Anne strongly embraces literacy as a part and parcel of
community development work. She will often say, “You call that literacy, I call
it community development”. And in so doing she effectively broadens the
definitions of literacy for all of us who work, hang out and try to keep up
with her. In addition, she reciprocates by taking literacy beyond its
traditional boundaries into the community development world as her ideas bounce
back and forth. Anne’s passion is contagious. Her openness and ability to
accept other people’s ideas and incorporate them into projects or
presentations, and to gather input and incorporate it into something new and
fresh is brilliant. She is a powerful advocate for literacy and the
understanding that literacy is a joined up issue with joined up solutions. Many
of her word pictures have now become part of the lexicon for literacy. Joined
up issue is just one of them. As is “by naming it you make it real”. And “by
giving it words you can now talk about it.” Being intentional, or working with
intent. Knowing your North Star, keeping your focus.
Anne seizes ideas and concepts from other disciplines and
tries them out, keeping what works and getting rid of that what does not. At
the same time, she stays committed to the practices that hold true: reflection
on action, the personal power poster (AKA The
Poster), appreciative inquiry, informal learning, experiential education –
all those buzz words that the rest of us might toss around – Anne can define,
demonstrate, argue, identify, articulate, debate, perform all of them –
probably while chewing gum or planting seedlings or making flipcharts. Her work
and training as an experiential educator means workshops are fun and active.
Anne is often off to the side while participants do “all the work”. Then,
through another activity or wrap up or somehow, she will pull it all together;
her ability to observe and report out about events, projects, or people is
legendary. So many times we have heard someone say, “Anne captured and fed it
back to us so that now I understand it.” Or sometimes in shorthand as “Anne
nailed it.”
Anne loves getting her ideas out to other educators. She
works with local practitioners and academics to show how social capital and
literacy are connected. She works tirelessly to educate fellow practitioners,
across the province, about issues related to engagement, reciprocity,
reflective practice and community development. Anne always upholds high
academic standards when educating the rest of us. While her cerebral approach
may leave heads spinning while her audience works to keep up, she never
falters, knowing that her audience can and will understand the complexities she
is committed to sharing with them. She believes in the field, and in the power
of the local community practitioners to make change.
Anne believes in developing the field and encouraging
practitioners to share knowledge and see themselves as experts. She does this
one-on-one at a meeting or over coffee or in workshops. She was ahead of the
field in setting up a network for practitioners: Rural Roots. Part of the
founding philosophy of Rural Roots is that we all hold knowledge. When experts
are brought in for their specialty, they are encouraged to follow the same
philosophy. Workshops are held with a member or guest facilitating, but
knowledge from the participants is encouraged and expected, as are the hard
questions. Anne is also a demanding advocate – asking those hard questions of
others when required. She is honest about her successes and her failures, about
changing her mind or her plan when new information arises. She is also
incredibly energizing. Practitioners love to work with her at workshops; they
leave feeling full of new ideas and perspective.
Anne can tell stories that paint pictures about the
realities of rural, remote Aboriginal communities in ways that policy makers, government
officials and bureaucrats understand and are moved to act upon. Her
explanations of orality and the complexity of Aboriginal culture as it pertains
to learning and literacy has helped many of us understand some of the nuances
of Aboriginal literacy. Concepts around learning in relationship, reciprocity,
connection to the land, engagement, to name a few.
Always hungry to learn, Anne also worked on several research
in practice projects. She always wanted to push the edges, bringing in the
practitioner to the From the Ground Up assessment tools, putting engagement
into the Community Adult Literacy Benchmarks. The collaborative groups she
worked in were always changed by her ideas around literacy, learning and
community. And when she brought research to the community and region with a
multiday event, Rooting Around in Research, the goal was to encourage
others to use, do and read research around their practice, in their community.
She always encourages us all to be better than we are in our practice. And she
walks that talk.
Keeping up with Anne is one of those
unattainable goals. She is always on the go, building new projects, bringing in
previous experience and trying out new things. She is always mentoring other
practitioners, formally or informally. She is a powerhouse of innovative
practice both for learners and practitioners. When she stated that she wanted
to do something to keep the conversation open about community literacy, and
wanted to do so in a fun “lite” way, with Sandi Lavallie and me, I was worried.
I spent hours jotting notes while Anne and Sandi (two brilliant minds) debated
and discussed back and forth about literacy and learning. The eventual outcome
was “ACME: A Guide to Community Literacy and Learning” in comic book form. And
out of ACME another Anne-ism arose: “the man in the middle” from the preface to
ACME, as the short form to remind us all of our learners, the folks at the
center of our practice.
Anne’s contributions to literacy in the
province are huge. She moved the field in a way that respected the foundations,
but put a fun and kind of crazy twist on it. She makes the very challenging
work fun and creative for fellow practitioners, while staying true to the
foundational theories and values that drive her work. She keeps the “man in the
middle” at the center and encourages practitioners to do the tough internal
work: to reflect on their own actions, values, learning and opportunities to
create change.
The BC Literacy Field is a richer, more
creative place due to Anne’s thoughtful risk taking and creative engagement of
practitioners and policy makers. Meanwhile, her work retains its focus sharply
on the “man in the middle”, ensuring that when all is said and done, the
learners’ experience is enriched.
And so, literacy folks, think of Anne
when you think of your work, and how each of you can and do make a difference.
One learner at a time. One strange, wild idea at a time. And if you ever go through the stage of wondering what
you are doing and why, there is probably a copy of ACME on a bookshelf near
you.
And have a great literacy MONTH!
