I just heard David Boulton speak last night at a short workshop and I am totally reeling. I've been researching and working on Early Literacy for about 5 years now, and this new piece just fascinates me. He is pulling together people from even more diverse fields of study to delve into why it's so hard for kids to learn to read, and also why it sets them up for failure in life. One piece I have not yet heard about is the downward spiral of embarassment and shame and what that does to a person. If you start at such a young age feeling shame at being confused over learning, it can literally derail your brain in such a fashion that it incapacitates you.

What I mean is this: if you get a blip of confusion it distracts your brain, and after a while that distraction is noticed and you are embarassed by it, you feel ashamed. When you are ashamed, it slows down how your brain works because it's busy feeling shame instead of concentrating on what you're trying to do. As you feel that, you begin to, naturally, want to avoid what makes you feel the shame. When you are trying to read again (especially orally in front of others), your shame and embarassment come earlier in that process of feeling ashamed and you become derailed earlier. Soon, you start to do things that help you avoid the whole process, which makes it harder to learn, which makes it less likely that you'll succeed which makes you feel more ashamed . . .

Conversely, if you succeed in learning to read small words you will feel more confident and you're going to work more and more at it. And, as you grow in proficiency it becomes easier and easier to read without thinking about the mechanics of reading and you're able to think about what you're reading more, and it becomes more enjoyable so you do it more and you get better at it . . . you see where this is going? The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

And you know what else? Much of what makes it so darn hard to learn to read goes back to when English was first transcribed on paper! The history of our written language, and how it was Latin/French scholars trying to squeeze all 50 or so sounds of the English language into just 26 letters. This meshing of a limited letter system with a broader sound system is one of the things that makes English such a trick!

I need to know more! The implications of this are nearly overwhelming! This also goes in with what we talk about when we discuss the difficulties in serving neighborhoods that are largely low-income. We have talked at lot about how tricky it is to serve someone who distrusts and is made nervous by the very fact that you work for a library. Our institution is already "them" and it makes it harder for us to be able to serve our customers. This notion that folks who've been through a difficult learning situation all their lives will have the hardest time getting help - it makes perfect sense to me.

So here are some of the questions I have: how,then, should we approach folks who are 2nd or 3rd or 5th generation illiterate when the shame they feel was built into how they were raised? Some of the folks I see were taught to be fearful of schools before they ever set foot in the door!

How can we, as the public library, start to bridge some of those gaps and reach families that would NEVER darken our doorstep to share with them that they are not stupid, but that there are things they can do to help their children succeed in school?

See what I mean? Fascinating!

For more info check out their website.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Caterwauller,

There's a somewhat similar article in the most recent edition of Scientific American Mind It discusses how many exceptionally bright children end up as failures. It's on page 10-11, "Watching Prodigies for the Dark Side."

Your concern for generations of illiteracy reminded me of the writer John Edgar Wideman, whose father was in prison for life. He escaped the same fate through words. Reading Wideman is a frightening journey into the mind of a man who knows human foibles and futility all too well. Scary as hell, but very good! Get those folks who are afraid of reading to listen to Wideman on tape! He's a Rhodes Scholar who knows squalor.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Asa Lovejoy>,

For a while back in the 1970s I helped out at local adult literacy classes. A good half of the class were older than I was and the primary reason for their difficulties was schooling that was interrupted during the Second World War; either they were evacuated or bombed out.

Many of them had children who didn't have any special problems with reading.

There are, generally, two states of poverty. One is situational, and one is generational. Situational poverty doesn't not carry with it the long-held baggage that comes with generational poverty.

Coming from a long line of working-class people, I can attest to that. I have several friends who come from very comfortable backgrounds but who are currently broke (as am I). To them, it's transient. To me, it's what I've always known. It's harder to see yourself getting out of something that's been such a constant in your life, as you don't have the confidence that can come with experience of something better - particularly, perhaps if that experience is had during childhood.

So yes, CW - it's a really tough nut to crack.

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Situational poverty doesn't not carry with it the long-held baggage that comes with generational poverty.

But without the latter we wouldn't have had the Blues, or Langston Hughes...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cat:
Coming from a long line of working-class people, I can attest to that. I have several friends who come from very comfortable backgrounds but who are currently broke (as am I). To them, it's transient. To me, it's what I've always known. It's harder to see yourself getting out of something that's been such a constant in your life, as you don't have the confidence that can come with experience of something better - particularly, perhaps if that experience is had during childhood.

I agree with you, Cat. And Asa - I love Langston Hughes, and you're probably right that literature and music would have suffered without poverty-stricken writers and musicians.

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But without the latter we wouldn't have had the Blues, or Langston Hughes...

Oh, but at what price these hotbeds of creativity?

One of the greatest problems with the inner city neighborhoods today is that when folks "make it" they move out. There isn't a whole lot of creative thinking and sharing of artistic talent these days. There is a lot of dreaming . . . but Langston Hughes' family knew that education was important, and that working through the confusion of learning something new was worth the trouble. That's not necessarily the case today.

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But without the latter we wouldn't have had the Blues, or Langston Hughes...

Oh, but at what price these hotbeds of creativity?

True. Which brings up another question: People don't all have an aggressively entreprenurial mindset no matter what their socio-economic situation. Some people seem to be natural "money magnets" whereas others, myself included, are utterly clueless about doing more than providing goods and services, then getting paid for doing so. This seems to be a factor that the present administration utterly ignores in its reshaping of the US economy. Why?

Well there is another thing to consider. Each social class has it's own grouping of hidden rules and values that the other classes don't know about or don't understand. I've read about this in Ruby Paynes' book _Framework for Understanding Poverty_ which, frankly, has changed the way I think about life. I'm sure there are similar distinctions world-wide, but her study is particularly about the US.

She talks about how people in poverty generally value family and relationships above all other aspects of life. Middle class values success and responsibility. Upper class values image, prestige and power. These are generalisations, of course, and I'm being as brief as possible for the sake of the site. I'm sure you can see, though (those of you who live in the US) that this could vastly affect how you make decisions in your life!

If you all are interested in this (and if I've not already gone off on this topic before . . . I've said it all so many times that I can't remember who's heard my diatribe previously), I'll write more. Or you could read Paynes' work yourself! She also wrote a companion book, _Bridges Out of Poverty_ which gives more specific, practical advice on how to help each group of folks understand and be successful with the other groups. Very interesting!