Literacy with an Attitude

    Patrick J. Finn, the author of “Literacy with an Attitude”, argues that our nation has developed two different types of education, an empowering education that leads to positions of power and authority through powerful literacy, and a domesticating education that leads to a fundamental literacy, which leads to a more productive and dependable individual. Finn claims his argument as a matter of justice. According to him, powerful literacy is the education children deserve because it fosters critical thinking about complex ideas and prepares young people to consider multiple perspectives and their own interests as they make life decisions. He also claims that one’s social class affects the aims and means of education. He found that poor, working-class students received functional literacy that taught compliance, while students from privileged backgrounds were taught powerful literacy that promoted independence and leadership.

     Finn requires his readers to reconsider the purpose of school in a democratic society by linking the aims and purposes of education with empowering and critical literacy, literacy with an attitude. While he provides examples of teachers and programs in public schools that engage in empowering and critical literacy, he emphasizes that the responsibility is on each of us to contribute to the promise and future of our public schools. We can do this by becoming teachers who empower their students through powerful literacy, by being parents and concerned citizens who engage with one another and with educators about the aims and purposes of public schools in a democratic society. His article ultimately asks us, “What is the society we envision for our children?” 

This link gives a short summary of the book and offers information about some of his other books. (http://literacywithanattitude.com/)