Autobiographical Essay 3

High school curriculum thirty years ago was vastly different than the curriculum being taught in the high schools of our 21st Century. Perhaps we can attribute this disparity to the flexible meaning of literacy that is dependent in large part on a society’s understanding of literacy. As we learned in the Graff text, literacy means different things to different groups of people. For one culture, literacy may correlate to competency in daily life skills; for another it may be tied to the skill level necessary for specific employment; while still for others it may be linked exclusively to academic performance.

Looking back at my high school days on the East coast I see that literacy for my community was driven in large part by the goal of self sufficiency. While I had what I refer to as the “normal” academic classes (Science, Math, and English), my high school also offered Gregg Shorthand, Typing, Accounting, Home Economics, and Word Processing as part of the curriculum. One period I was dissecting an animal, while the next period I might be learning how to cook, sew, or type.

Since college was never a discussion at my home, I knew that my priorities in high school were: a) to maintain good grades so I didn’t get in trouble at home; and b) to learn skills that would enable me to secure a husband and/or a job. It was clear that I wouldn’t be living at home for my last two years of high school, and I knew that my emancipation was contingent in large part on my ability to support myself financially. It was the curriculum at my high school thirty years ago that allowed me to become independent at sixteen years of age. I would define my understanding of literacy at this stage in my life as the successful learning of skills necessary to function independently in society.

I remember my feeling of great achievement when I took first place in the state’s typing competition. Thanks to Miss Tucker, my typing teacher, I was typing on a manual typewriter at the rate of seventy words per minute as a freshman. I could also take dictation, balance accounts and prepare tax returns. I had found my niche in life through these literacy activities. More importantly, through these activities and training I gained independence. With just the skills I learned in high school, I was able to secure secretarial jobs and positions within the banking industry. Winning an essay contest in Social Studies was rewarding but it didn’t open doors for me. Training in the Army provided me with structure and discipline, but it didn’t open doors for me. But with typing, shorthand, and good business sense, I excelled in the “real” world.

Today, my hourly rate is higher than most of the middle managers with college degrees at my place of employment. It is ironic that I am struggling financially so I am able to attend college with the goal of earning a degree that will not increase my income but will in actuality reduce it by nearly forty percent. This should dispel my belief in the “literacy myth,” but it does not. This leads me to believe that no matter how much we learn or how much we achieve, we will still strive to achieve the ever-moving target of “literacy.”