[NLA] NIFL Board nominees

[Bickerton, Robert P]

Archie,

It is painful to "hear" the disappointment in your message and the pessimism
about the level of power you and all of us have.  I must confess that it has
this impact because of the many times I have been there myself.  I am
hopeful that it will pass quickly.   It has always been this way for me
because in my heart of hearts I have unbounded faith in the power of good
people who come together in common cause.  I end up "writing off" my
disappointment and pessimism to the fact that we just need to get a little
better at this.  And the "this" that I'm referring to is not about our
individual efforts and concerns, but our ability to join together and
coordinate our efforts.  I don't believe that the "time for" things come and
go according to fate, but that they come and go because of the efforts of
people.  Sometimes those people are a "minority" (in the non-racial and
ethnic use/abuse of the word) but with enough money to have their way.
Other times, the real majority of "common people" create by their insistence
and tenacity the "time for" what is needed and deserved.  In these times of
increasing concentrations of wealth and concomitant power, the bar is set
quite high for the level of "insistence" and "tenacity" needed for the rest
of us to prevail.  I believe we're quite capable of getting there -- it's
just that not enough of us are there yet.  Finally, I'm quite convinced that
you have and will continue to be a catalyst for getting us there.  Thank you
for all your leadership and your efforts on behalf of our dreams for what's
right.

thanks,
bob bickerton, MA director of adult ed

-----Original Message-----
From: AMW4literacy at aol.com [mailto:AMW4literacy at aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 11:57 PM
To: nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: [NLA] NIFL Board nominees


If I were asked about the new NIFL Board I would have to say I'm
disappointed 
that adult literacy's voice has been left off of it, but who am I to
question 
President Bush's new direction in literacy. We who post on the NLA listserv 
have all come to adult literacy to share our literacy gifts with others.  We

have worked to try to make life better for adults with literacy problems by 
giving of ourselves and sharing our literacy talents. A new direction in 
literacy is here but our hour in adult literacy has not passed. Somehow 
society needs to know that solving literacy problems in this country needs
to 
be a joint effort of professionals and people with literacy problems working

together. Who better to come up with answers than the people who have
studied 
literacy and the people who have lived with the problems?  Somehow we need
to 
convince our President, our congress and the new NIFL board of this and for 
them to not to give up on adults with literacy problems. These people need
to 
see the personal successes of adults with literacy problems. We have 
apparently not done a good job at this.

Before there was an NIFL I don't think there were many adult literacy 
students that could have functioned on a board of this caliber. Due to 
progress in the literacy field there are many adult learners who are now 
capable. Because of various happenings such as the literacy congresses in
the 
80's and the 90's, the formation of VALUE, and the literacy summit in 2000, 
adult literacy students are more aware than ever before of what is going on 
our country and the quality of life and the confidence of adult learners has

improved.

Someone on this list said this is great country to live in if you are in the

50 percent that is listened to. When I was a student in an adult literacy 
program back in the 80's I read books at the 5th grade level about how our 
country was founded and then books about the makeup of our government. After

reading these books I was naive enough to think that if an adult learner 
would work hard in this field they could be a part of helping shape adult 
literacy in this country but that's not the way things work.  My 
disappointment is that I did not work hard enough when I had the time to
make 
things better for other adults with literacy problems. Before adult literacy

is changed and called something else I hope we can leave something good for 
others in adult literacy to hang on to.  History has a way of repeating 
itself and maybe 10 to 20 years from now adult literacy will come back the 
way we know it and there will be people like former First Lady Barbara Bush 
and Senator Paul Simon to champion our cause again. 

Archie Willard
Adult Learner
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