Literacy and diversity - Letters to the Editor - Letter to the Editor

Humanist, Nov-Dec, 2002 by Laverne Rison

Gregory Shafer raised my hackles. As a public school teacher in a family of teachers (my husband, my son, my daughter, and now my grandson) I feel he is trashing our profession. He accuses us of cultural genocide and sneers at the products of our endeavors, calling his criticism, for cripes sakes, "What's Literacy Got to Do With It?"

Public schools should be there to make us into "one literate nation, indivisible" not to divide us into little cliques of competing languages, cultures, and histories. A literate individual has plenty of opportunity to study his particular cultural background. All he needs to do is talk with the elders of his tribe, go to the library, and read the books. Our job is to make them literate in the English language. It's to give them a sense of the history of this nation and hopefully turn them into citizens with a sense of personal responsibility for helping to solve the many problems we must face together if we are to survive and prosper in this world.

Laverne Rison
Albuquerque, NM