What Maia said...

Maia said...

Hi Alice,
I've been doing some brain-storming about what types of lessons I can bring to the table this summer. Should our primary focus be increasing the girls' self-efficacy with confidence based activities, or would classes on more baisc skills (ie reading, writing, math) be a more appropriate start? I'm open to any suggestions,
Maia

February 6, 2007 10:46 AM

This was a great comment that I missed seeing until today -- my apologies, still gettin the hang of this blogger thang. Think it would help all us newbs if everyone would sign in at the top right of the blog home page (http://girlpowerliteracy.blogspot.com) as soon as they arrive at this site and POST instead of COMMENT.

Now to answer Maia. But I really want everyone's brain on this, because it's central to how we're going to work and we've got to thrash it out together until everyone's comfortable and clear.

My current thoughts: I think the CONTENT (something to do with growing up/being female in Yupukari) drives the FORM (using English, cameras, MP3 recorders, computers, etc). Meaning, Dickens didn't sit down to write English novels, he sat down to tell stories, and the medium was English.

I'm thinking that if we start by collaborating with the group members to define a compelling mission (to tell the stories of their lives/their mothers' lives/their grandmothers' lives/all three?) using words in English, pictures, moving pictures, audio recording and the computer as the interface, they will develop the SKILLS as we go. They will also see how lack of skill hampers them from expression, and perhaps derive greater motivation to improve their basic skills as a result (start to see a rationale for their schooling, much of which is pretty dopey, frankly).

That said, I think it would be fab to collect readings, bring movies and anything else you can think of that shows women/girls thinking about and expressing being women/girls. Preferably this stuff would be not too long or esoteric, and from a variety of cultures. Right now my brain is going to chick lit and girl flicks like A Little Princess (the remake) or Little Women, never saw Girl, Interrupted, really don't know this stuff at all ... Sex from the female POV is good too as long as it steers a careful course around obscenity (thinking politically now).
Over to yall.