NCJ Number
131156
Journal
Future Choices Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Dated: (Summer 1991) Pages: 45-54
Date Published
1991
Length
10 pages
Annotation
Many educators believe that only about 20 percent of U.S. children, representing the most affluent and powerful segment of the population, are receiving education and training in the attitudes and skills that will equip them for future jobs in the global marketplace. The dual goals of education should be to train all young Americans in "symbolic analytic" skills and to instill in them a greater sense of community.
Abstract
This author argues that the key to success is literacy, defined in this context as the way in which people use, discuss, and teach language with an emphasis on the social and behavioral aspects of language use. The critical thinking and social cooperation inherent in this approach should be taught through workshops. These workshops would feature specific objectives, high levels of student interaction and collaboration, real-life situations and problems, and practice in the literate ways people solve those problems. Unfortunately, most schools today continue to use the basic skills approach to language, which views language production as a cognitive process in which students can be taught to write correctly through instruction in rules, restrictions, and prescribed formulas. However, research has shown that the workshop approach improves writing better than the basic skills approach, and more effectively prepares students in the kinds of symbolic analytic thinking they will need in the future. 1 figure and 17 references