Response to: "Students don't care what we know unless they know we care" ~Jerrie Cobb Scott

Anyikem Asong

ALP Group Project
Response to Literacies and Deficits Revisited by Jerrie Cobb Scott

“Simply, very simply, students don’t care what we know unless they know we care.”

This statement is at the foundation of what Jerrie Cobb Scott wants to get across in her article, “Literacies and Deficits Revisted” published in 1993. But the details are just as poignant and essential as they were twenty years ago. Reading this statement literally evoked an excited, “Yes!” That I exclaimed out loud while lying on my couch as I completed Scott’s article. They came at the very end of the article, but were preceded by a number of well supported perceptions and observances. So much of what Scott has to say is what I was hoping to come across as I learn more about literacy, writing and reading in higher education.

In this article, Scott talks about traditional, technocratic definitions of literacy that support deficit theories. Scott also addresses attitudes that persistently resist change specifically in the arena of instruction. Through examining these topics, Scott comes up with a concept called “uncritical dysconsciousness” which is “the acceptance, sometimes unconsciously, of culturally sanctioned beliefs that, regardless of good intentions, defend the advantages of insiders and the disadvantages of outsiders.” (Literacies and Deficits Revisited, p. 47, Scott, Jerrie Cobb).  This concept challenges instructors to teach with a higher level of consciousness that views marginalized students, usually black and Latino students, from a non-deficit standpoint.

More specifically, Scott addresses literate vs. oral cultures, and that often there is a bias toward oral cultures. Scott opened an avenue of thinking for me when she introduced oral culture into the discussion. It made me question how intelligence is measured and what it is measured against. When comparing African cultures and Western (European) culture, historically the African culture has for the most part been compared as inferior to Western cultures. Therefore, it makes sense that within the world of education, the African oral culture would be viewed as inferior to the Western (European) literate cultures. However, who said that the ruler to measure by should be Western literate culture? Why hasn’t oral culture been upheld as essential in the learning process? I am not ready to answer these questions in this commentary, but I was excited that Scott’s discourse raised these questions within me in a new framework – education and the discourse of Basic writing.

Scott uses viewpoints from different scholars to make her arguments, like Hirschian, who expands the definition of literacy to include knowledge – which then places oral cultures in a different light. She even pulls from anthropological studies (Bloome and Greene) to redefine literacy. In these studies “there are multiple literacies rather than a single literacy and individuals may be literate in multiple ways.”

Getting back to Scott’s statement that “students don’t care what we know unless they know we care”, issues that affect students placed in remedial classes like institutional racism and white privilege are areas that are often neglected in teacher training and development – and without being sensitized to these issues, teachers can unconsciously identify more with students that are advantaged and privileged (white students) than those that are not. Scott points out that teachers often unconsciously hold biased attitudes about literacy (insiders and outsiders) that affects the way they teach in the classroom. She stresses that too much emphasis is put on the marginalized-student side of the issue (students that are often placed in remedial classes), and not enough emphasis is put on the teacher. Scott looks at various aspects of this dynamic and challenges the reader to think about how it affects developmental students. She stresses that without deep restructuring in the classroom environment and teachers’ attitudes, there can be no serious educational reforms, and that ultimately, students are better able to learn when they know their teachers know and care about all factors that affect their educational development – and then teach them from this point of awareness.