True Story 1.03
How best to teach literacy to Native Alaskan pupils
The setting for this story
Decades ago, the preferred way to teach literacy was “round-robin reading” – having each pupil in turn read aloud from a text. By the 1990s, the best practice had become to have pupils read silently. Native Alaskan teachers were reluctant to change. Anthropologist Lisa Delpit tells this story, in which she played the central role.
A story of misaligned minds4
Progressive educators at the University of Alaska sent me, as a literacy consultant, to visit Native Alaskan villages with the goal of encouraging the reading teachers there to make use of the most up-to-date innovation, silent reading.
Before pressing the Native teachers to adopt the silent method, I listened to their views regarding round-robin reading. The outcome was that I agreed with their continuing to employ the round-robin method.
Lisa’s question
How were the Native teachers able to persuade me that round-robin teaching was preferable?
Critique of story 1.03
The teachers explained to Lisa that rarely in Native communities did youngsters engage in a private interaction with a book. The books pupils were expected to read in school often described unfamiliar people, things, and events. And reading was an unfamiliar skill. So for the teachers to ensure their learning the skill of reading, reading aloud in a small group setting was vital.
Lisa found their views persuasive because, “I recalled as a child being scolded by my mother to ‘put down that book and go play with your friends.’ So I appreciated that among Native Alaskans, family- and friend-focused ways of life with constant social interactions were valued far more than any solo pursuit.”
For thought
This is a case in which, to be responsive to the culture of certain students, what was needed wasn’t change but resistance to change. Could this be true in more cases than most educators imagine?
Related stories
Story 7.09 also concerns an instance in which the issue was how to teach Native American pupils
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Endnotes:
4 Delpit, 94–95.
All full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.