[Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: Functional Literacy and Literature in WWII

[Mckeown, Margaret G]

Wow!  Thank you Tom Sticht for an excellent history/literacy lesson!


On 1/1/15 5:17 PM, "tsticht at znet.com" <tsticht at znet.com> wrote:

>2015 is the 70th Anniversary of the End of WWII
>
>January 1, 2015
>
>Functional Literacy and Literature in World War II:
>
>Tom Sticht, International Consultant in Adult Education
>
>Looking down over the edge of Saipan¹s Suicide Cliff I thought about the
>desperation that the Japanese soldiers and civilians living on the island
>must have felt in June of 1944 knowing that the battle for Saipan was
>moving toward an American victory. No one knows for sure how many Japanese
>threw themselves off Suicide Cliff and Banzai Cliff on the northern end of
>Saipan to avoid the Americans, but they numbered in the thousands.
>
>I was in Saipan in December 2003 to give workshops on adult literacy
>education and I featured the concept of Functional Context Education which
>focuses on the development of programs based on the contexts in which
>adults function. During World War II the U.S. Armed Services endorsed the
>concept of functional literacy and implemented adult literacy training
>which integrated reading, writing, and arithmetic education with the
>teaching of military subjects, such as the vocabulary for military
>facilities (e.g., barracks, mess hall, etc.), rules and regulations (e.g.,
>military justice, general orders for guard duty, etc.), and health and
>safety (e.g., care of feet, handling weapons, etc.).
>
>Additionally, the Armed Services understood that the reading of literature
>by outstanding writers could also serve functional purposes by inspiring
>patriotic and other inspirational emotions for improving and sustaining
>morale and generally providing mental breaks from the stresses of war. To
>this end, the military helped support the provision of special books
>called
>the Armed Services Editions. These were editions of fiction and nonfiction
>books specially designed as pocketbooks small enough to be carried in a
>backpack or in a hip pocket so service members could tote them into
>different settings, both camp and battleground.
>
>The Functional Context of Reading Literature
>
>The history and uses of the Armed Services Editions during World War II
>are
>discussed in detail in Molly Guptill Manning¹s book ³When Books Went to
>War
>(2014). Given my past work in Saipan I was struck by Manning¹s recounting
>of
>what one Marine said about coming upon the face down body of a young
>fair-haired private during the battle for Saipan: ³As I looked down at him
>I saw something which I don¹t think I shall ever forget. Sticking from his
>back trouser pocket was a yellow pocket edition of a book he had evidently
>been reading in his spare moments. Only the title was visible---Our Hearts
>Were Young and Gay² (Manning, 2014, p. 116).
>
>Functional Context Education for Learning to Read in the Military
>
>In her book, Manning describes the work of a War Book Panel which operated
>before the Armed Services Editions were developed. The purpose of the War
>Book Panel was to select good books for reading by armed services members.
>Two, of only six books that were selected before the War Book Panel was
>discontinued and the Armed Services Editions were developed, were books
>written by John Hersey. Hersey was a journalist who went into battle with
>the troops and wrote about their experiences in war.
>
>Before coming across Manning¹s book,  I had picked-up a copy of a 1989
>book
>by Hersey which included a chapter about an illiterate soldier who had
>entered the Army in early 1945 and had attended a Special Training Unit
>(STU) in Pennsylvania where he learned to read and write. Hersey details
>the life of Private John Daniel Ramey and describes the Army¹s functional
>literacy program that taught Private Ramey to read. The primary textbook
>for the program was Army Technical Manual 21-500 The Army Reader of May
>14,
>1943.
>
>The Army Reader taught reading following the Functional Context Education
>method discussed above in which reading lessons used Army contexts as the
>content for teaching literacy and math. Hersey describes a letter written
>by Private Ramey in which the newly literate soldier proclaims: ³I would
>not take all the Furloughs in the Army for what I learned at STU. I tell
>you when they let me out of this Army they can take away my Gun also my
>Uniform but they wont (sic) ever take away how to read and write² (Hersey,
>1989, pp. 118-119).  Private Ramey was one of some 250 thousand service
>members who learned to read and speak English in the military during World
>War II. I don¹t know if Private Ramey or any of the other hundreds of
>thousands of new literates ever went on to read the millions of copies of
>the Armed Services Editions during World War II. But they could have.
>
>Close to sixty years following the end of World War II, on December 11,
>2003, on the island of Saipan, where one of the fiercest battles of WWII
>had taken place, I conducted a workshop called Focus on Reading: Policy,
>Research, Practice. In that workshop I discussed Functional Context
>Education which integrated reading instruction with important content
>knowledge as was done in WWII. I discussed the history of adult literacy
>education including an experiment with the Opportunity Schools of South
>Carolina in 1932.
>
>In this research the results clearly showed that ³Šagencies of adult
>education may render invaluable service to adults of limited education.
>ŠVirtually millions of adults, both white and colored, are eager for the
>advantages which opportunity schools afford. It is imperative that
>provision be made for such people so that they may become more efficient
>socially and may live richer, happier lives.²
>
>This finding from 1932 was confirmed just over a decade later by the
>experience of the armed services during World War II. With their
>functional
>literacy programs and Armed Services Editions, the military showed that
>learning to read and engaging in reading can help adults live richer,
>happier livesŠeven in the throes of war.
>
>References
>
>Gray, W. S., Gray, W. L., & Tilton, W. (1932). The Opportunity schools of
>South Carolina:  An experimental study. New York: American Association for
>Adult Education.
>
>Hersey, J. R. (1989). Private John Daniel Ramey. In: J. R. Hersey (Ed.)
>Life sketches. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (pp. 94-119).
>
>Manning, M. G. (2014). When books went to war: The stories that helped us
>win World War II. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company.
>
>tsticht at aznet.net
>
>
>
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