References

School is the place where children spend the majority of their time with peers. It is, therefore, a natural and perfect setting for children to learn and practice social skills. While teachers do not have to teach a class in social skills, they can take advantage of every opportunity to help children improve their social skills. They should be alert to teasing and bullying and aware of children that are rejected or ignored by their peers. They should work cooperatively with the children's parents to prevent the humiliation, embarrassment, and distress that befall these children. Pairing a socially inept child with a socially adept one, involving children in cooperative instead of competitive learning exercises, identifying and acknowledging the strengths of all children, understanding social weaknesses, and creating an environment in which diversity is accepted and celebrated can greatly enhance all children's social abilities, sense of belongingness, and self-esteem, not just in the classroom but in life as well.

How children develop their social literacy is intrinsically a contextual matter and is not something that can be easily traced in a linear or developmental fashion. The acquisition of social literacy is a complex process that is historically and culturally conditioned and context-specific. Children learn through social practices, both explicit and implicit, and become human through social interaction. Nevertheless, it is also the case that children engage in social

Issues in Teaching Social Literacy

activity before they are taught it; in other words, children are disposed to be social before they learn what sociability is all about.

There are two distinct ways of answering the question on how children learn to live socially with each other and with adults. The first view is normative and communal. From their culture, children learn customs that provide them with a guide to act in ways that minimize conflict. The second view is pragmatic and individualistic. The social order of children is created by explicit and implicit agreements entered into by self-seeking individuals to avert the worst consequences of their selfish instincts (Arthur, Davison, & Stow, 2000). In this last view, social order is dependent on sanctions and formal agreements. Rules are obeyed because they confer personal advantage on a child. In the normative view, children are persuaded of the moral force of acting socially through their voluntary associations with others, both in their immediate circle, such as the family, and in the wider community, for example, through membership of a church or club. The child in this normative view will not only know the correct behavior but will perform the role without any need for regular, conscious reference to the rules governing it.

Teaching social literacy in schools is not as easy as it appears to be due to subjective standards of morality and inherent human capacity to judge and make excuses.

Subjective Standards of Morality

The natural outcome of postmodern philosophies is that truth and morality are considered subjective and open to individual interpretation. This can be seen in the current culture, where actions and behavioral patterns that were once considered bad have now become acceptable— so much so that many now consider them to be even good. When the standard of measure between good and bad changes, this gives us license to change as well and opens the gates to all kinds of abuse. This, in effect, pulls the rug out from under any and all attempts at true justice and equitability, since they themselves rely on a fixed moral standard.

Interestingly, many of those who insist on a subjective moral standard will be the first to demand for a fixed moral standard when they themselves fall victim to a subjective morality's inevitable outcome.

Human Nature

While we would all like to believe that people are inherently good, experience has taught us that the inherent goodness of humanity is, at best, unreliable: Sometimes it is there, often it is not. We are quick to champion the cause of moral uprightness, justice, and equity, but balk when our words and actions come under their scrutiny. In other words, we insist that others be judged according to a fixed moral standard, but invoke a subjective one when our