Sarah P was writing an article on the importance of literacy and requested some feedback, which I gave. I told here I especially liked how she had ended the article. Her reply to me included,

“By the way, that last line was completely inspired by your bit in the blog about change the words, change the confidence he feels to engage... or something of the like. So no wonder you liked it!”

We had a laugh over that. It also left me thinking about the ways we have organized literacy services and support and if these structures are helping people engage. I work with many community literacy organizations to help them develop reflective practice. I hear how many struggle in trying to find time to reflect on the “why” of literacy because they are simply too busy with the “what” and “how”. If we really want to achieve literacy goals it becomes important to ask ourselves what we mean by the “why” of literacy. If we can answer this question we can be better prepared to examine whether or not the ways we have structured literacy contributes or detracts from our goals.  

In Storytellers’ we understand the “why” of literacy as helping people engage, helping people gain skills, knowledge and confidence to live and act together and, ultimately, to influence a just society. To engage in my life requires me to be an agent in my life. The fuller my literacy tool kit the more I have to draw on to manage my life, navigate the bumps, dream a future and take the steps to move in to this future. Literacy is intricately connected to citizenship.

How we deliver literacy programming demands as much attention as the time we give to what literacy programming we deliver. How we organize ourselves in community directly impacts whether or not we have fostered confidence and instilled a person’s understanding of their “right” to engage as a citizen. John McKnight (community development educator) writes,

"Many organizations are forced into service delivery models that "clientize" the community. A client is "one who is controlled".

Joan Kuyek, a long time Canadian social justice and community activist, reminds us that when we organize around a client-service provider relationship we have divided people into helpers and helpees. This relationship creates a disempowering distinction between the deliverer of a service and a recipient of a service. And this disempowering distinction is reproduced in the style, structure, and practice of our organizations. Through this way of structuring ourselves, we not only fail in our goal to build confidence of people to act, we actually create structures to prevent people from acting. As Kuyek says,

“People who could become agents in changing their reality instead become passive recipients of a service.”

When this is compounded by similar treatment from every community organization or government institution such as welfare, food banks, employment services, literacy programs, adult education services and every other service with which the person interacts, the result is devastating. Kuyek challenges us that it takes “real consciousness and effort to avoid this organizational culture and create a different one.”

In Storytellers’ we give weekly attention to reflective conversations. We ask difficult questions of ourselves and we don’t always have the answers. What we recognize is the contradictions and tensions that exist. And we try to do as Kuyek says by avoiding this damaging organizational culture and do something different. It’s not always easy. Sometimes we do well and other times we don’t do as well.  

I am curious to know how others attempt to avoid this disempowering relationship and what other organizations are doing to ensure relationships are reciprocal, mindful of an individual's dignity and offer opportunity for all involved to both contribute and receive help. 

I hope you turn this blog in to a conversation by posting here, talking with your colleagues or emailing me.

Health literacy and a salute to one of the great educators I'm privileged to know

I’ve spent the past five weeks hanging out in northwest hospitals as a result of my son rupturing his appendix followed by an infection and complications. I’ve felt vulnerable. I’ve had to make quick decisions based on information thrown at me because time was ticking against him. I have chosen to trust health professionals whom I have no relationship with. I don’t understand medical terminology very well. Only two factors that led to feelings of greater vulnerability. All the time, my body is tight because I have forgotten to breathe in the emotional upheaval swelling within me.

As I was navigating through the structural challenges of the medical system and calming my emotional stress, I couldn’t help notice the number of people who were walking a similar path without anyone by their side. Health-literacy quickly raised itself in my consciousness. And, then Dee popped in to my head. I have a difficult time thinking about health-literacy without thinking of Dee. Dee introduced me to this concept and gave me a language to an issue I’ve witnessed almost daily in my life as an educator in community. And so, as I thought of Dee and health-literacy and of my fortune to be able to navigate a system that is unfamiliar ground to me, I also thought of Dee retiring from the formal world of paid work and how much she will be missed. I sat in a hospital waiting room and typed a farewell to Dee that a colleague later read out at her retirement party. I’ve posted some of my farewell as this week’s blog.

Dee,

I'm sending this farewell courtesy of Northern Health's free wifi, which boots you out every 10 seconds so you have to continually log in and I fear may be the reason behind people's high blood pressure way more than the illness that brought them here in the first place. And then I think of you and my mind jumps to health and technology literacy. I remember that many people won't even be able to turn on the wifi and then I think of you more and shake my head, geez, many of the people I've wandered hospital wards with in the past 3 weeks most likely don't have access to a computer, let alone figuring out wifi.

This is how it is for me Dee. When I think of you it's a rich, dazzling tapestry of images and words and experiences and visions and dreams, all woven together over a long history. Yet when I try to write about some of these images they just tumble out as flat words on a computer screen. 

