[AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy

Wed Jun 14 21:13:57 EDT 2006

Hi George again. I have been thinking of the comments I received on literacy 
and they are well received. David rephrased them as :obstacles to adult 
literacy:  I would like to relate a story of a high school girl from 
Honduras. She was in East High School Des Moines , Iowa and recently 
graduated. She started at 13 and she is 18 now. She graduated this spring 
and 2 days later arrested for not having a green card. Her lawyer got an 
email from the immigration people and had her come in to sign more papers 
and then they nabbed her. Her lawyer could not do much about it. She lived 
with her aunt who married  an Iowan so the high school  was her home for 
five years. Her name is Estephanie Izaquirre. Some may have read about her.
    I thought there is something wrong with this picture. I did email the 
governor's office and others may have also. Governor Vilsack who may throw 
his hat in the presidental ring this fall did call the immigration officials 
in Washington, Homeland security, the white house and Senator Harkins office 
and she did get released.  She may still get deported but is out of jail. 
Estephanie had no support from her side of the family and escaped a 
prostitution ring to get to the USA. The story is more in depth but I 
thanked the Governors office after a follow up phone call for their efforts 
on freeing her.
  My whole point is that this may be a typical situation or obstacle on 
learning English,which we all want of some of the Immigrants coming to 
America. I think she has done this as being in school five years here in 
Iowa  No wonder there is fear , document problems becoming obstacles to 
learning English.  This state just spent 1200 dollars on me attending a 
library convention in Boston as a trustee.  All the Latino information 
forums I could be exposed to and the vendors wanting to sell programs sure 
seemed good. Only to find out as in this case we may be spinning our wheels 
as the Feds want of deport individuals trying to find the American dream. 
This is real stuff that I am not prepared to confront. I am trying to get 
ESl classes started in my church and this is an obstacle for us. Do I do it 
undercover now? Is my church a sanctuary? Will the Feds read this? I don't 
have the answers but will keep trying to find some. Thanks for your 
patience. Merle

Merle Ayres
412 8th st. North
Humboldt,Iowa 50548
Tel.1-515-332-4630
Fax 515-332-1738


>From: <gdemetrion at msn.com>
>Reply-To: National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by 
>AAACE<aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
>To: "National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by 
>AAAC"<aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
>Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy
>Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 07:32:21 -0400
>
>Merle and others,
>
>Thank you very much for your comments.  This is turning into much more of a 
>discussion and project than I had originally planned when I put together 
>various snippets on the causes of low literacy from various reports.  As 
>I'm working through this, it's becoming clearer that the murky issue of 
>causation is highly problematic. I think the point is to find accessible 
>language that draws out correlations between literacy and poverty, learning 
>disabilities, the legacy of racism, etc, as I agree that none of these 
>"cause" low literacy. even as they contribute profoundly to it  The whole 
>issue of what is literacy--its relationship and differentiation from 
>reading, writing, and numeracy skill development also needs to be more 
>clearly defined.
>
>What I've done so far is:
>
>A)  Compile various statements on low literacy from various reports
>B) Put my two cents into the mix without a great deal of the extensive kind 
>of concentration I would give to a published article
>C)  Obtain and incorporate field feedback (an ongoing process)
>
>I think there's a lot more to do before one can offer a definitive 
>statement, which was not my original intent.  I'm not necessarily the best 
>person to do that, but what I will do, over time, is to take in additional 
>commentary and work more deliberatively toward a synthesis, which I will 
>then post here.  At that time, perhaps there would be another writer who 
>would like to take over or work with me in creating a more refined 
>document, which I think is the task at hand.
>
>This does deserve time. However, in addition to my day job (which is also 
>sometimes a night job), I'm working on a new book outside the field and my 
>quality concentration is really on that project--that, and the fact that 
>our two grandsons (age 5 & 2) are now living with us, which is an 
>interesting "project" in its own right.
>
>So I do have limited time here, but I acknowledge the importance of this 
>important work on the "causes" of adult illiteracy (to use a swear word) 
>and will do what I can reasonably do to move this process forward.
>
>If anyone would like to collaborate in completing this work, please contact 
>m off-line at gdemetrion at msn.com
>
>Best,
>
>George Demetron
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Merle Ayres
>Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 4:54 PM
>To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
>Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy
>
>George: I am still not convinced that poverty is the reason for all the
>problems of literacy as you have stated. Working  parents mostly left up 
>the
>teaching to the schools and didnt have time to interfere.with day to day
>learning. " what did you learn in school today" aw nothing can be a general
>response. The schools are left off the hook to easy.  Of course low 
>economic
>status make it more challenging to the teacher to get kids to learn.
>Sometimes I think what you learn in teacher ed. classes has little to do
>with kids learning. In college you have the utopia environment and then in
>the real world you get what you see in students. I often thought back in
>classes in college that what did that do in helping kids learn.  Colleges 
>in
>general are not connected with the real world. Here I go on my soap box.and
>treading on someone. Many general ed classes have little to do with helping
>kids learn as we got filled with too much content and little practical
>knowledge.
>
>   I am not all cetain and maybe showing some bias as what do the learning
>institutions do to get teacher prepared, what book makers do to get beat
>results or what school administers who care how the tests come out fiqure 
>in
>on  how the kids move up in class. These factors are not addressed.  I may
>be way off on some of this but wanted to express some of these issues.
>
>Merle Ayres
>412 8th st. North
>Humboldt,Iowa 50548
>Tel.1-515-332-4630
>Fax 515-332-1738


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