LIz+Mackay

Liz Mackay. this is very embarrassing!! I cannot get the hang of this wiki thing and reading my essay again.

​  Hi Liz, I read your essay when we met just before christmas and it seemed to read well to me. I think Ian noticed a typing error but I can't remember where it is - flare instead of flair? does that ring a bell? - actually - I've just found it, near the bottom of second paragraph. We didn't notice anything else and you already have a clear introduction so I think thats fine. Elaine

In this assignment I plan to describe a community project taking account of local and National policies. I will evaluate this project through discussing the various theories of practice within the world of Adult Literacies. I plan to comment on how my learning from this course may have shifted my perspective and how this altered understanding will inform my future work. I will reflect on the personal and professional significance of this.
 * __Introduction__**

The project which I have chosen to review and evaluate for this assignment was an Adult Drop In held within Kemnay Youth Café over a period of 10 weeks during 2005. The aim of the project was to attract new and perhaps hard to reach individuals who might require support with literacy activities. The Youth Café was chosen as a suitable venue as it is centrally placed within the village and had daytime space available. It was also close to the library should there be any opportunity to work together with that service or a possibility of encouraging individuals to go there. The workers involved were the area literacy worker of the time, a literacy support tutor, a literacy tutor, the adult education coordinator, and occasionally a community learning worker seconded to the library service, a benefits officer and myself as the local Community learning worker. The setting was as informal as possible with free access, tea, coffee and crèche places. Advertising was done through a local newsletter and agencies such as Social Work, Primary schools and Surestart. The advert, posters and flyers were carefully considered with a simple diagram format. ( see appendix 1) The time selected fitted well with the times of school pick ups. Brief discussion took place between staff to come up with the suggestions for what might be offered at the sessions. My involvement with the project was one of coordinator and making sure things ran smoothly. The Community of practice within which we worked at that time was one of separate responsibilities and the area of literacy was seen as particularly distinct so that the lead for this project was left very much to the area literacy worker. I gave little thought to where the learners were at and, what they might want or need to learn. The activities which actually happened within the ten weeks were support sessions to address issues of bills, benefits, letters and communication, basic ICT skills, support to join local adult learning classes and a very popular hand massage session. A number of young women identified issues of helping with maths homework. An experienced tutor whose interest is numbers worked with this group and the overall result, after a few weeks of work was that the women quickly became more confident and left the group willing to deal with the subject. One of the participants however discovered a flair for the subject and after some further individual support found employment using her new number skills. On reading of this subject I now realise how difficult this must have been for the tutor for two reasons, one the different starting points for individuals within the group and two the dilemma of looking at where functional literacy stops and maths begin. “I suspect that many numeracy tutors spend most of their working hours on the fence between numeracy and maths, leaning one way to use life skills to illume pure number work; leaning the other way to link life topics into major concepts, thus enabling the transfer of learning to take place.” (Joseph, 1990, p362) Joy Joseph went on to claim that her role as a numeracy practitioner was to turn “maths into common sense” (Joseph, 1990, p363) and in this case I think this must have happened. There was no formal curriculum and each individual could set their own goals. The numbers attending too were not so high that each could be seen individually and fully engaged with. On one occasion the need was identified to bring in specialist staff such as a debt counsellor. This was seen as the use of “particularly useful brokers who can mediate between the local, everyday, informal world and the world of official institutional literacies.” (Hamilton, 2006, p131) Hand massage was used as a carrot to entice learners to engage within this project and according to Mary Hamilton this is a case where ‘informal learning offers instant feedback on efficacy, relevant to current level of performance’ (Hamilton, 2006, p133)
 * __The project and activities__**

This project was seen as successful and achieved the aims that it set out at the beginning. All of us recognised that it was a good way to engage with local learners. The individuals who came along appeared to be happy with the guidance and support given and most progressed to their goals.

