[Reading-hall-of-fame] Veterans Day November 11, 2018

[Thomas Sticht]

Veterans Day November 11, 2018

Celebrating Adult Literacy Educator Veterans of Wars

Tom Sticht, International Consultant in Adult Education (Ret.)

Since its founding, the United States has engaged in a number of wars
fighting for freedom and liberty both at home and abroad. On Veterans Day
we celebrate the lives of the veterans of these wars and thank those both
living and dead who have fought to keep us free. Among these veterans are
adult educators, both military and civilian, who worked, often under
arduous conditions, to help America’s non-English speaking, illiterate, and
under-educated military personnel learn to read, write, and compute.

During the Revolutionary War, at Valley Forge, military chaplains served as
adult educators and taught soldiers to read. Though we don’t know how many
soldiers were taught to read, nor how well, we do know that lessons
continued throughout the encampment at Valley Forge.

During the Civil War, fought in the United States to free the slaves of the
Confederate states and to unite the Nation, the Union Army provided many
educational opportunities for former slaves. This included the work of one
General Banks who sought to eradicate the widespread illiteracy among the
18,585 Negro troops serving in the Department of the Gulf by appointing
several members of the American Missionary Association as lieutenants in
some of the colored regiments. Banks appointed these men for the sole
purpose of teaching the Negro soldiers. He also directed chaplains to
engage in literacy instruction for the former slaves.

During WWI the Young Men’s Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.) provided
reading and writing instruction for soldiers. One of the activities that
the Y.M.C.A. undertook was the preparation of literacy instructional
materials for the soldiers. Among these was the “Camp Reader for American
Soldiers” which used a functional approach to teach soldiers to read
military-related materials. At Camp Upton, New York, illiterate and
non-English speaking recruits were taught literacy following a course of
instruction developed under the direction of Captain Garry C. Myers, whose
wife, Caroline, also taught soldiers to read. Later these veteran adult
literacy educators founded “Highlights for Children”, a magazine for
helping adults teach their children reading and writing skills.



During World War II, the armed services once again faced the need to
utilize hundreds of thousands of men who were poorly literate and many were
non-English speakers. As in World War I, the armed forces developed
functional, military-related materials to teach English language and
reading skills with these under-prepared soldiers. Estimates of the numbers
of WW II adult literacy instructors included some 5,291 personnel. Of
these, around 641 were officers, 4,557 were enlisted men, and there were
some 87 civilians. More than 1200 of these teachers were African-Americans.
The efforts of all these teachers helped raise the literacy skills of over
a quarter million soldiers.



During the Korean War, fought from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953. tens of
thousands of inductees entered the military services with reading levels
below the 8th grade level, and many were in need of reading instruction.
To meet the need for materials for teaching reading to under-educated
inductees during the Korean War the United States Armed Forces Institute
(USAFI) made available reading instructional materials that were based to
an extent on the World War II functional literacy materials. Teachers in
education centers at military posts around the country helped raise the
literacy levels of thousands of the troops who went on to fight in Korea.



During the Vietnam war, I directed the development of the Army’s Functional
Literacy (FLIT) program for marginally literate personnel. This was the
first program that introduced systematic methods for studying literacy
practices of personnel in various jobs and job training programs,
incorporated these practices into the design of job-related literacy
programs, and compared the effectiveness of general literacy programs to
job-related programs. In evaluation studies, some 3400 students taught by
30 military and civilian teachers at six Army posts improved their reading
ability by studying authentic job-related materials having real meaning and
relevance to them.



In all these wars adult literacy instructors, including thousands of active
duty military personnel, contributed to the war efforts through their
teaching of reading. As veterans, some of these former soldiers or sailors
went on to translate techniques for teaching basic skills for soldiers into
methods for teaching basic skills for both children and adults.



On Veterans Day this year, while we honor all veterans of all wars, take a
moment to give a special thanks and appreciation to those veterans who
served as teachers of adults in these wars. Behind the guns and bombs of
war are the brains of those who fight. Adult educators helped to make many
fighter’s  brains more effective in war and afterward at home through the
magic of literacy.



References



For an extended set of readings about the work of adult literacy educators
in all these wars see these two free e-books:



Sticht, T. (2017). Fighting Illiteracy in Times of War. In: T. Sticht: The
Struggle for Adult Literacy Education in America A Trilogy Of  Notes on
History, Research, Policy, & Practice in Adult Literacy Education. E-book
available online at:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55a158b4e4b0796a90f7c371/t/5a08848b8165f51550503a1d/1510507672628/Bk+Trilogy.1.pdf



Sticht, T. (2018). Mainstreaming Marginalized Adults: The Transformation of
Adult Basic Education in the United States. Online at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324604141_Mainstreaming_Marginalized_Adults_The_Transformation_of_Adult_Basic_Education_in_the_United_States
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