In July 2011, I started a project as a VISTA. My assignment is to develop an adult literacy program targeting the South Side of Billings where statistically, the needs are the highest. As I’ve learned by assessing, comparing, computing, and picking people’s brains for information, I’ve also learned the direction that God wants: I don’t think he’s done with me yet.
I was told that as a VISTA, I would be a change agent. I said: “Great!! The world needs changing and I want in on it.” Then I found (once again) that the only change I can effect is in me. Being a change agent means, first and foremost, being open to change.
I started off knowing that literacy is more than just reading and writing. I’ve learned that with greater depth: there are five levels of literacy in three different areas: prose, document and quantitative (math.) I’ve learned that people who operate on the lower levels of literacy believe that others, who are more literate, think they are stupid. I’ve learned that not only are they not stupid, they have the strengths to have coped without written language or with limited written language in a world that survives on written language. I started off thinking that I was literate. Then I learned that I am almost totally computer illiterate. Given a task and directions, I could use a computer; but, as soon as a problem occurred, I had no idea what to do except to ask for help. I had to assume that anyone who happened to be nearby was more computer literate than I and ask that person for help. Wow!! Put that thought into everyday life: filling out job applications, paying bills, doing IRS forms, reading street signs, or following directions to get from point A to point B. Yet people who are in the lower levels of literacy cope every day with marginal written language, including numeracy. They cope with minimal incomes and manage to get their basic needs met. I’ve learned that I never want to hear them called: stupid (either directly or by inference.)
I’ve learned that my project isn’t to change them: it’s to make coping easier for them. They are still the ones who must cope. I’ve learned that I can’t give them anything, including a program to solve literacy problems without asking them what will help. I’ve learned that a project isn’t a checklist to be completed: it’s a living, breathing concept, a dynamic creation. As soon as we say it’s done, it will be static and die.
More than anything, the people who are literate on the lower levels are the people God loves just as He loves me and each of us. And, God isn’t done changing me.
By Jane Collins, a friend of CLDI
