[Reading-hall-of-fame] D Day and a Remembrance of Richard Venezky

[Thomas Sticht]

June 5, 2024



D Day and a Remembrance of Richard Venezky



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



In preparing for honoring D Day, the invasion of Normandy in June of 1944,
 coming up this June 6th of 2024,  I was reviewing a report Diane Zapf and
I had prepared in 1976 on Reading and Readability Research in the Armed
Services. It was a report about a conference she and I had chaired the
previous year of 1975 in Monterey, California.



While looking through the report I came across comments by Richard “Dick”
Venezky in which he “noted that he had gained a lot of respect from this
Conference for the level of work going on in the Armed Services, and was
surprised to discover that most of the military researchers were facing the
same kinds of problems as those working in civilian settings with
children.” He went on to note that,  “… a fundamental difference between
civilian- and military-based researchers was that the latter are almost
forced to translate research - into practice to show results.
University-based researchers, on the other hand, are rewarded not so much
for applying what they learn to the solving of problems, but for publishing
research and developing terminology which may in fact obfuscate how their
research might be turned into practice.”



Reading these comments I recalled that I participated in another conference
on literacy with Dick a little over a decade later in September of 1987at
the University of Pennsylvania. I took from my bookshelf the small volume
that had resulted from that conference, entitled “Toward Defining Literacy”
and went to the last chapter in the book that Dick wrote. I smiled as I
read his comments about Literacy and Social Control because they showed the
same direct addressing of social issues that his earlier 1975 comments
addressed in the military context. This time he noted that, “It is
difficult to discuss literacy without confronting the issue of social
control, and this collection of papers represent no deviation from this
norm. Are we an evil society sustaining power and control by a
self-selected elite through manipulation of literacy, or are we an
imperfect society, honorable and just in our intents, but still striving to
reach our intended goals?”



He went on to say, “For those who judge American society to be basically
just but imperfect, adult literacy is a requirement for both individual and
social needs. However adequate an oral support group might be for one with
minimal literacy skills, it can never replace literacy itself. Our form of
government requires that every citizen be able to make independent
judgments, not only about political candidates and policies, but also about
employment and lifestyle. Ours is a demanding form of government, requiring
the intelligent participation of the masses for survival. Illiteracy may be
a right that individuals could claim, but it is not one that we as a
society should be proud to grant.”



Two decades have elapsed since Dick Venezky passed away on June 11, 2004,
too early at the age of 66. His thoughts about the role of literacy in both
military effectiveness and social needs in civil society are especially
relevant and poignant as we think about the events of D Day in World War
II, and the forthcoming election in November of this year when a new
commander of military forces and president of the United States will be
chosen.



As I fondly remember many conversations with Dick Venezky, and contemplate
today’s circumstances our Nation faces at home and abroad, I tend to agree
with Dick’s characterization of us as “an imperfect society, honorable and
just in our intents, but still striving to reach our intended goals.”



Dona Nobis Pacem!



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