Son and Fiancée came over last night for dinner and brought a delicious Italian cheesecake. Son asked if I had ever heard of the bakery where he bought it on Main Street and I said sure. He grinned and told me about an interesting verbal exchange he had with the bakery owner. Son had walked in and asked what the store’s best cake was and the owner said, “Our cheesecake; everyone knows that.” Son replied that he in fact didn’t know that and the owner said, “Did you just move here?” Son replied, “Actually I’ve lived here my whole life,” and the owner threw his hands up and said, “Why haven’t I ever seen you before? Where have you been?” The concept of a citizen residing in the same town as his bakery and NEVER GOING INTO IT was too bizarre for the baker to consider. And yet, there stood Son.
The baker’s moment of anti-Zen brought to mind a project I’ve recently become involved in. Earlier this summer I completed training to be a volunteer tutor for our county’s state-funded adult literacy program. I’m hoping to be able to make a difference in the life of a reading challenged adult. No matter who I tell about this venture, the response is the same. Everyone asks with no small measure of surprise, “There’s an adult literacy problem HERE?” And the answer to that is, “There’s an adult literacy problem EVERYWHERE.” It is a common assumption that if a person has had at least a modicum of schooling it means they can read. Without indicting our failing school system (which I’ve done many times in the past so why be redundant again) this is the last fact you want to take to the bank. Schools push students through and out into the world with a shocking lack of basic skills and we won’t even address undiagnosed learning disabilities.
Adults who cannot read feel ashamed. Invariably their children and even their grandchildren can decipher words better than they can, and it is an intricate dance many illiterate adults engage in to hide their reading inadequacy. They memorize street signs and subway maps. They say with regret that they left their glasses at home or they would look at the menu they’ve just been handed. They are not stupid or destitute or in the country on a limited visa. They live here; many were born here. Each story is different but somehow the same, the unifying factor being educations that were cut short by family, financial or personal necessity. Life got in the way of learning.
Most times you wouldn’t even know that the person you’re chatting with on line at Target can’t read because they’ve spent a lifetime learning how to hide it. The functionally illiterate are usually highly verbal and engaged. They may reside in the house down the block on your lovely suburban street or on the floor above you in your apartment building. Here are the staggering and now probably outdated statistics from my literacy handbook. On a national level, 30,000,000 or 14% of adults in this country are below the basic level of literacy; 63,000,000 or 29% are at the basic level; 95,000,000 or 44% function at the intermediate level; and a shocking 28,000,000 or 13% are proficient readers. If you’re reading this blog I’m betting you’re in the 13%.
My adult literacy student is a married father in his mid-thirties who is determined to get his driver’s license. That is the long term goal. The short term goal is to read the word ‘firehouse’ without looking at the picture. Each session he brings his driver’s manual with him hoping he’ll be able to read from it, and each session he struggles through flashcards designed for the first grade. I tell him he’ll get there, that he knows more than he’s even aware of. Along with giving reading instruction, my job is just as much to keep his confidence alive and his self-esteem growing. With a crooked smile he promises me that one day he’ll drive me somewhere with his own license in his own car. I tell him that will be great because he’s close to seven feet tall and I can’t drive him anywhere. He won’t fit in my MINI. Then we laugh too loud for the library we’re sitting in and keep on working to defy the percentages.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos from Pennsylvania rope us into the Rodeo
cowgirl USA
mutton walking
spider weaving
sunlight dappling
city girl flying
nightfall