Good day.
- “Given the associated outcomes, one might believe that the future oriented right to be a proficient reader (in the narrow sense) is worth protecting. As such, it might seem justifiable, a la Feinberg, that many young children are not offered a choice in whether or not to attend school reading intervention programs. Perhaps children should be protected against their own self-damaging actions as related to the importance of literacy. However, children can and do choose, at least to some extent, the degree to which they actively engage in these programs—the effort they exert is at least partially within their control. Programming that is misaligned with children’s individual interests, ways of thinking, and ways of being can result in them resisting such programming or specific components of it. In this case, their developing reading proficiency and their motivation to read are likely to suffer—potentially threatening both their present and future freedoms”. (Pg. 41).
– References
Joy Dangora Erickson, & Winston C. Thompson. (2023). On Reading Interventions, Flourishing, and an Open Future: Considering Children’s Present and Future Freedoms. Philosophical Studies in Education, 54, 36–49.
This for me is a tricky quote to grapple with as it’s an almost dichotomous quandary. On the one hand, I strongly believe that students in a democratic society should reflect that and be allowed an egalitarian sense of individualism. On the other, I really do strongly believe that some skills are effectively mandatory, or at least should be, with literacy and numeracy being firmly at the top of that chart. I very much do agree with the quoted portion of the article that poor efforts in aligning programming (course material and the like) with student’s individual interests is at best likely to not be as efficient as one would hope, and at worst, may well “result in [the students] resisting such programming or specific components of it”. Will it be difficult to tailor much of one’s course material to as many students as possible? Sure, but no one said this job would be easy, and with the prior importance stressed on ensuring acceptable rates of literacy among children, it’s an essential one.
Thus: “The reading interventions that the three children described in this article attended appear to be largely unsupportive of their developing motivation to read; all three children indicated a preference not to participate in the required reading interventions. Children’s autonomy to make decisions about their reading were heavily constrained within the interventions. Their individual interests, ways of knowing, and ways of being were largely neglected. As such, it is not a surprise that children’s motivation for the interventions suffered; a large body of evidence indicates that an autonomy-supportive teaching style boosts motivation while more controlling styles erode it”.
As seen then from the article, my argument is proven somewhat right that it would appear at this early stage that it’s essential for the literacy rates of students to curate an environment and set of topics they (the students) will actively seek out. This is both to allow an egalitarian stage in early childhood development, reflecting democratic principles that many of us hold oh so dear, as well as simply to boost information and literary retention among students.