The main driver for the establishment of this project was The Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Scotland Report (ALNIS 2001) which defines adult literacies as: “The ability to read, write and use numeracy, to handle information, to express ideas and opinions, to make decisions and solve problems, as family members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners.” (ALNIS report, 2001, p7) The report goes on to explain why the increase in literacy levels is so important for the Scottish Executive and makes 21 recommendations to carry this out. A number of targets and key principles were identified by the report and I would suggest that those addressed by this project are: increasing the number of adult literacies learners, raising the awareness of and promoting adult literacies, improving the quality of provision and making the service free to all learners. Significant funding was made available to each local authority through Adult Literacies Partnerships and the money for this project came from this source. This funding was closely monitored by the Aberdeenshire Literacies Partnership. The Big Plus the first Scottish literacies awareness raising campaign set up in response to the ALNIS report had begun to be recognised and a number of referrals came from this for our Drop In. There was also a range of freebies available which we were able to use as tools of engagement. All of this meant that literacy and numeracy work had a much higher profile than in the past and certainly more funding than it ever had before.
 * __How the project came about__**

The main policy document for Community Learning and Development produced by the Scottish Executive in 2004 ‘ Working and learning together to build stronger communities’ details one of its three priorities as ‘ the raising standards of achievement in learning for adults through community- based lifelong learning opportunities’ (Scottish Executive, 2004, p1) The advice was to incorporate the core skills of literacy, numeracy, communications, working with others, problem solving and ICT within this priority. This can be seen to include literacy work and some of these skills were encouraged within the work of the project. These core skills can also be identified in the work of most classes and groups within the CLD service bringing Adult Learning and literacy under a closer relationship. It may be interesting at this point to compare the situation in Scotland with what was happening in England, Wales and Ireland at this time. During the nineties national targets were developed but after the development of devolved governments each country went their own way. England and Wales, after A Fresh Start (the Moser report, 1999) favoured the development of learner tests and qualifications. In 2001 the Basic Skills Agency set this process of working towards standards in motion with a clear aim of employability in mind. Northern Ireland has some parallels with England in their emphasis towards an economic result with the added complication of a definite political divide in literacy levels. Ireland choose a more bottom up approach and consulted much more with learners to develop a much broader view of literacy to encompass a more learner centred approach. Scotland went for a more social and collective approach which fitted with the recognition that the way of working for Community Education was to promote lifelong learning, social inclusion and active citizenship.
 * //__Policy and Practice of the time__//**


 * __Evaluation of the Project__**

There will have been many instances within this project where the literacy practices which participants arrive with have been gained through everyday literacy events and not through the formal education system. There we can see the influence of the Ideological Model of literacy which is the idea that literacy is a social practice which has built up and varies with social context for each individual but brings with which it ‘relations of power’ (Street, 2001, p18) The choice of topics for the project would appear to have been chosen with relevance to this model so that the literacy events with which individuals are familiar such as filling in forms and doing children’s homework can be used as a starting point. I would propose that these are recognisable parts of the literacy process, within their home domain, which individuals understand to such an extent that they are willing to take part in the project. The facilitatation of the process to progress learning will surely depend on the skills of the tutor and I believe these skills should include the ability “to enable people to understand and reflect critically on their life circumstances with a view to exploring new possibilities and initiating constructive change” (Hamilton, M., Macrae, C., et al 2001, p32) I would see the workers role within this project to be one of facilitating these social practices rather than teaching specific skills. The informal set up and chosen venue for the project I would suggest goes some way to address the relationship of power within any adult learning and especially the support of literacies. The range of subjects chosen to attract learners to our project supported the current policy to ‘raise the standard of achievement for adults through community based lifelong learning.’ However core skills were not recognized as one of our aims and although some will have been achieved it was not by design. At this point accreditation was not a priority. We were able to bring in an occasional expert to help with particularly powerful literacies and the choice of targeted options for working on within the project appeared to suit those who attended. However through the knowledge that I now have of literacy practices and theory I would suggest some changes if the project were to be repeated. Firstly, I would try to have some more interesting activities on offer which would engage learners in a positive manner rather than through a deficit model. These activities could reflect the rich vernacular literacies with which the individual is already familiar such as the ‘Fits it a aboot ?’(Aberdeen City Family Learning Team, undated) project. I would redesign the posters to include pictures of everyday activities such as the photograph collaborative task that we carried out for the course and perhaps use a range of photographs as tools for discussion. I would make more effort to have a presence where the learners are likely to be in their daily lives, such as school gates, doctors’ surgery etc. and link into particular literacy activities or events. There may be occasions when it is necessary to support a learner through the maze of more powerful literacies and this should be addressed in a sensitive manner. Somehow I would also like to engage more with the learners and support them to set and attain goals.

