Mainstream vs. Old Order Amish education
Are the values for a mainstream educated person and an Old Order Amish student the same? Do the mainstream culture and the people of the Trackton community hold the same expectations for their children when they complete school? From various readings we can answer this with a simple no, but we should ask ourselves "why is this?". One main reason is because in different social cultures, literacy's value is defined by the culture's expectation of its people. We will now explore these three culture types and give examples of literacy's value within the cultures. The goal of the mainstream education system is to prepare its students for post secondary education. This type of education starts with the basic reading and comprehension skills learned in elementary school. Starting with these skills gives the children a solid base to build the grammar learned in middle school and on into high school. Middle school gives the children basic grammar understandings such as nouns, verbs, proper sentence structure, and basic composition assignments. Middle school also takes reading to the next level by increasing the difficulty of the reading assignments. Finally high school is the last step for the students to obtain the literacy skil
She gives examples such as evenings of simple word games, reading and repeating of Bible verses, singing songs from memorization rather than reading words from a song book, and writing letters, not from scratch, but from copying the form of a previously written letter. Men in Trackton usually only write as much as to sign paychecks or fill out official forms. It is not that they can read the signs, but rather they see the visual clues such as color or type of script of the sign and relate it to past experience. For their culture however, all that is expected is to be able to associate with other members of the community. The beginning of the learning process in the community is unlike that of the mainstream education system. They go to the local store and compare prices of those in a larger chain type store, yet the numbers hold no specific value to the children. "(247) This statement shows that the Amish have defined the standard of literacy in their community and up hold this standard in their children's learning process. Even the communication of the adults would seem significantly below average to that of a person who has completed a mainstream education. Literacy in this community seems like it is merely a survival technique more so than an education standard. You would have to look at the context of which the definition is being used to determine whether or no it is appropriate. Reading alone in Trackton is severely frowned upon because the common belief is if you read by yourself then you are antisocial. They also play simple games that consist of calling out the name of restaurants as they drive by them. The second example of culture dependent literacy is the people of the Trackton community. The grammatical focus has gone from simple compositions to multi page reports with grammatical errors if any at all. Literacy across all cultures carries with it the same generic meaning, the ability to read and write.
Common topics in this essay:
Canterbury Tales,
,
Writing Trackton,
Fishman Children,
Reading Trackton,
people trackton,
mainstream education,
middle school,
people trackton community,
mainstream education system,
community hold,
literacy's value,
trackton community,
education system,
below average,
read write,
mainstream educated,
|
Acceptance Essays
