Literacy Quotes

"Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. 

Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. 

For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.... 

Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential." 
~ Kofi Annan

"Literacy is not a luxury, it is a right and a responsibility. If our world is to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century we must harness the energy and creativity of all our citizens." - President Bill Clinton on International Literacy Day, September 8th 1994

"People are the common denominator of progress. So... no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills,and the other familiar furniture of economic development.... But we are coming to realize... that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first."
-- John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (1958)

"As an empowerment right, education is the primary vehicle by which economically and socially marginalised adults and children can lift themselves out of poverty, and obtain the means to participate fully in their communities." 
-- Koïchiro Matsuura, UNESCO Director-General

Separating the Tools from the Learner

I read a perfectly joyful post of the virtual environment by Carey Hilgartner, Online Learning is Being Shipped to the Museum. He shares the excitement and possibilities provided by the tools that can be used online.  He notes, "online learning"  is everywhere and being used all the time, so eventually, the term itself will be relegated to history.  

The tools are tremendous and do hold tremendous possibilities when teaching online.  The issue is sometimes the tools are focused on in lieu of the learner.   We'd never give a student an eraser, a pencil and a calculator, who has never used them, and go right into the content. Yet this is the danger of assuming the tools are the learning.  

Learners at the ABE level require scaffolding and explicit instruction.  One tool used at a time to ensure comfort and confidence can be built.  Sometimes the danger is that a variety of tools are used, as a replacement for being attuned to diverse learning styles, rather than the building up of skills and efficacy first.  

Afterall, the tools aren't the content.  They are a means to achieve an objective, complete a task, learn another skill.  There is only so much cognitive energy that can be delegated to any task. I have seen the beauty of a tool such as a calculator opening up spaces where a learner can suddenly grasp a concept.  I have also seen times when a calculator has interfered with the learning process that needs to be occurring to develop a basic concept. 

It isn't the term or the tools that need to be relegated to history.  It's the assumptions that occur with our learners.  What is occurring at the level of the learner who uses the online tools is a conversation that needs to be happening at all levels. 

Systemic Myths of Online Learning and the Adult Basic Education Learner

"Why should society feel responsible only for the education of children, and not for the education of all adults of every age?" Erich Fromm  

Systemic myths or misconceptions that exist include:
If you can use a smart phone, you can do online learning. Really?!? (that is my disappointed inside voice). My professional voice: this does not capture the reality of adult basic education learners, nor computer or digital literacy, in the slightest.

Someone else will do it.  The compassionate approach is hard to marry to a business model at the post-secondary level.  Pulled and pushed by political and economic forces and paradigm shifts, institutions cut that which isn't sexy or profitable.  Life skills, trans-vocational programs, and adult basic education programs all fall under that sphere. Volunteer literacy programs (the "someone else") play an essential role in the services needed at the pre-highschool level, but in no way can they match dedicated services provided by a community college. 

Class sizes have gone down so literacy levels are rising. (Translation: We don't need it anymore): Statistics are a funny thing, aren't they? Especially when the latest international survey of adult literacy skills precluded those who are Indigenous, ESL, EAL, or with learning needs or disabilities.  Funding models have changed the way learners can access education at the ABE level as well. 

We can just fund or provide short programming that leads directly into a career program or trade. This is a wonderful idea, with the exception of two very pertinent facts.  Firstly, until the prerequisites for trades and career programs eliminate high school English, Math and Sciences, a solid pre-high school curriculum will still be needed to create opportunities for adults who enter at the basic education level.  Secondly, there is no magic curriculum powder that precludes the way the human brain learns.  If a learner is starting at a grade 1-6 level, it is almost neurologically impossible for them to be ready for a grade 10 trades exam in 6 weeks. 

We need to focus more on improving learning at the high school level. Initiatives that integrate transition programming at the high school level are innovative and create successful learning paths for students.  Yet, again, if students' abilities aren't at the high school level, these programs are moot.  In addition, unless teen pregnancy, bullying, sexual abuse, child abuse, learning disabilities, poor teaching or inadequate teaching resources, systemic racism, poverty, and a host of other social issues vanish, we will always need basic education programming at the adult level. 

Online Learning & Basic Education Students - a compassionate approach

There is a wonderful TED Talk by Bryan Stevenson, "We need to talk about an injustice." He represents people on death row, and in this talk, he speaks about the seemingly magic power of a judge to change a child defendant into something he's not - an adult. 

He ends his talk with the thought that "we cannot be full evolved human beings until we care about human rights and basic dignity. That all of our survival is tied to the survival of everyone. That our visions of technology and design and entertainment and creativity have to be married with visions of humanity, compassion and justice."  