You often said that I make your head swirl, my ideas too quick, too jumbled, too fast in connecting little dots to huge pictures. Yet, that's not at all true. You have always been the nimble one, the quiet radical, holding those absolute characteristics of a great adult educator. You are the mid-wife that Friere so eloquently talked about. Helping learners give birth to the knowledge they hold within, helping them figure out what they needed to articulate, what they already knew and helping them to enlargen their experience and knowledge so they can understand the world around them and fill their lives with dreams and goals.

How to say goodbye to you! 

When I try to say goodbye I have this waterfall of images cascading in front of me. Sandi is always first and foremost in these images. We were the three amigos giving birth to radical ideas together - you always accusing Sandi and I of greatness as if you were apart from that greatness. We were great together, the three of us. We believe in each other, we care for each other and we share a passion together. 

Images tumble in my mind: bell beavers, a-Doug and d-Doug, flat Matthew being touted around research workshops, wine and sleep-overs, bed + breakfast on Haida Gwai'i, Rural Roots and rooting around in research, the weird and wonderful ACME, meeting around picnic tables, the Man-In-the-Middle and so on and so on.

The man-in-the-middle, I see him in the hospital this morning, I've seen him a lot these past three weeks in Prince Rupert hospital, Terrace hospital and again today in Wrinch. He is, as you reminded us, not so sexy and sometimes unpleasant and difficult to be around. He is sometimes absent from the moment, or too silent or too loud, he's too angry or too passive, he is alone with no advocate and he is somebody's brother, uncle, father, maybe husband, one thing is for sure he is somebody's son. Who is there for him today as I am with my son? Who is asking him about his needs? Who is nurturing his worries and fears? Who is telling him he is important and needed? Who is helping him birth his ideas? Who is reminding the professionals that he has intelligence and holds knowledge, he just simply doesn't understand the words they use? Change the words and he'll share what he knows. Where is his champion? And that question brings me back to you Dee. You have been the champion for all the people in the middle. You've fought for them, you've taught for them. You've supported the people in the middle that you've met to be their own champions because you never have confused a lack of ability to articulate one's knowledge as a lack of lived experience and intelligence.

I salute you my friend and my teacher. You've been my champion too. You've believed in me and you've seen in me what I sometimes haven't seen in myself. You've drawn out ideas and confidence and action from me. And you've allowed me to surprise myself. When I'm with you I feel alive and smart and creative. It's what you give to all of us Dee, You, the adult educator extraordinaire. You look in our eyes and you see what we can be and you stand by us and help us find a way to bring that out.  For that I thank you. 

Now that I've shared my goodbye to Dee, I’m hoping you might post or email me  (adocherty@upperskeena.ca) your goodbye to Dee. It can result in a great big thank you e-card for Dee and a worthy set of reflections of literacy as it is today in British Columbia. 

Please take a few minutes and share what is going on in literacy today and salute a great adult educator, Dee McRae.

Small is Beautiful - Mega is Messy

In Joel McKay's discussion of boom and bust (see previous blog) he states:

It’s not an easy conversation to have – Houston has been a

two-sawmill town for as long as anyone can remember.

Houston Forest Products, the second mill, opened in 1978. Our memories are not that bad; rather, it’s that folks don’t live here that long. This too is a piece of the boom and bust: transient population cycle - lots of Houstonites have not been here for "decades". One of the ways folks introduce themselves around here is with the length of time lived in Houston. A typical gathering will have groups of under one year. One to three years. About five years. Some folks make it to ten years. Then there are the long timers, three decades or more, followed by the born and raised. So it isn’t that Houston has had two mills for a hugely long time, or that we have poor memories, but that many of our current residents were not here then, so they know Houston as a two sawmill town.

But wait a minute. In 1949 there were 42 mills in the Houston district, and by 1958, according to local old-timers, there were between 67 and 84 mills in operation. My guess is that not all the little mills were profitable or super-efficient, but they certainly were more boom and bust proof. If one mill closed, it affected fewer workers and there were several other mills nearby where one could likely find work. Small is Beautiful- Economics as if People Mattered, by E. F. Schumacher anyone? It does not take much imagination for those of us who are riding the boom and bust rollercoaster to see that life might be more stable, richer and less stressful with a different model.

The company town is another model that was popular in the 1950’s and 60’s in Canda’s hinterland. Kitimat is the poster child for company towns, a town built specifically for one industry and company, and interestingly, still kicking through its own bust period, and now growing again. Some other communities have had a tougher go of it: Alice Arm, Cassiar, Granisle, to name a few.

And now the approach is to create huge work camps and fly in workers from various parts of the province and country and beyond. And that is one of the key pieces of this model, it houses only workers. Lives and loved ones exist in other towns or cities. The camp supplies food and accommodations, and usually some recreational infrastructure. For everything else, the workers rely on the nearest, now overstretched town. Rumours fly, and numbers grow, but there is talk of some of these camps reaching 5,000 (predominately male) workers. They have no desire to live in this area, they are here for the pay cheque and little else. Their workdays may be 12 hours long and on their days off, they fly home. They are not a part of the community they work in. They are mostly absent from the community they live in.

