by Julia Schecter, AWC London
By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy
Literacy Source is a Seattle non-profit organization that provides free basic education to low-income adults in the Seattle, Washington area. The agency reports that 1 in 6 adults in Washington State are lacking literacy or language skills necessary for self-sufficiency. Many students are immigrants, but others are individuals who have spent their lives in the US, but have not been served by the public education system. According to Literacy Source, more than 36 million adults in the United States cannot read, write or do basic math above a third grade level. Data on foreign-born adults (ages 18-64) living in Seattle indicates that of those who are Limited English Proficient (LEP), only 14.2 percent are employed.1 Serving this population is an important and daunting mission. In these notes, I am pleased to share some insights about adult literacy instruction from my recent interview with Cat Howell, Instructional Director at Literacy Source:
- What are your greatest challenges as a teacher of refugees? Sometimes, getting resources. Right now, we’re really trying to get technology in the hands of our learners because many don’t have computers or wifi at home to access classes. Another big challenge is that many of our learners had little formal education, so [they] are learning to speak English and at the same time learning how to read and write. It’s hard work for them, and for teachers to support all that learning at once.
- What is most rewarding about your work? The students are amazing. They are often quite resilient and solve problems quickly, bringing a lifetime of creative problem solving to the classroom. As an example, Literacy Source had funding to support our community in participation in the census. Our original plan was to have student ambassadors provide outreach and use our computer labs to assist individuals to respond online. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, we had to cancel the open lab time, but we increased our investment in student ambassadors. The training needed for the 14 ambassadors focused on outreach skills, because the LS students came to the positions with a strong understanding of what the census is from having studied it in our classes during the fall of 2019. Many of them carried out their outreach over the phone or social media. They were able to respond to the changing environment quite rapidly, and helped support Washington State census participation.
- Where do you think the greatest need is in supporting refugees? Teacher training for teaching refugees that takes into account trauma-informed instruction, as well as instruction for students learning to read and write for the first time.
- How did you come to teaching refugees? I was interested in language learning and also teaching adults without a high school-level education. Many refugees (but not all) fall into the intersection of these two interests. I started teaching ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) through a literacy council, then at community colleges and in community-based organizations. Refugees were part of the population receiving services in all those types of programs.
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