Literacy Work in Alberta– Then and Now
by Deborah Morgan
When I saw that the theme for this issue of Literacies was
about what constitutes literacy work, I was intrigued because I
have been thinking a lot lately about what literacy work looks
like now compared to 15 years ago.
In the early 1990s, as an International Literacy Year project,
I wrote a book called Opening Doors—a documentation
and celebration of the lived experiences of community literacy
workers in Alberta. One of the foremost issues raised by literacy
coordinators I interviewed throughout Alberta for Opening
Doors was the unrealistic expectations put on literacy workers
to “do it all.” In a chapter called “Burnout
and Balance” I wrote:
There is no question that literacy work is demanding. I have listened
to people describe all that they do in their literacy work and
am amazed by the resourcefulness required to be able to meet all
the expectations of the job. Classroom instructors are expected
to teach literacy to students whose personal problems continually
overwhelm their ability and desire to learn; volunteer tutors with
little or no teaching backgrounds are expected to work with students
after only nine hours of training; and coordinators are expected
to be able to speak to the Rotary Club, balance a financial statement
for their Advisory Committee, interview a new student, find information
on spelling for a tutor and write a press release—all on
the same day, sometimes all at the same time (p. 69).
Now, 15 years later, I’ve been wondering: are literacy workers
still being asked or expected to do and know it all? I decided
to check in with community-based literacy coordinators working
in Alberta today by posting some questions on two provincial
online discussion forums. I received lively and perceptive responses
from 23 practitioners in rural and urban settings in all three
regions: the south, centre and north. Many more practitioners listened
in on the discussions.
To start the dialogue, I posted the following conversation I had
had 15 years ago with Meredith, a woman who had just been hired
as a literacy coordinator:
During my interview, I was shown the job description for the position.
It was pretty lengthy—17 points in all. I recall looking
up at the interview panel and thinking ‘Get real—surely
you can’t possibly want all these skills in one body and
expect to pay them only $9 an hour!’ Well, I guess my interest
in literacy was greater than my concern about the job description
because I accepted the position!
Now, after being in the job for
six months, there are days when I have to shake my head and remind
myself that I agreed to work for $9 an hour, knowing that I had
17 points on my job description and only 17 hours a week in which
to accomplish everything. The people in management who hired me
seemed to think the expectations were reasonable, but they just
aren’t (Opening Doors p. 70).
I then asked the questions: Are the expectations placed on literacy
workers still unrealistic? What are the kinds of skills needed
to do the job that aren’t necessarily
on a job description? It was obvious from people’s
reaction to Meredith’s story that literacy workers continue
to work hard to meet the “needs of individuals who place
an enormous amount of trust and confidence in our abilities.” One
of the first emails I received sounded almost identical to Meredith’s
situation:
I want to do my job well. I want to be able to recruit volunteers,
train them so they feel they have the skills to help someone, welcome
students, help them set goals, continue to provide ongoing support
to tutors, cover all administrative duties of keeping my office
organized, write reports for Council, attend meetings, keep our
presence in the community visible, look at other funding possibilities—need
I continue the list? Some days it just isn’t possible to
get it all done! (Marilyn)
As more people responded to my questions (and to each other),
it became obvious that the realities facing literacy practitioners
today are dramatically more complex than they were 15 years ago:
We are often exposed to situations that we are not fully prepared
for, such as offering help to those who have experienced violence
in their lives. And not just the type of violence that we may be
somewhat aware of—we also work with families who come to
Canada who have experienced war first-hand. (Shawna)
Family violence, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, youth at risk, Attention
Deficit Disorder and mental illness were not words or topics that
were talked about when I was a literacy coordinator in the late ’80s.
(In fact, when I started the Opening Doors project, family literacy
was just being introduced as a “possible” preventative
measure and numeracy wasn’t in our collective vocabularies
yet!)
Those working in the field today recognize the importance of specific
and specialized training to effectively address the difficulties
and demands of literacy work:
For me, the issue isn’t so much the job description as much
as it is the fact that we are expected to do big things without
proper training. Most do not have the qualifications to do the
job, even though they are willing to give it a try. As a typical
example, it is common to have a person who has attended school
from kindergarten to grade 12 (and has received instruction from
degreed professionals) to come to my office needing to improve
their literacy skills. My response (as mandated by the job description)
is to set them up with a tutor, someone who has no formal training
(just a little tutor training) and receives no pay, and suggest
that they work one to two hours a week (when 12 years in
school didn’t do it). I have a number of tutors who have
good intentions and really want to help, but they don’t really
have the specialized training to assist someone who likely has
a learning disability and a variety of negative learning experiences
to deal with—and neither do I! (Lynn)
Shannon made a similar point and raised more difficult questions:
Why is it okay to expect underpaid literacy practitioners (and
volunteer tutors) to do what well-paid educators have already failed
to do? How screwed up is this system?! So much rests on our volunteers
and I worry constantly that we ask too much. I struggle with this
daily. I don’t feel adequately trained to assess [students]
properly, or to provide student-tutor pairs with the appropriate
materials. When I started my job, I kept asking the previous coordinator: ‘How
do you match up pairs? How do you know who to put with whom?’ And
she would just reply, ‘Trust your instinct and follow your
gut reaction.’ What?!! I didn’t have any instinct yet!
