A Holistic Approach to Cross-Curricular, Immersive Literacy Improvement in
21 Century Education in Secondary Schools
Dublin West Education Centre is thrilled to announce its holistic, multi Literacies initiative.
“Literacy is key to keeping children from life of disadvantage and crime”, (Irish Times, 2014). Moreover, educational disadvantage and especially those students struggling with literacy issues, refers to the complex situation where some individuals get less benefit from the education system than their peers. The Education Act 1998 Ireland, defines educational disadvantage as, “the impediments to education arising from social or economic disadvantage which prevent students from deriving appropriate benefit from education in schools”.
Educational disadvantage is demonstrated in many ways, most often in poor levels of participation and achievement in numeracy and literacy in the formal education system. There are other ways in which children may be disadvantaged, for example as a result of a disability, cross-curricular literacy difficulties, ill health, poverty, homelessness, living in rural environments, ‘new-comer’ status, etc.
As we enter the third decade of the 21 century, ‘literacy’ as we know it has taken on a variety of meanings and challenges and indeed some argue, especially authors and experts such as Alvin Toffler that, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn” (1970).
This literacy initiative at DWEC seeks to address in new and transformative and holistic ways, some of these ‘literacy inequalities’ by inviting 2nd level schools to explore traditional and/or more holistically approaches to issues surrounding ‘literacy disadvantage’ in their schools.
“Literacy is key to keeping children from life of disadvantage and crime”, (Irish Times, 2014). Moreover, educational disadvantage and especially those students struggling with literacy issues, refers to the complex situation where some individuals get less benefit from the education system than their peers. The Education Act 1998 Ireland, defines educational disadvantage as, “the impediments to education arising from social or economic disadvantage which prevent students from deriving appropriate benefit from education in schools”.
Educational disadvantage is demonstrated in many ways, most often in poor levels of participation and achievement in numeracy and literacy in the formal education system. There are other ways in which children may be disadvantaged, for example as a result of a disability, cross-curricular literacy difficulties, ill health, poverty, homelessness, living in rural environments, ‘new-comer’ status, etc.
As we enter the third decade of the 21 century, ‘literacy’ as we know it has taken on a variety of meanings and challenges and indeed some argue, especially authors and experts such as Alvin Toffler that, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn” (1970).
This literacy initiative at DWEC seeks to address in new and transformative and holistic ways, some of these ‘literacy inequalities’ by inviting 2nd level schools to explore traditional and/or more holistically approaches to issues surrounding ‘literacy disadvantage’ in their schools.
Rationale for the application
- why your school would like to become involved in the holistic Literacy initiative,
- what you are doing in holistic Literacy education in your school today,
- what benefits you hope to gain from participation,
- your capacity and commitment to the initiative
- the role students will play in your development as a holistic Literacy school.
- how will you benchmark the success of your initiative
- any other information, web links, that you deem relevant to your application
Successful Schools to follow soon...
As a Taster, click below to see how other perceive 21Century learning and Multiliteracies:
https://21stcenturylearningtoolkit.weebly.com/
