First we must teach our children the words themselves, THEN…..over the years, we as librarians, teachers, parents must facilitate the child’s use of that word for dialogic purposes…not just “blah, blah, blah”. We are obligated to allow the child to discover the true power of the word and to use it in such a way that they cannot be oppressed by even such a thing as a simple advertisement. Take a look at one of my favorite scenes from the movie “Monthy Python and the Holy Grail”…
This is exactly what the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire had in mind when he observed his fellow citizens not fighting back against a system of government that oppressed them because they could not express themselves. They did not know how to read so that became his first goal, to eliminate illiterates from the lower classes..he developed a system of teaching adults to read that only took a few months and the Brazilian government was threatened by this. At the time, if you couldn’t read, you were not allowed to vote.
This may be an extreme example of how the printed word, both read and spoken benefits the world as a whole but if we as citizens of the free world don’t continue the emphasis on the printed word and how it does way more than just tell a story then we too may fall into the same trap. The library has been and will always be a center for the expression of the word itself, a place for people to come and think and then all things are possible!
For more on Paulo Freire go to – http://www.freire.org/
Exploring the power of the printed word! 