That is definitely not on any job description I’ve seen.
I’m not a teacher; I have no background in education at all.
(I thank my lucky stars daily that I was able to get this job despite
my lack of qualifications.) While I have received incredible professional
development and feel somewhat prepared most of the time, I still
feel like I need more. And the more I learn, the more I know I
need to learn—and the cycle continues. (Shannon)
Some people felt strongly that literacy programs need to be more
focused on hiring people with the necessary credentials to do the
job, not just people who are willing to work part time for low
wages:
I think the lack of demand for previous training and job qualifications
is not only unrealistic, but just plain wrong. I have never known
a nicer bunch of people than literacy coordinators. They/we are
very nice. But being nice and wanting to help does not mean you
can do an efficient job—proper training / qualifications
does. (Margot)
It appears that literacy workers today are willing to be more
proactive in demanding appropriate training, as well as wages that
reflect the important work they do.
Our present literacy model suggests that you take people with
limited skills, pay them little or nothing (in the case of our
volunteers) and hope for some results. It is inexpensive, but as
the recent International Adult Literacy and Life Skills (IALLS)
survey results showed, this approach is not very effective. The
responses from coordinators that there are personal (rather than
monetary) rewards just reiterates the fact that we are a group
of often undertrained but ‘very nice’ people. No one
would ask a doctor, nurse, teacher or pharmacist to just do their
best and try hard. We demand that they have skills and are well
trained, and in response we pay them well. I think in order for
us to be seen as ‘professional’ we need to have professional
skills and be paid as professionals. (Lynn)
Due to uncertain and limited funding, literacy workers are not
paid what they are worth or for all the hours they work. Donating
time should not be an expectation of the job. I choose a job that
rewards me personally, but I am also entitled to be paid for my
work and my credentials. (Kim)
Even though people talked openly about making do with limited
resources, taking on more than one
part-time literacy job just to keep working in the literacy field
or continuing to work on projects when “there are no dollars
left for salaries,” they also
spoke warmly about their work:
There are many downsides to this literacy work, but in our hearts
and souls we believe in it and that’s why we are still here.
(Louella)
I love my work. It’s the most creative, demanding, engaging,
stimulating work I’ve ever done. I especially value the camaraderie,
the sense of shared community, in the literacy field. (Fay)
I love working in adult literacy—especially coordinating
my own program. It is meaningful, rewarding work, and I’m
thankful that I’ve found it (or it has found me). (Belle)
Those working in the field have often been criticized for being
too willing to go above and beyond the expectations of their job
descriptions:
We’re doing the best we can with the time and resources
we have. Most of us go far beyond the call of duty in this program.
A lot further than unionized government workers will go in theirs.
It’s because we care about our communities and we’re
often the last resort for people. (Sue)
Sue’s comments build on what Meredith said 15 years ago: “My
interest in literacy was greater than my
concern about the job description.” I wonder what would
have sustained literacy programs if people like Sue and Meredith,
and so many others, hadn’t put their concern
for others before their need for personal gain or consideration.
Would the literacy community in Alberta be as strong and vital
as it is today?
Maureen really put this question into perspective:
I believe that in jobs where people feel it is more of a vocation
than a job (as many of us do), a lot of unpaid overtime is worked
because that is the only way to really move the work forward. I
have put in countless unpaid hours myself because I wanted to and
I don’t regret having done so. It is often unpaid overtime
hours that have made a significant difference to the field. And
I think this is true of any fledgling field of endeavour—it
takes a hell of a lot of extra effort to get things off the ground
and to convince others of its value. This is not to dismiss the
very real concerns of workers who are paid minimally to work 10
hours a week to do the impossible. (Maureen)
As someone who has worked in literacy in Alberta for more than
two decades, I have watched the field develop and grow, but I’ve
also witnessed the price literacy workers have had to pay to “move
the work forward.” As I monitored the online discussions,
I was reminded over and over again that while the expectations
of literacy work have increased, professional training, compensation,
recognition for the work being done and appropriate funding have
not. Reading between the lines, I had the feeling that many literacy
workers were coming dangerously close to the end of their ropes
with frustration about the current situation. But I also heard
people starting to talk about the need for change:
Only in a profession dominated by women is it possible to do ‘peace
work’—work that makes a difference in the world, which
is also typically underpaid—because let’s face it,
that’s what it is. We do this work because we see the value
of it and know how very important it is in the grand scheme of
things. This is not to say that it shouldn’t change; there
are a million reasons why it should and I’m sure you’ll
be hearing from my colleagues about those. (Allie)
It has been promising to hear literacy workers becoming more confident
and forthcoming about the changes they believe need to happen:
I am vocal about insisting we are paid higher wages because this
will encourage workers to stay in a field that appears to me to
have an incredible turnover, as well as encourage people to honour
and value themselves as literacy practitioners. I love what I do,
but I want people to take me seriously as a professional in the
community. My point is that for this to happen, we must take ourselves
seriously as professionals first. (Shawna)
As I listened to this coming together of literacy workers discussing
these difficult topics online, I was reminded of the grassroots
energy that I valued so much when I was a new and untrained coordinator
trying to get a program off the ground in the late ’80s.
