Imagination the Beginning Step of Literacy

Last spring I graduated with my Masters in Reading, which translates to I love everything literacy related.

Adam and I were over at the Moxon's tonight.  They are fellow missionaries, who have been in Haiti for much longer than we have.  Bill Moxon said something that literally is keeping me up hours later then I ever stay up.  I don't want to change his words, but I have been playing around with the concept so much I can't remember the original statement.

He said something to the effect that...literacy is so much more than print.

He explained people have experiences with 3-D, because that is their lived experience.  But, some people do not have experiences with the 2-D, so much to the extent that they don't know representing.  Not only have some people not interacted with books, but they haven't been given the chance to see flat images.

I too have had a bit of experience with representing.  I have met people whom I have taken their photograph and they have not recognized themselves.

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Bill went beyond people not having access to mirrors.  He stated that not only do some not recognize their own 2-D image, they do not recognize family members photos.  There hasn't been an opportunity to move beyond reality into representing objects.

This concept is the flip to what Plato explained in his Allegory of the Cave.  In Plato's Republic  the Allegory of the Cave explains the prisoners only know the 2-D.  They have only seen the shadows cast on the wall by the fire of those walking past.  In Plato's story the freed prisoners face a disconnect between the shadows and the real images.

I did not spend all this time thinking about reality, Plato, and representing.  Instead I have been thinking about our COTP children.  Some of these children haven't been given the opportunity to imagine, therefore in preschool play is a huge goal.

Just this week we have had two major break ah-ha's with using our imagination.  First, one of our fellow classmates was at an appointment and the classmates imagined him at school with us.  They would pretend to sit on him and apologize.  When playing with our baby dolls the students insisted he be given a baby doll to play with at the table.  The second celebration was today when the children had a birthday party for a nanny who wasn't even present.  They sang "Happy Birthday" in English and Kreyol, as well as prayed for her.  A cute moment was when one of the girls proclaimed, "You are 3," to the nanny the little girl was pretending to be present.

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Imagination is the beginning step of literacy.  These precious children are well on their way.


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