A Woman Who Grew a Field

Anne Docherty is a thinker and a changer. Her work in community development was already groundbreaking when she applied her community development work to literacy. She made amazing things happen by taking the risk that the field was ready for new thinking. She moved her practice beyond her own community, first to the NW Region, then to the entire province. This was not a random move; rather she took these steps with the intent to both test and grow her ideas and theories. Her advocacy for learners and mentoring of practitioners, joined with her ability to communicate to government leaders and policy makers provided critical stimuli to the literacy field grassroots. When she was elected for the NW region representative on the Literacy BC Board, and was later president of the provincial literacy organization she found yet another venue for both growing the literacy field, and her own vision and practice.

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!