Audrey looks back, and ahead (Cont’d)

Where are we now in terms of capacity for research in practice in the field? It’s taken time to grow and to train people and give them the confidence. Now, we’re beginning to build a bit of a literature base, step by step. As well, we’re getting a network of interested people who can help build a movement and push it in different ways.

You are a researcher. As you look back at the research you’ve done, what stands out for you? I think early on I was cast as a chronicler or an historian of the movement. And that helps to give legitimacy to the field — you document where you’ve come from, how you’ve grown, and where you’re going. I wrote two reports in the late 70’s and early 80’s that helped to generate momentum and rally folks to the cause. At that time it seemed like people were hungry to know more — they knew there was a literacy issue but they didn’t know much about it. Those two reports were landmarks.1

The projects I enjoyed the most were The Reluctant Learner2 and the social studies curriculum project on cities in BC. I always remember being thrilled when I was looking at the data for The Reluctant Learner and how it seemed to be coming together in a pattern and confirming what some of the researchers with far more money and resources in the States had found. The Cities project gave me a way to combine geography (my major in university) with literacy and learners and bring it all together into a useful material.3

You have worked in literacy for a long time. In one word, how would you describe the literacy field? Committed.

Tell me more about that. Most people I’ve met in the field have gone beyond the call of duty. It’s a field mainly dominated by women, not well paid. Even in community colleges there are people who have been on contracts for years rather than having a permanent place within the college system. Yet people keep coming back and giving of themselves — volunteering on boards and committees and putting in more hours than they’re paid for. I think that has to be acknowledged. If we hadn’t had that, I don’t think the field would be as strong today as it is. And I think people recognize that commitment in others and respect and honour it. I’ve seen the same commitment in the learners who have worked for the cause — they give what they can.

Literacy is an issue that gets people at the emotional or gut level and the commitment in the first instance is to the learners. I know that was my motivation when I started in the field, that’s what fired me up — to say that they could learn and there needed to be more adult programs. And you think about the structure of society and how finances are distributed — people want to make a difference.

Kate Nesbitt of Telkwa, BC is Literacy BC’s learner representative on the External Review Committee of the BC Adult Literacy Cost-Shared Program. Kate, who has worked with Audrey for the past two years on that committee, made a quilt to mark Audrey’s retirement. The quilt represents different facets of Audrey’s life — her career in literacy, her home and family, and her love of travel. Kate presented the quilt to Audrey at a meeting of the External Review Committee in Vancouver in October 2003.