[NLA] The 13th Iowa Literacy Conference

[Archie Willard]

The thirteenth Iowa Literacy Conference was held this past weekend in
Johnston, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines.  This is a grass-roots adult
learner conference planned by a committee of adult learners with much
help from mentor Karmen Shriver. Five different Midwest states were
represented at the conference: South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois,
Missouri and Iowa. In the future, this conference will be called The
Midwest Adult Learner Conference.

Thursday afternoon some Iowa adult learners went into a school in West
Des Moines where we spoke to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders.  Stories were
read; we told them how we have lived our lives as poor readers and about
our struggles.  The students asked good questions and responded well to
us. The children and the adult learners went away feeling good about
each other.  That evening people started arriving from the other states
and we soon got acquainted.

Friday morning the rest of the attendees arrived for the conference.
First, each state was introduced. Then, Manley Bowman, an adult learner
from Illinois (who has given hundreds of speeches in the state of
Illinois to schools and service clubs), was the key-note speaker. Manley
is a down-to-earth type person and spoke right to the hearts of the
adult learners. The floor was then opened and there were many warm
experiences and ideas shared by some of the adult learners from all the
states. Then everyone went to a home-base to get settled into the
conference. After that the sessions began. At the noon luncheon Christy
Gullion from The National Institute for Literacy was our guest speaker.
Christy is a very kind and open person. She told us we should be aware
of what was going on in adult literacy, to know what kinds of changes we
want to make and learn how to make changes.  The adult learners were
touched by her and her address and they all wanted to talk with her
personally.  We had to ask them to stop asking questions just to get her
out the door so she could catch her plane. In the evening we had
entertainment by some of the adult learners and an open mike.

Saturday morning a panel of adult learners shared their literacy
experiences and their literacy growth. Then we had an open session. We
all talked about this conference and the Midwest group and how it should
work together to bring changes in literacy. We all felt we should know
more about what was happening with adult literacy in our nation. It was
pointed out that we have ten senators from our five different states.
We are going to work together at different times to let them know how we
feel about literacy bills and issues by sending letters, post cards and
making phone calls. We will also be contacting representatives on the
state and national levels to work with them.

One first timer to a literacy conference told me that this was the best
day of his life and he didn’t want the conference to end.  Another adult
learner told me he was glad to know he was not the only one with a
reading problem and now he is part of a literacy family.

At the close of the Iowa conferences there is always emotion and a lot
of friendly hugs. We all became close at this conference and it was hard
to say good-bye.

Archie Willard
Adult Learner
--
Archie Willard
millard at goldfieldaccess.net
URL - http://www.readiowa.org/archiew.html



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