Meanwhile, in these camp-encircled communities, hotel rooms are booked months in advance, rental accommodation is unavailable and food stores and other services are maxed out. Older buildings with low rent are being renovated and folks evicted: renoviction. The newly renovated suites go for up to $3000 per month to the well-paid affiliated professionals, in town for the boom spin-offs. Now the people who have lived here for years and years, the people who call this town home, are having to move to a place with cheaper rents. You cannot live on minimum wage in boom town. The only choice, if you don’t have the skills for the higher paid jobs, is to take a trip down the highway to the closest bust town, find a place to live for less and look for a job. But this is bust town and the jobs are not here. And now you are a transient, with family at a distance and no connection to place. The roller coaster is now a roundabout.

Is it not possible to develop resources in a planned way and create sustainable, livable communities where people will choose to work as well as live their lives and raise their families? Can we not see that small and planned is beautiful while mega project development is always boom and bust? Is it fair that the province pins its future prosperity on an unplanned model that creates unsustainable, transient populations and communities in our northern regions?

 

Next week: Literacy implications

A Vancouverite Weighs in On Boom Bust

Click on this link to reach Joel McKay's article on Houston!

http://www.biv.com/article/20140304/BIV0344/140309978/riding-northern-bcs-boom-and-bust-roller-coaster

Not Working - With Dignity

Suppose you live in a small boom and bust community. You do not have a paid job. You are not independently wealthy or retired or supported financially by anyone. You do not have a car – how can you afford one? You are not yet 65 years of age, but you are close. Your family does not live in this community, actually that is one of the reasons you choose to live here. You are on BC Benefits. As government policies have changed, you have qualified for disability payments some years (due to a health condition that is embarrassing to discuss with non-medical personnel) while other years you did not. The disability classification means you cannot work and removes you from the job search requirements. Personally, you find the term “disability” offensive and will declare yourself able to work. You do work every day. You grow vegetables in the community garden and preserve your produce. You teach people new to preserving how you do it. You bake cookies, bread, buns and bannock for the market garden. You are active and participate in community programs with events and activities several days of the week. You willingly volunteer when people are asked to commit to tasks.

 

Our society puts huge value on paid work. What you do for a living becomes part of your identity and your self-esteem. It affects how and when you move through communities and your relationships with others in your community. It affects how you are welcomed and treated in most public and business spaces. It affects what you do with your time, both in the job and off the job. It definitely affects how much money you have to spend and to save. If you are without paid work, you need to create your own reality, to find your own ways to move in community and feel productive. Places where you are valued, and where you can contribute.

 

Then it comes around again. Your name has come to the top of the list and it is time to reapply for BC Benefits, time to prove you cannot find suitable work, or that you have a disability.

 

Not much has changed in this community (still waiting for the boom) since the last time you did a job search. Even a boom would not change your situation. You take your same thin resume to the same enduring employers. Not much has changed there either – except you are five years older. Over 60 years old, female, low literacy skills and not able to do heavy unskilled labour: there are no jobs for you. Period. It would not matter how much you retrained. Employers take one look at you and you know they will toss your resume in the garbage as soon as you turn around. It is easy to recall how awful it felt last time you did this government mandated job search; you still have raw patches. The piles of paperwork and forms, the requirements for over the telephone conferences are all overwhelming. And demoralizing. And humiliating. You keep your head down and say yes, yes, yes. Never once do you ask the government worker to explain or ask why they want to know. Why do they ask about abuse from 60 years previous if they have nothing to offer to fix the pain of that monster resurfacing? Why do they ask if you were poor as a child? Are they going to fix all this now? Or is it just to make you feel raw, scarred, scared and demoralized? Never once do you answer anything more than yes. Once all this is over, it will take another year of support from the community programs before you will feel able to lift up your head again.

 

So what is the point? Why do you have to jump through these hoops and face this humiliation? Like every province and jurisdiction across the country, British Columbia also has a system to address eligibility for welfare payments and a plan to encourage as many people as possible to find gainful employment. It is not always pleasant or comfortable – and that is alright. The system functions impersonally, with criteria that dispassionately assess the right to benefits.  Societies need people to be working; most welfare systems are demanding. And yet…

 

You are active, contributing and keeping yourself healthy. You and your JobsBC worker both know there are no jobs for you. Worst case scenario would be that you would get a job and then be fired when you failed to physically meet the demands of the eight hour shifts five days per week. Or when you become ill and rundown. What is the cost to the taxpayer of putting your file in the active pile? How much is the government spending to torture you, when everyone knows the outcome will be the same. Why do they ask the humiliating questions about things they have no business asking?

 

Why do we allow the system to treat you so badly? Is there not a more dignified way to review client cases?