On November 11, 2016, the Festival of Literacies organized another one-day event to talk about issues related to adult literacy. Again, almost 50 participants came to the Peace Lounge at OISE. Researchers and practitioners from the Greater Toronto Area participated at the event. Thanks to the funding support from the Centre for Learning, Social Economy and Work (CLSEW) at the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, we were able to offer the event to all participants free-of-charge including breakfast, lunch and refreshments.
The program for the event included three parts:
The highlights from the day’s discussions are summarized below:
The morning panel
The program for the event included three parts:
- The morning panel was moderated by Audrey Gardner with Guy Ewing, Nancy Jackson, Susan Lefebvre and Tracey Mollins. The morning panel talked about their stories from the first run of the Festival from the early 2000s and what they enjoyed from the different activities.
- The midday research jigsaw featured Tannis Atkinson, Tom Ciancone, Shanti Fernando, Audrey Gardner, Christine Pinsent-Johnson, Annie Luk/Judy Perry and Farra Yasin. The researchers met with three rotations of small groups of participants to talk about their research projects.
- The afternoon panel was moderated by Paula Elias with Phylicia Davis, Carissa Di Gangi, Kimberly Lansdowne and Jessa Reitsma. The afternoon panel shared their issues working in today’s environment.
- It should be noted that the opinions expressed by the individuals during the Festival of Literacies are entirely personal and should not be taken as representative of the views of the organizations they worked for or were associated with at the time of the event.
The highlights from the day’s discussions are summarized below:
The morning panel
- One of the original underlying ideas for the Festival was to create a forum and a space for research and practice to come together. The Festival served as an incredible, open space for ideas to emerge. Despite the ongoing challenge at the time, the Festival created a more hopeful and productive atmosphere for both researchers and practitioners. Resources were available for research and practitioners had the support to expand their practice, ask questions and assist learners.
- Practitioners had the opportunity to learn about research that was happening within academia. They also had the opportunity to learn how to design and conduct research studies. It was helpful to understand and see how to establish and improve rigour in research.
- Researchers had the chance to have research done that would be directly supportive of practitioners. They also got to see the real life day-to-day issues facing practitioners, learners and volunteers.
- The Literacy journal was a well-loved and treasured publication among practitioners, many of whom have kept their own personal copies after all these years. It was a great place to have discussions, to share research findings and to try to make sense of what’s going on together. The ability to keep abreast with the latest in research and also to have the opportunity to influence what research would take place was invaluable to practitioners.
- During the first run of the Festival, various courses were designed specifically with adult literacy in mind. Practitioners who were not OISE or UofT students could take the courses as a way for OISE to attract prospective students. Those courses were oriented not only for full-time students, but also working practitioners who found the courses very helpful.
- One of the dominant issues facing practitioners at this time was the overwhelming amount of administrative, paperwork. Some of the Festival participants mentioned that they have been told to view their work as case managers, instead of educators. The importance of accountability to taxpayers was always present. Inspections on the completeness of paperwork and filing seemed to take a higher priority than working with learners and ensuring the learners get what they need.
- The pressure to meet the provincial objectives (such as milestones and exiting learners) seemed ever mounting. At the same time, resources were also diminishing. Some participants at the Festival admitted to having to take in more learners they would know could “succeed” in Ministry’s terms. Some also talked about various ways they would work around Ministry’s rules in order to ensure ongoing support for learners, especially those who had been going to the program for a long period of time.
- There was a general sense that the Ministry was not counting what should matter from the leaners’ perspective and from the community’s perspective. Learners could gain much from adult literacy programs such as confidence, sense of community, civic responsibility, self-esteem, etc., not only employment.
Resources mentioned during the event:
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