In recent years, I have come to realize that our field of adult literacy and basic education has far more history than memory. By this I mean that we have a long, rich past–dating back at least to 1859 when organized reading and writing classes were held at the YMCA in Kingston–but we can’t learn from our stories or draw inspiration from them because we have so little research on literacy history. Few know who founded their program, when it began, or even why it was started at that particular time. Both educators and learners have heroic stories to tell, but we rarely gather them or share them. It doesn’t help that hardly any academics and virtually no funding agencies are particularly interested in the history of our field. We have “professional amnesia” as a result.
Consider that we face all sorts of struggles today, but are they really new struggles? How were such problems handled in the past? Must we always reinvent the wheel in literacy? Why can’t we–practitioners, learners, and academics alike–begin to learn about our history and build more pride in our field’s achievements?
When I entered this field back in 1972, I suspect I would have asked: “Do the stories of the past really matter? If there is literacy history, how relevant can it be to what I am doing today?” Since then I have found it exciting–inspiring really–to learn about some of our literacy heroes and heroines. Through those stories, I have come to feel that I am part of something larger with a proud past. I have seen students and teachers alike gain more professional pride, more personal confidence, and simply have a lot of fun learning about who we are and where we came from. We are beginning to build this field on a solid base that is truly our own.
Here are some examples of what I mean. Take the perennial recruiting/retention problems I tried to deal with as a new teacher in Saskatchewan in the early 1970s. I have since seen the same problems in every province and territory, and most states in the USA. Then I read more about Frontier College, established in 1899 by Alfred Fitzpatrick and still going strong. For over a century, teachers haven’t waited for students to come to them. Volunteer labourer-teachers have been going to the learners in remote and marginalized areas of Canada. What could we learn from that model for recruiting/retention?
Living in Nova Scotia these past 10 years, I have learned about the Antigonish Movement and the abject poverty Nova Scotia faced in the early 20th century. I learned how, with the vision of Father Moses Coady, whole Maritime communities began to create work cooperatives and credit unions. Fishermen shared their resources, farmers began to market their own products, and coal miners gained some humane working conditions. Through the Antigonish Movement and no formal literacy courses, families turned the economy around. What could we learn about family literacy and informal workplace literacy from this amazing story?
I have read about and visited the Moonlight Schools of Kentucky. In 1911, Cora Wilson Stewart encouraged adults to come down from the hills to the local schoolhouses of Rowan County when the moon was shining bright. I have seen photos of Kentuckian couples squeezed into children’s desks with their babies in their arms. Oil lamps burning, lunch buckets on the floor. Stewart’s idea of “night schools” swept the USA and Canada. What could we learn from this story for adult literacy?
I learned how 10,000 freed slaves were found standing in rags when the Union Navy sailed into Port Royal, South Carolina early in the American civil war. Since 1740, reading and writing had been illegal for slaves. They could be hanged for learning to read or write. At the request of the military, Reverend William Richardson of the Gideonite society brought reading and writing classes from the North and began the Port Royal Experiment. Although many in America were convinced that African Americans were not capable of learning, thousands of freed men and women walked for miles down dusty roads to “taste the forbidden fruit” of reading. What could we learn about social justice and literacy for Canada’s marginalized communities?
But what of our own stories? Let’s think about the heroes and heroines of our own programs. Let’s ask: “Who were the founders of my program?” “Who were the early learners and what are their stories?” “What policies, what funding, what ideas have we had that sustained literacy in my own program?”
We have a past, let’s celebrate it. Let’s learn through classroom projects and share what we find through the OLC’s Website and its partners. Let’s make our stories into a published compendium of “Ontario’s Literacy History” for our classrooms. Let’s imagine how we can build more pride in this rich, caring, dedicated field.
The Ontario Literacy Coalition has asked me to write more about these historical vignettes and other literacy landmark moments over the coming months. I will also give some suggestions on ways you and your students might consider learning more about the stories of your own programs, and how to share them with others.
This is a first for Canada. It will be a lot of fun……I hope you’ll join us.
Stay tuned.
