Week Three - Life Worlds

The life world is not particularly explicit or set in stone.  It is a set of habits, behaviours; values and interests that go without saying in a particular context (Kalantzis. 2012).  My past, my present and my future has and will shape me as a person and determine where I will end up.  My life world attributes also shape me as a person in four (4) particular domains, narrative, persona, affinity and orientation. 

My life worlds have critically developed my literacy skills and understandings.  The interconnection of my life world attributes have shaped me as a learner, an academic and ultimately a literacy prod-user.  

Suggested by Kalantzis, 2012, there are different aspects that can affect the outcomes of literacy learners.  These aspects are broken into three (3) categories, material, corporeal and symbolic differences.  Similar to the four (4) domains of attributes, these differences include factors such as, socio-cultural background, economic status and family background.  

In schools today, there are many different cultures being brought into the classroom and many different values and belief systems Kalantzis, (2012) It is vital for the teacher to provide an inclusive classroom environment for all students to learn and incorporate their life world attributes in.  One TED talk that I watch religiously is the "Every Kid Needs a Champion" by Rita Pierson.  Rita explores the imperative that all children need a teacher that can make a difference for each individual child, regardless of their life world and regardless of their disposition.  She suggests that every child is different and they need different modes of attention and assistance to achieve outcomes and ambitions.  Backgrounds influence how children are today so it is important as an educator to cater for all children needs and life world attributes.   

Sharan (2014) suggests that a transformation has been made in regards to the disposition of perceptions towards the multifaceted inclusion of a variety of cultural attributes and material, corporeal and symbolic differences.  This transformation of scrutiny has been positively influenced by the increasing number of diverse cultures and attributes in the classroom.  Thus, provides reinforcement that multimodal literacy embedded into the classroom is beneficial for all literacy learners and prod-users.