Storytellers' is applying
to the CRA for charitable status. Part of the application is to send a binder
with samples of the organization’s work. I was flipping through my archives
binder of past reports and publications and I came across the ACME guide to
literacy. This is a guide that Dee, Sandi and I published quite a few years
back. The introduction is Dee’s story of the man in the middle. Dee has also
posted a blog about the man-in-the-middle.
As I re-read
the introduction to ACME I found myself thinking of an elderly man who often
comes to the Learning Shop for literacy support. He is a “drop-in” and he is
most often looking for Sarah because she is always “there for him”. At any
given time Sarah is helping him understand a letter he has received in the mail
or a bill statement that is confusing him or she is helping him sift through legal
information about residential school settlements. He is the
“man-in-the-middle.” It could be easy to describe him only as a learner. It could
be easy to think he has needs and we meet those needs and that’s all there is
in our relationship with him. He might, at first glance, seem “less able”. His language
is often difficult to grasp, he seems confused and he is always a bit “messy”
about his personal hygiene. And yet, we know there is so much more to him than only
being a learner. He has decades of life experience, he has extensive family
relationships, he has held many jobs and he had past success running his own
small business. He just needs help interpreting his world because he isn’t
great with the written word. We know about his life because Sarah intuitively
sees him as a peer. This man is an adult who is agent enough to seek out help
when he requires it. When Sarah provides literacy support she sees herself as a
partner with this adult man.
When I stop to
think about this learning relationship, I wonder how Sarah knows how to be his
partner and not only his teacher. I wonder how Sarah knows how to invite his
life story in to the learning relationship. How does Sarah know to shift the
partnership back and forth between teacher and learner? I witness her become
the teacher and he the learner and then he becomes the teacher and Sarah learns
from him. I’ve overheard Sarah asking about the skills he used in past jobs and
expressing an interest in learning more. As he teaches Sarah, the relationship
becomes one of respect. It’s a reciprocal learning relationship and that allows
them to each hold dignity in the learning space. This is not only respectful it
is good teaching practice.
Adult learners
bring a wealth of experience and accomplishment to the learning situation.
Using the adult’s life experiences is an effective way for the teacher to
motivate learners and to help them see a connection between their own lives and
what they are learning in the literacy environment. Many of us who are older in
the literacy field received training and continual mentorship to learn and
practice this approach to education. We had opportunity for formal education
and on-going professional development. Not only did we build skills, knowledge
and confidence to do our work well, we also built a network of supportive
relationships. We had a provincial network of colleagues that we could call on
to troubleshoot, boost creativity and hold us accountable in our practice.
I’m not sure
the “newbies” in the literacy field are receiving the depth and consistency of
training and mentorship that once was there. I’m not sure if the “newbies”
would describe themselves as part of a community education field. Dee’s
retirement reminds me that those of us who had this extensive training and
support network are leaving the field. Who is there for Sarah and her peers?
A new literacy
practitioner most likely understands that the adult learner is multi-faceted
with extensive life experience and rich full lives. They probably know that the
adult learner, like many adults, have many demands on their time and energy.
And the new literacy practitioner is also aware that the adult learner may have
fewer resources and skills to attend to all the demands on their lives,
especially trauma and crisis.
My question is
how does the new literacy practitioner become equipped to support the adult learner
to deal with life pressures and support them to get what they want as far as literacy
skills? How does the new literacy practitioner know how to take real life
situations and turn them in to lesson plans that are relevant and useful to the
adult learner? How does the new literacy practitioner learn to navigate an
adult-to-adult learning relationship, which involves sharing who teaches and
who learns?
Facilitating learning with adults requires a multi-faceted skill
set that includes robust mental and emotional health. It requires that the
literacy practitioner knows their world view including their biases and
assumptions. I worry that the new literacy practitioner is often alone in
navigating these complexities.
Our intent in
publishing the ACME guide was to open a conversation about the complexities in
community adult literacy. We wanted the guide to be an agitator for
deeper, reflective conversation. We hoped that people could gather around the
content of the guide, unpack it, challenge it and talk with their colleagues.
Our hope was that by the end of the conversation everyone would be more
knowledgeable and skilled as literacy practitioners.
I still hold
on to that hope. I want a community literacy field where we partner with each
other, our provincial network and government to train and support excellent
literacy practitioners. I believe we must invest more in resources instead of
cutting back on resources. I believe we must create reflective learning spaces
for all literacy practitioners to critically analyze their practice and we must
offer learning opportunities for literacy practitioners to provide current,
relevant and meaningful community literacy education. The new literacy
practitioners deserve the right to be trained and to feel well equipped in
their practice. The man-in-the-middle should expect nothing less.
