Literacy in my Second Secondary School

 

Literacy in my Second Secondary School

My literacy journey began when I was homeschooled. This section of my journey is a blur—summers, semesters, and winter breaks all ran together and it’s a bit of a jumbled mess. I remember enjoying the books I read, though I remember few of their titles or when I read them. Most of my reading was pleasure reading—I fell in love with the Lord of the Rings and kept re-reading them.

 

Because of the gaps in my memory of this period, I consider 9^th grade to be the true start of my scholastic literacy. My parents decided homeschooling had played its final part in my life and transitioned me into a charter school where I took my English, Spanish, and Math classes. Spanish and Math were fine—I did well but didn’t particularly enjoy them.

 

This character school, however, was where I realized I loved English.

 

Ms. Catherine Supplee was by far the most impactful educator in my secondary experience. She balanced fun and work in a way that made every student in that small class of seven adore the class. We were expected to read the material, but we were never scolded if we didn’t. Her means of encouraging our literary growth was class participation—her activities were fun but could only be enjoyed if you had put in the effort to prepare for that day. Skipping a reading assignment meant feeling left out. When an enjoyable class meets only once per week, missing out stings.

 

She had us read all sorts of different texts. She introduced us to Beowful and Dante’s Inferno. We read weird short stories and collections of Greek mythology. We explored the French Revolution through the eyes of Jean Valjean and Sidney Carton.

 

My only critique of her class is that it was very western-centric in its literature selections. In Ms. Supplee’s defense, however, that was a school policy. It took its name as “The Classical Academy” as a mandate to teach mostly white-centric literature.  

 

The goal of “TCA” was to prepare students to take classes at the adjacent “Pike’s Peak Community College.” By junior year, students were expected to take all English and History classes at the college level. Right as I finished my sophomore year, however, my parents moved us to Houston.

 

They put me in another college preparatory school, although this one was a private Christian school. While most of the classes were good, the quality of English classes was noticeably lower.

 

Where Ms. Supplee encouraged literacy through hands-on activities and learning experiences that the students loved, my new teacher (we’ll call her Ms. Summers) preferred to ‘teach’ us by shaming us. “College professors are mean and will fail you, so you better come to my class prepared!” Instead of using positive reinforcement, Ms. Summers scolded her classes when they failed to meet her standards. Instead of interactive learning experiences, most classes were teacher-led lectures with little room for student input.

 

Her selections were better, but the delivery was worse. We read more diverse texts, but it was always with this weird lens of “other-ness”—these people didn’t have the Gospel and we needed to fix them.

 

I did not enjoy her classes.

 

I hope I can live up to the standards that Ms. Supplee set for herself. I want to make literacy enjoyable for my classes. I want to encourage them to do their best rather than discouraging them from doing their worst. I want to assume the best of my students and provide them with meaningful activities rather than assuming they will bring their worst efforts. Fear doesn’t educate. Encouragement educates.