There have been a number of changes in the service since this project took place. The main one being the Modernisation Review within our service in Aberdeenshire which meant that the post of area Literacy worker disappeared and literacy work became embedded in all our work. This felt at the time as if it might be a big loss. What would happen to all the expertise that had been built up by individuals over time? It is also easy to rely on that expert as someone to do most of the work within the project rather than applying some thought oneself which is exactly what I did. It was interesting to read the article Just do it: Literacies, everyday learning and the irrelevance of pedagogy by Mary Hamilton (2006) where she likens the changing world of literacy learning, within England, to separate compartments with definite tasks which is not helpful for the learner. She goes on to talk about how ‘teachers and learners have much to learn about one another’ (Hamilton, 2006, p136) and the enrichment this brings to literacies learners. This must surely apply to the new arrangement within Aberdeenshire council where we no longer have one expert but it is a shared interest within everyone in the team. Since 2001 there has been considerable funding available to Literacies Partnerships and it was easy to access the money for such projects as the Adult Drop In but new funding arrangements in 2008 under the Single Outcome Agreement has meant that this money is no longer ring fenced for this purpose although Aberdeenshire has agreed that it will be and this years budgets although smaller have been allocated. The volunteer tutors on which we rely so heavily within Literacies work have very much felt this changing world and have voiced their unease at times. Quite rightly I agree with the comment made in the introduction of ‘Outside the Classroom’( Fowler and Mace,2005 p.(ix)) that one thing that was similar between the four countries of the British Isles was that there was little involvement of the tutors. The main change for our tutors has been the compulsory move to accredited training which unfortunately has not been a seamless procedure and has taken far too long to sort out. This has lead to tutors not feeling valued and quite a number leaving. If we were to run this project at the moment I doubt if there would be tutors available to support it. It will be obvious from this account of the Kemnay Adult Drop In Project that there is no mention of engagement with those who do not speak English as their first language. Indeed I do not remember the subject being discussed and although Kemnay still does not have a huge immigrant population there are some individuals who would appreciate some support. I would make sure that next time round this issue was addressed. Finally, I very much support the learner centred approach which has been prevalent in Scotland and I am slightly concerned on two accounts. One, there appears to be more emphasis on accreditation and it may develop to such an extent that it is a box all learners need to tick and two, in the recent Skills for Scotland report (2007) there is a shift for the learner towards employability and economic growth. This may not suit every learner and may make it more difficult to engage with some.
 * __Policy and Practice Changes since 2005__**

I have very much enjoyed my journey of understanding through the world of literacies. The history of the literacy story where literacy does not appear with its present meaning of ‘being able to read and write’ (Ackland, A., Bambrough,C.,et al.(2006) p12) until 1924 is amazing. I cannot believe that I have grown up in a world where I was completely oblivious to its power. I was lucky enough to be surrounded by people who could read and write and gave no thought to those who were the subject of much scorn and derision from teachers at school and labelled as stupid. This made no difference to us as children who found that they could play as well as anyone else. I can remember no attempts to give any such pupils extra support. I am now very aware of this situation of dominance and believe I would be able to offer appropriate support to such a learner. This feeling of confusion has continued for me through to the present day with two colleagues in my office who both have excellent word skills snorting in horror each time the word literacies are mentioned. They claimed there was no such word and were not open to discussion on the matter. I would now feel confident to debate this subject with the claim that the term has come about due to a change in social history and now encompasses a number of social practices for today’s world. I found the collaborative projects useful, particularly the photograph one where we explored the world of literacy through pictures and I plan to use this in any publicity which we need for any new literacy project or just to have around at events where discussion might be stimulated and activities discussed both those on view and those behind the picture. My learning curve has been immense over the last three months especially with regard to ‘new’ literacies studies which I found a difficult concept to understand. The many layers involved in this social practice model gave me a real headache which although not entirely gone can be used to look at the way I support the volunteer tutors in a way which will benefit both them and the learner. However, most importantly I would like to see the learner kept at the centre of all literacy work and would be keen to set up a local forum for both Literacies learners and tutors so that they have a voice and are better able to represent themselves.
 * __Reflection on my learning__**

The review and evaluation of this project has given me the opportunity to look at the theory and practice of Literacy in detail and observe how this works on the ground. I have explored Social Practice with interest and established the possible link to the ideological model so favoured by Street. I am aware that the world of literacy support is ever changing due to the contemporary policy of the time and that creative ways may be required to match policies and funding resources to the learners needs. The learner at the centre model may become less central and this may require a different way of working. Hopefully the knowledge and understanding I have gained in the field of Adult Literacies will have provided me with the intellectual skills to articulate the message that literacy and numeracy are fundamental elements of a society that is committed to social inclusion and equal opportunities
 * __Conclusion__**