So when we start to connect the dots, the vision for adult basic learners from a systemic point of view needs to be one married to human rights and justice.  How often is the word "compassion" used with curriculum development for the disenfranchised learner, the learner for whom the skills and concepts of the educational system need to be explicitly taught - not assumed.  

How often is a students' humanity recognized, when they are marginalized and streamed into the same square hole as their mainstreamed peers.  Systems and institutions sometimes seem to think that they can magically change learners from low-self-efficacy to one of privilege just by standardizing online platforms, providing online classes, and maintaining the status quo that works for the learner operating at a higher literacy level. 

The systemic and administrative myths of the online platform need to be dispelled in order to provide programming that is rooted in the paradigms of justice and dignity. 

October Dedication to Adult Basic Education Students

This month I will dedicate my posts to the adult basic education students who are taking online learning. Particularly those at the post-secondary level, where it can sometimes seem like students are round pegs being squeezed into square holes.  The gaps in service grow more profound due to changing paradigms, along with political and economic factors.

This month I will be writing about issues that create gaps for online students at the pre-highschool levels.  Areas such as standardization, cultural homogeny, translating face to face success online, community building, and learning needs and the issues that contribute to student success.  I will examine some of the realities faced by students who need dedicated programming to achieve the prerequisites to get into a career or trade, and the best practices that go along with those realities. 

“One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding.” ― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Education is a Human Right...but who pays for it?

Education is a Human Right...but who pays for it? The short answer?  We all do. 

Read: Education for All (EFA) from the UNESCO site, Education is not only a right but a passport to human development. It contributes to fostering peace, democracy and economic growth as well as improving health and reducing poverty.

Or, read Education Counts: Towards the Millenium Development Goals (2011) published by UNESCO.  Education represents opportunity. At all ages, it empowers people with the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to shape a better future.

And it is listed in the Indicators of Well-Being in Canada, where adult literacy — the ability to understand and then use information — is a fundamental skill. It is essential not only for participating fully at work, but for everyday life as well (e.g., for choosing products when grocery shopping). With a more literate workforce, Canada is also better able to compete in the global economy.


And as reported by Harmeet Singh in Strategy  (June 1, 2015), “In a developed country, you sometimes don’t realize that a lack of literacy skills can have a detrimental social, economic and even life threatening impact on a person – or an entire country for that matter,” adds Patrick Scissons, chief creative officer at Grey. “We wanted to raise the profile of the importance of literacy beyond just being able to read a book, menu or road sign.”  Check out the video spots here:  World Literacy Canada’s open book

Digital Divide: an eLearning inverse accessibility law

Self-efficacy and the digital divide combine as a definitive barrier to learner engagement. Accessibility is more than the ability to get on a computer.  The anytime, anywhere mantra for online distance education implies shortcuts and skills that don’t take into account under-represented learners, those who arrive with low self-efficacy and low technological fluency.  Learners who are already marginalized by their literacy level and socio-economic status are at risk.  Rhetoric and systems that are not accountable to the realities of learners are then charged with “increasing access for those who are already being served rather than broadening it to underserved groups” (Gunger & Prins, 2011, p 7).  This creates the digital divide.

We can look to a report, E-Mental Health in Canada: Transforming the Mental Health System Using Technology,  produced by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, which examines strategic directions and eMental health possibilities. It raises limitations, however, one being the digital divide. As quoted in the report:  "The 2012 Canadian Internet Use Survey sponsored by Industry Canada found that 83% of Canadian households had Internet access at home. This demonstrates that approximately one in six did not have an Internet connection at home."  In addition, "Only 58% of households in the lowest income quartile had home Internet access compared to 98% in the top income quartile."  This reality "suggests a digital divide" with "the potential to reinforce health inequalities, as those who most need health care are those least likely to have access to services on the Internet – an e-Health inverse care law."

When it comes to education, considering that there are “more socially disadvantaged than advantaged sections of society…where, students who are teetering at the poverty level can seldom afford to buy and maintain computers and Internet service” (Moore, 2012, p. 214), it becomes then, an e-Learning inverse accessibility law.  As such, the concept of accessibility needs to be re-examined. 

Gungor, Ramazan & Prins, Esther. (2011). Distance Learning in Adult Basic Education: a review   of the literature. Institute for the study of Adult Literacy, The Pennsylvania State University.

Moore, Michael Grahame. (2012). A Rare Case of Research in Distance Education in Adult            Basic Education, American Journal of Distance Education, 26:4, 213-216, DOI:    10.1080/08923647.2012.732788