Literacy's Paradigm Shifts: Let's Roll
"Each paradigm will be shown to satisfy more or less the criteria that it dictates for itself and to fall short of a few of those dictated by its opponent." Thomas S. Kuhn Updated October 1, 2014 Society finds ways to make certain models rather self-perpetuating because of the advantages they provide. A common approach to the idea of literacy is one of those models. Our schools teach a particular kind of literacy, text literacy, as one of the fundamental life skills because of its general importance to informed citizenship in a democracy, economic productivity and its value for every career path. Consequently the formula emerged for text literacy education to begin early and last long because of the perception about how long it takes to teach its use to a high level. But like all models, paradigms, recipes and formulas of our culture, it is important to periodically ask some pointed questions about their use. In fact there are 3 other areas critical for human dev...