Keira Chapter 2

Ok, so...This chapter did actually teach me a new word--and I think it's going to turn out to be a key word for this book. The word is:

efferent

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "efferent" can be an adjective or a noun. The adjective means

Conveying outwards, discharging.

And the noun:

That which carries outwards.

Interestingly (well, it's interesting to *me*), even the full online unabridged OED offers no examples of the word as it's used in literacy studies, so I had to think the metaphor implicit in Smith and Wilhelm's usage through for myself. Here's the first instance of their use of this word in Chevys:

The boys we cite here could be described as taking an efferent [emphasis added] stance (Rosenblatt, 1978) in their reading. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that they choose texts that reward an efferent reading. Csikszentmihalyi (1990a) provides a lens through which to understand that choice. Efferent reading by its nature provides an opportunity for clear and immediate feedback that aesthetic [emphasis added] does not. If you're looking for information and you find it, you know that your reading is successful: You can beat the game, fix the electrical problem, or hit the ball straighter. Aesthetic reading, the kind that most teachers (us included) [emphasis added] want to cultivate, is a much more nebulous thing. The focus in aesthetic reading is not what can be learned but what is experienced. As such it is consonant with the final characteristics of flow experience that we'll discuss in this chapter, a focus on the immediate. But is at odds with the way most of the boys in our study spoke about reading. (At the end of Chapter 4 we will explore some ways of cultivating more competent and informed aesthetic reading) (40).

Efferent reading takes readers outward, toward something he/ she can DO with what they've gleaned. (Fix chevys, maybe?) The relevant contrast is with aesthetic reading...The root of the word "aesthetic" has to do with sense perception (think "anesthetic," which is obviously about numbing the senses), though the meaning shifted toward having to do specifically with beauty or a response to beauty--which obviously can be interpreted in a range/ variety of ways. But, in any case, at its best aesthetic experience is an intense inward experience. I do eagerly anticipate Smith and Wilhelm's move (they say it's coming in Chapter 4!) toward what I guess will be making some kind of connection between the "flow" experiences the boys experience in other domains in their lives to the aesthetic experiences they *might* have via literature, but in general do not.

This is an interesting and worthy project....BUT...like Chloe (I think) I'm a little frustrated or maybe impatient or skeptical at this point in the book. Is the payoff really coming?

One of the elements of Chapter 2 that triggered my skepticism (SEVERELY triggered it) is the part about video games--and it's kind of the culmination of the chapter so it LEFT me with a bad feeling (hence my fairly long delay between my first reading of the chapter and this posting). Here's an annoying passage: "The attraction of video games resides at least in part on the fact that they provide players with a careful sequence of experience. But a similar sort of careful sequencing characterizes too few classrooms" (51). WHAT?! Seriously?

I'm certainly in agreement that teachers should be reflective about sequencing, and, sure, it's got to be possible to structure a syllabus in such a way that some/ most students should be able to make some connections and build skills gradually. But there is no way that a human teacher can achieve for 30 (give or take) different students per class the kind of individualized sequencing that a computer can do with a video game. We are not machines, neither are the students, and the skills we're trying to foster are complex. The one time I think I experienced anything in the domain of English education that was anything like a video game was the time I took the verbal GRE test via computer. The computer was able to adjust with exquisite rapidity to my vocabulary level. But that's just a very specific kind of test! I don't think anybody could teach me about a complex book (or poem) in anything like that kind of way. Sure, you can individualize your syllabus by building in elements of choice, but no human being who is teaching 30 other human beings (PER CLASS) can do the kind of minutely, immediately responsive sequencing of which a computer (in connection with SOME tasks) is capable.