Books, a Boy and Some Other Things: A literacy Narrative

Books, a Boy and Some Other Things

As an adolescent of five growing up in Chicago I didn’t know how to read. I knew enough to pass but, truly, I was a victim of apathetic and ineffective teaching and a public school system that still to this day continues to use the same ineffective pedagogical teaching strategies it always has. So, during the summer before first grade, my mother commenced to teach me the alphabet phonetically. She was a dutiful and caring parent, so I couldn’t even go outside to play till I had finished my lesson. Subsequently, when I had mastered the alphabet she began teaching me common words and phrases. I did all this quite easily and all-in an effort to please her, I began to display my newly discovered skill. I read everything the backs of buses, traffic signs, instruction manuals etc. I was very happy an entirely new world had opened up to me and I felt infinitely more powerful and capable.

The first book I ever read was called “A Fish Outta Water” By Helen Palmer. I first read it alone and then to my mother and other family members. My mother was maternally proud and that spurred me to read ever-more, and that has continued to this day.

Little was I aware that the numerous little urchins of whom I was one were not so fortunate. Poor mothers and fathers have very little time to educate themselves let alone their children. They work tirelessly and slave for minuscule wages. Their days are long, unrewarding and unsatisfactory. There’s a pervasive misconception about poor folks, especially black poor, that they are lazy and deserving of their stations in life. Most of the misconceptions stem from ignorance and internalized racial bias about black criminality. Most people preaching ignorance don’t even know any black people. Poor folks are some of the hardest working people I've ever met. I myself wasn't poor because my parents were educated and had resources and gave me encouragement, but, I was not better just different. Reading would become a bright spot in my life and also a major point of contention with my peers. I would become peerless. I would have to move on.

Eventually, I would transfer schools and attend a local charter school an Afrocentric school named Betty Shabazz International Charter School. At Shabazz I met Africans, African-Americans; Rastafari’s and even a few black Israelis. Everything and everyone was black and it was an incredibly vital time in my intellectual and academic maturity. I would begin to read more about black history and culture. I learned and read about ancient Egyptian and Ethiopian civilizations. I learned about Stokely Carmichael, Frantz Fanon, Black poets, authors, artists and intellectuals. All of this led me to read about philosophy, Confucius, Che Guevara, Karl Marx and a great many history and political science books. At Shabazz we didn’t learn all that Euro-centric propaganda that’s typically taught at other schools. We learned about ourselves. Shabazz was undeniably black and proud. I am black and proud. I am very grateful and lucky to have attended that school.

At Shabazz there were very few computers maybe five to six in a classroom and they all had to be shared. So, Naturally I rarely got to use them. The few times I did begin to use computers was whenever it was compulsory in school. But up until that point I had written academic papers by hand and that’s the way I preferred. That is not the way I feel today. Computers are not even comparable to writing by hand. Everything is easier and more convenient with a computer than by hand and it allows me to be more efficient.

Growing up, technology didn’t play a major in my reading or writing in general. There wasn’t a computer in my home until seventh grade nor did I have a cell phone until that time. I’ve always read or written on paper because I like traditional methods. In fact I actively dissuade others from using technology unnecessarily. Technology is useful at times but it has taken an over-active role in life and it’s making people complacent and lazy. Everything is now so easy and convenient that there’s basically no work required. Technology is a tool in life that I believe we should all reap the benefits from but, it isn’t life itself and we shouldn’t value it so much.

My whole life has been pushing me toward technology but I have always rejected it because I don’t want to be a slave to electronics. There’s nothing that can be read on the internet that you can’t find in a book. In my house paperbacks were all-around me and I was encouraged to read them. There’s an indescribable feeling I get when I read physical books that I don’t get when I read on my phone or tablet. It just all seems so distant and foreign and plain cold to me. With paperbacks, it’s intimate and warm and reminds me of my mother when she first taught me how to read.