[AAACE-NLA] Framing adult literacy arguments

[AWilder106@aol.com]

Debbie,

This is one of the types of people I think we are taking about: once in Boston I met a guy living in a half-way house.  He had been married, had a fishing boat, came from our south shore. He lost the marriage and the boat through alcohol and drugs.  He was clean and completely broke.  He had Medicaid.  Through Medicaid he was enable to get diagnostic help at Mass General Hospital.  But what to do with that? He was getting literacy help, but his skills were at a very low  level.  Could he have gotten a good paying construction job?  I don't know.  His situation was really bad, and he felt kind of hopeless.  I just don't forget the people I have interviewed, so much has gone wrong with their lives.

Another guy, fortunately, had a girl friend with a child, so he had someplace to live, and a family.  He was much more up beat, he had made friends in his literacy class.  He had gone to a parochial school, about 40 kids to a room, he had sat in the back. Both parents alcoholics. He felt the "system" was rigged.  "We weren't supposed to learn."

Now I remember a teacher with  maybe 15 students, all different levels.  He was overwhelmed, doing his best, he needed books, materials.

Finally, I remember a woman I interviewed, on the second floor of a house in Boston, horrible condition, an immigrant, broken windows in the stairway (of course, winter).  She had a boy friend, and that was it--nada. The house should have been demolished.

This was way back maybe 1997.

Should the housing have been there?  Yes.  Yes also to trained teachers  with materials and books, drug counseling, a million other social services. None of these people had communities, they hadn't fallen through the cracks, the floor had caved in.

In my mind (this may not be correct) I am thinking about poor people with poor literacy skills, NOT middle class people (good money) with poor literary skills.

I do think we are trying to  make people less poor, through literacy:  jobs, housing, health care, families.  This is what I care about, anyway.

Andrea