Literacy with an Attitude: Educating Working Class Children In Their Own Self Interest by Patrick J. Finn

I found this reading to be very interesting. What Finn is saying again and again throughout the chapter is that we are holding all students to an upper class standard of education. This reading reminded me a little bit of Becoming Something Different, because of how Esmé's school assumed she wasn't taking her education seriously and ultimately kept her from completing her degree. It also reminded me of Will It Help The Sheep, because many teacher's from this reading, according to Finn, just handed down their difficult student's to lower levels instead of trying to figure out how to get them more engaged and excited in their education. I was also reminded of the scene in Freedom Writers where Erin says "these kids know they're being given these [condensed books] because they know we think they aren't smart enough." Finn's question is, how do we get working class students to be excited about their education? Finn's answer to this lies Paulo Freire's work in Brazil. The poor and the illiterate of Brazil did not understand why they should need an education, and almost resented it as the rich and educated contributed to the inequality of wealth in their country. When Freire showed them how an education could help them get out of poverty, they became determined to learn how to read, and granting students the will to learn is winning half the battle.

Here is a link to Paulo  Freire's work "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"
http://www.pedagogyoftheoppressed.com/author/

Here is an interesting map showing literacy rates by country: