Excerpt
This framework for reading and writing is a processone that can be very enjoyable and productive to a child or adult being educated for the first time, or, this process can be highly distressing to those with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, (and a myriad of "pseudo disabilities" such as ADD and ADHD, whose validity and categorization remains to be authenticated by science. Nevertheless the students that are diagnosed with any of these, have to face awesome and daunting tasks that are part of the reading process, the sister science of Doxography. Doxography researches the processes involved in reading and writing, particularly for the ESL/bilingual education student, child or adult, and then opens up the innate world of human creativity, one of wonder and amazement, exploration and agenda, invention and arrangement: a part of the brain that is untapped by some popularly used reading methodologies. Doxography poses the notion that teachers who offer a sincere sense of spirituality in their teaching, can increase the level and scope of literacy skills in both children and adult learners with effective results that can be measured and empirically tracked.
Noam Chomsky in Syntactic Structures (1957) states, All humans possess innate capacity of language. The role of psychology is paramount to language success from the very beginning of the process. This magical part of the human psyche must be tapped during early stages of reading development. The pre-K teacher can be trained to look beyond the benign value of the ABCs and to treat them with the respect they deserve as harbingers of the wordthe logos of humanity.
In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God John 1:1
The logos is the word, the power of creation. Logos can mean anything from a divine utterance to the principle of cosmic reason that orders and governs the universe. To John the Apostle, it is the infinite wisdom of God personified (Harris, The New Testament, 4th Ed, 2002). John, the Evangelist, amazingly records that the logos is actually God. While this is an attempt to explain the creative energy of God, it doesnt diminish the importance of the creative energy of each human being. We inherently possess abilities at discriminating good from bad, things that are beautiful from those that are ugly. The power of creation is a suggestion of discernment, which in itself, is a type of creation. Writing is not only a skill that takes many years to learn effectively, but also a divine principle of creation, using that wonderful creative energy of the Creator(s). Oh that this type of energy could be harnessed for school students!
This new look at the logos and something as simple as the alphabet might revolutionize education as we know it today. Teachers could empower their students to look INTO the lessons they are receiving so that the value of the alphabet letters forming cat are not merely three inanimate, cold, hard shapes with an adjoining artificial phonic, but indeed three powerful messengers that when learned properly by shaping them and pronouncing them, become power! They almost become magical on a scope, albeit small, that transcends space and time and enters into the intricate world of the human psyche that has known what cat is for centuries. But now, in this space and time, the child or adult student is shaping reality around them that which is required by this moment at one specific time and place. This is the beginning of doxography.
|