Skating for Literacy!

This assignment entailed visiting a place in the community that children frequent and observing the literacy skills necessary to get by in such a place. The class went out in teams of 5, and my team went to Western Skateland. In addition to each taking general not of the literary environment around us, we each had a specific task: (a) Observe and record the physical environment, (b) Observe and record the people and activities, (c) observe and record bits of talk, (d) observe and record vocabulary, written and spoken, that is unique to this place, and (e) gather and record evidence of literacy.  After we each gathered individual data, we discussed our impressions of the place and consolidated our data.

My job was to record the physical environment. As per the recommendation on the assignment sheet, I drew a map of Western Skateland.

Alongside this drawing, I want to illustrate the “feeling” of Western Skateland. I hesitated at first to include this because I have been taught that a good ethnographer removes herself from the situation so as not to influence it. But I also know that it is impossible to truly remove myself, so why not admit that I was one of the members of this environment for the time I was there and analyze my own interactions. Western Skateland is a place for easy, relaxed socializing. Most people came in groups (family or friends), but often interacted with people outside their original group. Such was the case with me; I came with my classmates, but spent some time skating with my martial arts student Sam (not his real name) and his mom, and challenged Sam to a game of Air Hockey (which I won by accident…). They patiently taught me to cross over skate, which made it much easier to navigate the corners and encouraged me as my body shakily remembered long-unused skills. I was also approached by an old man who worked there simply because he was curious about our assignment and wanted to help. He told me that he’d been skating since he was 4, about 6 decades! There was certainly some competition in the air, especially during the games, but it was very easy-going and no one was overly excited or disappointed by their wins or losses. A general feeling of friendliness and acceptance pervaded.

Literacy, both spoken and written, certainly played a role in this environment. In some cases, it was assumed that the people present would understand what was meant by skate in the “normal direction” or “select your corners”. The latter was for the game “4 corners” and, as someone who had more or less forgotten the rules, I can say that even without a cultural knowledge, it was easy enough to follow along.

There were a few forms of written literacy, some particular to this environment and others not. For example, the rules and warning signs were specifically written for patrons of Western Skateland to read. One particularly amusing (albeit somewhat frightening) sign was the one outside that told parents not to abandon their children. I suppose, after some consideration, it is sad that this sign was deemed necessary, but we did laugh that such a message was explicitly written down rather than implied.

The concession stand was an example of a type of literacy that extends beyond the rink. Children would likely have encountered concession signs before and have the literacy knowledge to order their food/beverage and pay for it. But it is important to remember that this still belongs to a certain culture, a culture of sports games and consumerism. Other signs, such as “Happy Birthday” and the “Ladies” and “Men” signs, are common across the US, and even the English speaking world. I did, however, find it interesting that it was neither “women” and “men” nor “ladies” and “gentlemen”, but rather “ladies” and “men”. What does this say about the gender beliefs of this place?

                                                               

Arcade games provided another example of written literacy, although I doubt many children actually read the labels or instructions. In fact, suspect this is true about much of the written literature of the place; if I were not examining literacy for an assignment, I doubt I would have taken the time to read the rules and warnings, the concessions I was not eating, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed the difference between the game titles “Clean Sweep” and “Smart Clean Sweep”.

A final example of literacy was the music. At first I was annoyed that the loud music made it difficult for me to eavesdrop on conversations, but then I realized that music is a form of oral literacy in itself. Talking to the old man who worked there, I learned that there are different playlists for different hours. For the late night sessions, they play rap and hip hop, while the early night sessions are more family friendly pop songs. It was interesting to notice, having learned this, that there were still words bleeped out and even one song about a man taking his girl home and watching her take off her little black dress. I guess they thought the children wouldn’t listen to (or understand) the lyrics…

All in all, my impression of Western Skateland was that a cultural literacy – spoken, written, and musical – did exist and would be very helpful in navigating the time and space spent there, but standard “school” literacy was not very prevalent. With the exception of a few warning signs that nobody seemed to read except me and my fellow students, cultural literacy was enough to get by.