[Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: Adult Education and Family Literacy Week

[Colin Harrison]

Many thanks for this, Tom.

Liberation theology has been so important in a number of developing nations.

I shall never forget the presidential lecture by Vicky Purcell Gates, in which the liberating power of literacy in Central America was a pivotal focus. After her talk, I wrote congratulating her, and a strange thing happened. I told her that one of the final things she said in that talk continued to resonate with me: her words, as I recalled them were "We know that democracy is working when those in power become uncomfortable."

She wrote back and thanked me, but ended by saying " I didn't say that, Colin....  You said it."

Either way, I think that the thought is a valid one, and I believe, as you do, that literacy, in its widest sense, is the engine of democracy.

All good wishes

Colin

________________________________
From: reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk <reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> on behalf of Thomas Sticht <tgsticht at gmail.com>
Sent: 25 September 2021 22:24
To: reading hall of fame <Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>
Subject: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Adult Education and Family Literacy Week

9/25/2021

Thoughts of Paulo Freire on Adult Education and Family Literacy Week

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

National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week  this year began on September 19th   a day which also marked the 100th anniversary of the birth in 1921 of Paulo Freire, the international giant of adult literacy education who offered the world a Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Today, September 25, 2021, the final day of Adult Education and Family Literacy Week, I celebrate Paulo Freire’s life by recalling my personal knowledge of Paulo Freire based on the nine years, from 1987 through 1995, during which I worked one week each year with him when we both served as members of UNESCO’s International Jury for Literacy Prizes. I also relate work in which both Paulo and I were discussed together.

The Oracy-to -Literacy Link

When he joined the Jury in 1987, Paulo brought his philosophy of literacy for liberation and freedom to the evaluation of candidatures for literacy prizes from countries where millions of adults were oppressed. He brought a passion to the evaluation of candidatures, often expressed by clenching his hands in a fist, clutching his chest and saying ‘I love this program!’. He was also quick to provide a critical commentary when he thought that a program had mistakenly claimed that it followed ‘the Freirean method’, and he admonished the jury, pointing out that there was no such method.

Doing the work of the Jury was broken each day at mid-morning for taking coffee or tea in the Café on the 7th floor of UNESCO House in Paris. Here we discussed some of the main ideas that had guided both Paulo’s and my own work on teaching literacy. One idea that we shared was the importance of the development of knowledge through the oral language that could be drawn on in developing the written language (Sticht, 2017). In an interview with Freire in 1997, just six months before he died, Taylor (2006) captured Paulo’s thoughts about the relationship between one’s oral language and literacy when Freire noted that  “…I emphasize a critical understanding of people’s language. It’s necessary to respect the syntax of the literacy student, which is also a syntax of his or her social class. It is from the universe of the student’s thought and language that the process of literacy learning, the process of mastering the written representation of your language, should begin.”

This line of reasoning about the oracy-to-literacy transfer process lead to methods of teaching aimed at motivating adults to learn to read and write. To start the process, Freire introduced the use of ‘multiple literacies’, though he did not call his practice that. He used pictures that adult literacy students ‘read’ to distinguish what in the picture was due to nature and what was due to culture, i.e. human actions.

He listened to learners using oracy for “reading the world” in discussing the various situations depicted in the pictures demonstrating via the oral language that they possessed much knowledge about the world, including both nature and culture. This knowledge was drawn on in teaching  reading of ”the word” and was used extensively to build on the knowledge that adults possessed and to teach them to read the language that they already used to express their knowledge. Then new knowledge was introduced to stimulate adults to take actions to change their oppressive situations.

Functional Contexts for Literacy Education

Two years after Paulo had joined the UNESCO Literacy Prize Jury in 1987, Gedal (1989) wrote, “Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, is a strong advocate of participatory, learner-centered literacy teaching for adults. His work is aimed at developing "critical consciousness" about social, political and economic contradictions in society that will enable people to act for social change. Torn Sticht, author of Functional Context Education, is an advocate of occupationally related basic skills programs….He has been critical of the use of traditional concepts of reading difficulty levels in adult literacy and emphasizes the importance of context in literacy learning.” This focus upon “context” in forming an approach to helping adults acquire literacy undergirded both Paulo’s and my own stance in developing literacy programs for adults.


The Harvard Connection

I first became aware of Paulo’s work when he wrote an article in a special issue on illiteracy in the Harvard Educational Review (HER) of 1970 while he was in residence at Harvard University. That issue of HER also included articles by David Harmon, from Israel, who was attending Harvard at the time, and Jeanne Chall, Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In 1975, I was a Visiting Associate Professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) where I had the great pleasure of regularly meeting and having coffee, and perhaps a little kuchen, while discussing adult literacy education with both David and Jeanne.

A dozen years later my enjoyment of conversation and coffee drinking brought me into contact with Paulo Freire, who, as noted above, had also worked at Harvard. In Paris,  while viewing the Eiffel Tower across the Champ de Mars from the restaurant on UNESCO’s 7th floor,  Paulo, other members of UNESCO’s International Literacy Prize Jury, and I continued this discussion of the role of adult literacy education in bringing lives of productive work and political liberty to adult learners around the world. Paulo is gone, but the conversation goes on.

For more memories of Paulo Freire from his admirers around the world see Wilson, Park, & Colon-Muniz (2010).


References

Gedal, S. (1989, Spring). Between Paulo Freire and Tom Sticht: Adult education and job training at Boston Technical Center. Connections: A Journal of Adult Literacy,Vol. 3, (54-62). (Available online using a Google search)

Shanahan, T. & Neuman, S. (1997). Literacy research that makes a difference. Reading Research Quarterly, 32, 202-210. (Available online using a Google search)

Sticht, T. (2017). From oracy to literacy and back again: Investing in the education of adults to improve the educability of their children. Online at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320024919_From_Oracy_to_Literacy_and_Back_Again_Investing_in_the_Education_of_Adults_To_Improve_the_Educability_of_Children

Taylor, S. (2006,May). An interview with Paulo Friere. Reflect: The Magazine of the National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy.(5). (pp/30-31).

Wilson, T., Park, P. & Colon-Munez, A. (Eds.) (2010). Memories of Paulo. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
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