Gee 1991a

Gee, James Pau. 1991a. "The legacies of literacy: From Plato to Freire through Harvey Graff." Essay review of Graff 1987. In Minami and Kennedy 1991. (Reprint from Gee 1988.) Interest level: academic..

Reviewer starts with Plato and ends with Freire. Graff disputes the ideas that literacy leads to logical and analytic modes of thought and abstract use of language. States that school-based literacy often serves to perpetuate social inequality while claiming to mitigate it.

Plato stated that writing led to deterioration of memory, and meant that knowledge no longer had to be internalized, made part of oneself. Writing encouraged reliance on the written text as a crutch. Plato considered that true knowledge comes when one person makes a statement and another asks, "What do you mean?" However, with his own writings, Plato insisted on "correct interpretation" and wanted no dialogue.

Graff shows how literacy has been used to empower elites. Freire also stresses this, but shows evidence in writing of allowing no variance from his ideas, and insists on the importance of "thinking correctly." Graff concludes that "One doesn't think for oneself; rather, one always thinks for (really with and through) a group--the group that socialized one into that practice of thinking." Comments that schools are such social institutions in the Western world, and ends with the question, "Can schools be changed?"

• Bibliography module: Gee 1991a
• In overview module: Bibliography (Literacy): G
• In modular book: Bibliography (Literacy), by Doris Gallemore, Trudi C. Hunt, Jeanne Swanson, and Stephen L. Walter
• In document collection: Reference materials
• In bookshelf: Literacy

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