Reading the Word and the World

In his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire entreats us to address the broader nature of literacy. He states that educators must do more than just teach students how to decode words in decontextualized text, but that we must teach them to read both the word and the world. While his original intent was to challenge educators to take a more active stance in addressing the inequities of our world, the phrase “reading the word and the world” has been watered down considerably. Today, the phrase represents the idea that reading involves much more than the comprehension of printed text. We read the world when we study graphs and charts. We read the world when we analyze the validity of data and statistics. We read the world when we study news broadcasts and documentaries for bias. We read the world when we evaluate the credibility of websites. We read the world when we study relationships and how they are defined by power. We read the world when we study paintings and the stories they tell. And, of course, we read the world when we pick up novels, memoirs, and biographies to discover a little something about empathy and the people around us. I have been thinking a lot of Freire’s challenge recently as I have asked my students to look beyond the texts of our books to the texts that surround us. How do we decode our world, challenge it, question it, and change it, or hold it accountable. Recently, as a class, we read Veronica Roth’s new science fiction novel, Divergent. While the story is a fun action adventure with a bit of romance, the underlying message is neither new nor trite. Set in a dystopian community that uses both soft and hard forms of social control to manipulate people, the story underscores some concerns that we tend to have as a society. Fears that surface in not only the rhetoric of our political pundits but on our editorial pages in our headlines and in advertisements and commercials. Connecting the dots between the narratives of our entertainment and the narratives of our society is an important skills for students and citizens of a functioning democracy. And it is all part of learning to read the word and the world. So what does this look like across the content areas. How does it translate to other classes. The answer for social sciences and civics is fairly self evident. It is an emphasis on teaching the central ideas of our world versus the route memorization of names and dates, battles and wars. Instead, it is an unforgiving examination of the historical contexts in which these events occurred and a willingness to connect dots to contemporary instances. For the sciences, teaching the word and the world involves examining the ethical questions that arise-- or have arisen-- from research in the various disciplines and the studies that we are currently doing. Beyond that, it involves the need to discuss the controversies within science and those between science and culture. In math, it is a willingness to tie abstract world of numbers, logic and spatial reasoning to real life applications. Even when the numbers may not immediately apply to the immediate lesson or unit, the potential for a meaningful experience is substantial. Lessons could range from statistical analysis that doesn’t quite add up to the misuse or abuse of graphs and charts to visualize data, Of course, teaching the word and the world is not new. It has appeared as culturally relevant pedagogy and authentic assessments. But, seeing the same concept evolve through times only underscores how fundamental it must be to innovative and transformative educational experiences.