Categorizing the Multiple Literacies/Perspectives Learned in PK-12

At the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, we see the inherent problem of putting out 25 (!) different sets of standards, but we don’t always do a good job of helping districts see how to integrate and simplify these guidance documents. One area of connection we’re currently working on is STEM – discussing a goal of transdisciplinary STEM literacy that we hope all students gain by the time they graduate from high school. These conversations have gotten me thinking about ways to coalesce around a smaller set of core literacies (or perspectives or lenses) that schooling should support as students work to make sense of the unique aspects of the world related to disparate courses and standards. Students cannot meaningfully bring 25 different literacies or perspectives to bear as they explore phenomena and solve problems; I propose there are 5 that should frame student learning opportunities in PK-12.

First, students grow in understanding of how social systems work—how cultures, economics, political systems, and communities function. They explore what power means and how limited resources impact societies and individuals, including their own job prospects. There is a core aspect of them figuring out how they fit into these systems, their own civic and community engagement, and how ethics play out in these structures. Ideas of environmental sustainability come into play here. As students learn other languages and build intercultural competence, they also grow in this social literacy.

Second, students grow in understanding of themselves—how they think and feel. Introspection and metacognition are important processes. This psychological literacy often comes in relation to and builds from the social-emotional and cultural aspects of themselves; it’s hard, likely impossible, to make sense of ourselves apart from our cultures. Inward looking pulls from many perspectives and our unique “self” to frame our thinking and decision-making; it’s more than a social process as we analyze our learning and ourselves and how/why we feel about it as we do, including how our own racial and cultural identities connect with these elements.

A cultural and personal literacy could also be connected to what some would call a spiritual literacy. This spiritual sense-making clearly pulls from these social and psychological lenses, though the complex nature of spiritual perspectives is likely best left out of PK-12 schooling. Notably, this spiritual perspective often gets confused with an ethical or moral perspective. I argue here that ethics belong more in that social area of how we function as a society. We have expectations, laws, and responsibilities to make social systems function well instead of constantly becoming mired in the tragedy of the commons.

Third, again connected to these other facets of sense-making, I would argue that there is a unique aesthetic literacy. Through this lens we see things, often purely, for their beauty and how they make us feel. This artistic literacy would include music, dance, poetry, and other forms of creative expression and interpretation.

Fourth, students grow in STEM literacy. A challenge here, perhaps more than in other areas, is defining what that means. At its essence, it is pulling in science, technology, and mathematics understanding to solve technical problems in the world around us. A social systems perspective is necessary to solving societal problems, but there are nuances of those problems that require a technical skill set as well. This literacy could logically be called engineering, or an engineering design perspective, on problem solving. While, again, it weaves in social, psychological, and aesthetic lenses, it also requires unique technical and data-driven perspective and abilities.

Fifth, students develop in science literacy as they work toward understanding how the natural world works. This is not necessarily to solve problems or connect to product/process development, like the frequent focus of STEM and engineering literacy. It is to understand how natural systems work, from the broad universe to the quarks within the atoms making our bodies.

Other subject areas of schooling largely combine these five core literacies or provide tools to use them. For example, career and Technical Education (CTE) courses generally build on STEM and social lenses. At their core, they can be technical problem-solving in a particular field (like health care), though there’s always the sociological and psychological (people) elements in these fields. Similarly, a business class might be a blend of the social (economics/community) and technological, along with some psychology (advertising), to work through the development, selling, and eventual obsolescence of a product.

I can see an argument that there is a purely mathematics literacy, a unique numeracy of our being, but I’m not convinced that perspective is a core aspect of PK-12 learning. Perhaps at the university or in an extracurricular. Mathematics at PK-12 is more of a key tool in service to understanding the world from these other lenses.

Similarly, I’d argue that an English class also isn’t building a unique PK-12 perspective, unless you’re considering the aesthetic angle. It’s a tool too, though one that logically requires its own opportunities for learning. There is an underlying communication required for everything. There are stories and reports, where writing and reading them engage the cultural, individual, and aesthetic lenses, but they don’t stand on their own as another lens.

Like English, a technological literacy, whether employed or developed, isn’t truly isolated either. It’s in service to our social interests (psychology, sociology) or our problem solving (engineering/STEM).

So, we’re left with five main lenses that should be explicitly engaged in and connected through the PK-12 years: social, psychological/individual, artistic/aesthetic, STEM/engineering, and science. Five lenses feel much more approachable than 25 sets of standards. Though, certainly, there are other unique disciplinary literacy elements that are also valuable—perhaps deeper studies of economics and sociology, for example—but these are likely more appropriate for advanced coursework. Finer nuances and hard delineations within these literacies are less critical within a core set of lenses for students to make sense of the world.

Considering what these literacies mean for education, it would be ideal if they were not always treated as isolated perspectives within traditional course arrangements. Engaging students in making sense of the world requires them to use these different perspectives, not attempt to pull from 25 areas of learning. The enormous challenges and “information” inundation we face cannot be limited to the emotional response of the psychological or the technical response of the STEM. What if educators collaborated around the same phenomenon, then tackled it from these differing perspectives? What if students were given opportunities to explore, develop, and evaluate solutions to real problems? There are underlying elements of inquiry, problem solving, evidentiary thinking, questioning, etc., within each of these areas from which learning could be built as students use these multiple literacies.