I remember the frustration of the setbacks, and the exhilaration
of each step forward. What I recall most, however, is the fortitude,
ingenuity and creativity of the people who were pioneers bravely
breaking new ground, people who openly shared their experiences
and expertise, strengthening the literacy community as it grew.
Our greatest resource to help us accomplish what we were trying
to do was each other.
However, as a witness to the evolution of the literacy field in
Alberta, I’m not sure that this camaraderie is as strong
today as it was then. Maybe it’s because there are more people,
more programs and more specialized interest groups in literacy
now. Or maybe it’s because, as literacy workers (and especially
as women), we’ve allowed ourselves to be seen as nice people
who are hard done by for too long. Have we become part of the problem
rather than the solution? It is my belief that all the very valid
arguments made for change won’t happen unless we take the
time to strengthen our ties and commitment to each other, as well
as to our work.
As I look back over the last ten years, I see that as literacy
practitioners we are now more fragmented than cohesive, more separated
instead of more together. I believe much of this relates to limited
resources and competition for funding. And we need to name this
and talk about it, so that we can change it. Unless we an pull
together as a sector, we have little hope of convincing government
and other funders that literacy merits a much greater societal
commitment. We need, as Paulo Freire said, to be able to “read
the world” as well as read the word, so that we can respond
collectively, as well as individually, to an issue about which
so many of us feel passionately and care deeply. (Maureen)
What does the future hold?
Opening Doors was about the work and energy that went
into establishing the literacy field in Alberta. As I have been
rereading the book, I’ve been thinking: what would a book
about literacy work in Alberta 15 years from now look like? What
will job descriptions for literacy workers look like then?
When I’m feeling hopeful, I imagine a book full of stories
about how literacy practitioners went back to the roots of literacy
work to find ways to strengthen their resolve to effect change—accounts
about cooperation and collaboration between practitioners,
programs, communities and government, and stories and celebrations
about the people who found ways to make it possible to support
each other while supporting the cause.
Is my vision realistic? Will things ever change? Will the literacy
community be alive and thriving 15 years from now? I have to believe
that, in the near future, I will be able to read about substantial
improvements made to literacy work in Alberta and across the country—that
I will be able to write about the people and the changes that helped
to create a more productive and sustaining environment for those
who choose to learn and work in the literacy field tomorrow.
I hope someday I can leave my program knowing that it will have
more benefits for the next person. This would include salary with
benefits, appropriate paid time and all the basic resources needed
to do the job. It is my wish that, before I leave, funders and
communities willvalue literacy programs more than they do now.
(Pat)
Deborah Morgan recently received the Literacy
Alberta Lifetime Achievement Award for her work over the past 20
years as a literacy program coordinator, tutor, instructor, researcher,
writer, program developer and project manager. Deborah’s
first book, Opening Doors, documented the lived experiences of
literacy workers in Alberta. It is now out of print but will be
available on NALD (www.nald.ca). Her books about encouraging writing,
Writing Out Loud and More Writing Out Loud, have gained an enthusiastic
following in Canada and around the world. For more information,
go to www.writingoutloud.ca.
Working conditions in Alberta – 2002-2003
In 2002-2003 Literacy Alberta spoke with 73 coordinators of community
adult literacy programs in the first phase of their Professional
Development Project. Here are some of the findings:
• Most respondents (87%) coordinated all aspects of their
program.
• 68% of respondents were the only employee in their program.
• A majority of coordinators (62%) were employed for 10 months
each year.
SOURCE:
Jackson, Candace (2003). Highlights from the Professional
Development Project. Calgary: Literacy Alberta.
Working conditions for literacy coordinators in Alberta – 2005
From: Literacy Alberta’s Survey of coordinators (2005).
|
Volunteer
Tutor Adult
Literacy
Programs |
Community
Adult
Literacy Centres |
Hours of work |
|
|
Hours paid per week (average) |
25 |
29 |
Actual hours worked each week
(average) |
30 |
35.5 |
Range of hours paid per week |
10 – 40 |
12-40 |
Range of hours worked per week |
12.5 – 47 |
15 – 60 |
Pay |
|
|
Hourly wage (average) |
$17.57 |
$18.42 |
Hourly wage (range) |
$10 – $30 |
$12.50 – $28 |
Percentage with
no benefits package |
71% |
62% |
Experience |
|
|
Average years of experience |
6 years |
7 years |
Range of experience |
.5 – 20 years |
|
Education |
|
|
Masters degree |
1 |
3 |
Two Bachelors degrees |
6 |
0 |
Bachelors degree |
14 |
11 |
Diploma or certificate |
5 |
6 |
Some post-secondary education |
11 |
14 |
High school |
1 |
5 |
Total number of respondents |
38 |
39 |
