel more competent in the area of school so that they could enjoy things in school like they do things outside of school. Why are teachers not helping them feel like they are competent in school? I think it has to do with the ratio of students to teachers as well as the determination of teachers. If teachers don't really care whether or not their students feel strongly in a field, it hurts the student because no one is believing in them.
I had never given much thought to the idea that there were two parts to student’s lives; "school life" and "not school life." Unfortunately, boys prefer to keep is so that “never the twain shall meet.” We, as teachers, need to help students find ways to allow these two lives to overlap and I think that is where Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas can be of benefit to us.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that boys, on average, spend more time outside than they do inside is so true!!! I grew up in the mountains and my brothers spent every day of summer outside riding bikes, building forts, and seeing what other kind of havoc they could create. When they got to college they commented often about how they think that their years spent outside did them more good learning new concepts than the other students who spent their days playing video games and watching TV. They are now both very successful mechanical engineers. Hats off to boys spending time outside!!!!! I just wish teachers would recognize this!
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