From Dissemination to Discernment: The Commodification of Literacy Instruction and the Fostering of “Good Teacher Consumerism”

Abstract

In the current industry‐driven educational climate, resources are produced, marketed, and subsequently understood to be synonymous with “balanced literacy.” This article critically examines various programs currently in wide use to demonstrate this occurrence. The examination specifically provides examples of how the appropriation and marketization of limited understandings of complex theories can restrict teachers' classroom practice. To this end, conceptualizations of balanced literacy are offered and discussed in relationship to products identified as providing balanced literacy instruction. The limitations of these programs and the effects they have had on the organization of classroom time and teachers' decision‐making processes are analyzed. The analysis is intended to provoke critical conversations about the nature of mass‐purchased literacy “solutions” and teachers' professional practice and development. Whether readers are in a position to purchase or to implement mandated programs, a guide to foster good “teacher consumerism” is offered to address the inadequacies of purchased literacy programs. The article considers questions and concerns and provides insights regarding the roles students and their teachers play in negotiating how literacy teaching and learning are understood and developed in classrooms. There is no sure cure so idiotic that some superintendent of schools will not swallow it. The aim seems to be to reduce the whole teaching process to this sort of automatic reaction, to discover some master formula that will not only take the place of competence and resourcefulness in the teacher but that will also create an artificial receptivity in the child. H. L. Mencken, 1918, in Postman, 1995, p. 49

“Confidence” problems and literacy coaching: How a suburban kindergarten divided “good” and “bad” teachers in the accountability shove-down

“…Crafton and Kaiser, 2011; Hibbert et al., 2008; Hunt and Handsfield, 2013; Rainville and Jones, 2008). Indeed, the new teacher markets positioned coaches and teachers as insiders and outsiders to professional capital and called the meanings of professional capital into question, similar to how Canadian teachers in Hibbert and Iannacci’s (2005) study were positioned as consumers rather than producers of teaching materials. Some women became like middle managers but without the benefits and rights they deserve.…”

“…This work is easier if teachers use a sociological and feminist lens in order to name how and why they may feel divided. Teachers may then become better positioned to actively select and modify curriculums for their students in their classrooms (Hibbert and Iannacci, 2005), and to teach. Part of this work for teachers who still have their unions is being vigilant about understanding their powers and keeping them, and for those who have lost them it is about not forgetting what one had, educating newcomers about this, and looking for opportunities to reorganize.…”

“…For example, Hibbert et al (2008) showed that topdown governmental reforms in Canada led to a "train-the-trainer" coaching model that, along with time constraints similar to those mentioned by Bailey and Colley (2015), negated possibilities for dialogic co-construction of knowledge by the educators. In addition to time availability, Hibbert and Iannacci (2005) illustrated how teachers were socialized as "good consumers" who must navigate top-down pressures to adopt and teach from literacy curriculum packages and instructional programmes. There is complex discursive and emotional work in neoliberalism given the many challenges and tensions such as the demands of the accountability context, shifting identities and determining who holds the most power and status in classroom negotiations (Hunt, 2016;Hunt and Handsfield, 2013).…”

Beginning Reading Materials: A National Survey of Primary Teachers' Reported Uses and Beliefs

“…They appeared to recognize the limitations of using any material as the sole reading source in a comprehensive reading program with multiple instructional goals. The replication of the Baumann et al (1998) finding is important because theorists have once again questioned whether teachers can be discriminating consumers in the current climate (Hibbert & Iannacci, 2005).…”

Finding Wisdom in Practice: The Genesis of the Salty Chip, A Canadian Multiliteracies Collaborative

“…The numerous technological advances experienced in this past decade alone, have provided multiple avenues that allow us all to participate differently and where "the construction of the self is a cycle whereby culture constitutes our identity, but we in turn create that identity through our social practices" (Foucault cf Zemmels, 2012, p.13). Engaging in new forms of participation must coincide with a recasting of teachers as professional discerners (Hibbert & Iannacci, 2005) so that participation is enacted as critically sophisticated citizens collaborating in the ethical project of learning. It is this agenda that led me to the work of New Literacies scholars and to multiliteracies theories in particular.…”