Excerpts from Reflective Journals | Excerpts from Literature | References

With the excitement of teaching, preparing, and coming to know your students, do not make the mistake of seeing them only in their role as a student in your class. Many adult participants in family literacy programs are not only struggling with language and cultural barriers, they are also under the demands of fulfilling their very real roles as mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, employees, neighbors, and friends. Be prepared for occasions to arise when outside demands on students' time overlap with class time.

Excerpts from Reflective Journals

• February 26th, 2002 (Wave I) – “Finally, we began about 6:50—with just two students. Ten people were committed to be there, and upon calling many to find out if they were coming, many had reasons why they couldn’t come, but said they were enthusiastic about coming on Thursday. One student did actually hurry on over.”


• March 7th, 2002 (Wave I) – “Well, so, tonight only Victoria came. She hasn’t made it since our very first class, and I was thrilled to see her. We talked about why she hadn’t been to the other classes, and she told me about how she’d gone into false labor (she is seven months pregnant) and been given morphine to take. She is also the mother of one, and stepmother to another. She has her hands full.”
• March 12th, 2002 (Wave I) – “My ‘most faithful’ one, who wasn’t there on Thursday, came and apologized, first thing, for not being there. She told me the circumstances that made it so she couldn’t come, and I really understood. Just knowing makes it so much easier for me; but committing and then not showing up is hard for me to forgive.”
• March 26th, 2002 (Wave I) – “The attendance issues…are things which involve something much bigger—they involve life itself, and its many struggles and challenges. Like I mentioned a few days ago, after calling so many people individually, I learned about how many, many 'battles' these parents have to face, besides just the language. WOW!”
• May 7th, 2002 (Wave II) – “Celia, another older woman who was traveling here all the way from Spanish Fork to be in our class, came in at 6:00 to apologize for missing last time and this time. She now gets out of work at 5:00, so she doubts she’ll be able to continue participating in the class. She was sad about it, as was I.”

Excerpts from Literature

• Auerbach, 1995a, “When issues like overcrowded housing, parents’ need to have two jobs, and child care problems are seen as external obstacles, separate from and interfering with learning, literacy itself can become one more burden. When, on the other hand, these issues are fully integrated into the content of learning, so that analysis and action on them are central to the curriculum, literacy can become significant in learners’ lives” (p. 71).
• Weinstein-Shr, 1995, “Why is it that parents do not come? What is happening in these seemingly invisible families? …With an understanding of family resources and constraints, it becomes possible to know what is possible and what is appropriate when we ask adults to participate in our programs” (p. 120).
• Reed, 1997, “One of the reasons that some of my best students didn’t come to all the tutoring sessions was that they had to be at appointments for their children or themselves. When you’re poor and you’re on welfare, you can’t just tell the clinic or someone you can’t come because you have to study. You have to go and keep your appointment” (p. 185).
• Handel, 1999, “For people in poverty, lack of transportation, lack of community support, and life stresses in the areas of health, personal safety, housing and basic economics often preclude adults’ involvement in school functions… the reality is that many adults miss appointments and have difficulty maintaining good attendance because of illness, frequent moves, and overwhelming family responsibilities” (p. 35).

References

Auerbach, E. R. (1995a). From deficit to strength: Changing perspectives on family literacy. In G. Weinstein-Shr & E. Quintero (Eds.), Immigrant learners and their families (pp. 63–76). McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems.

Handel, R. D. (1999). Building family literacy in an urban community. New York: Teachers College Press.

Reed, J. (1997). What do I do here? In D. Taylor (Ed.), Many families, many literacies: An international declaration of principles (pp. 185–186). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Trade.

Weinstein-Shr, G. (1995). Learning from uprooted families. In G. Weinstein-Shr & E. Quintero (Eds.), Immigrant learners and their families (pp. 113–133). McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems.

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