http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/education/canada-shame.html
INDEPTH: EDUCATION Canada's shame from The National | May 24, 2006 Reporter: Dan Bjarnason | Producer: Alex Shprintsen
When you think of literacy in Canada now, at the beginning of the 21st century, you probably expect to see a rate of close to 100 per cent. That would be wrong. The actual numbers are nowhere near that and should embarrass us all.
Lynda Richards
Lynda Richards can tell you being illiterate is a guaranteed ticket to a nowhere life of poverty with no skills and no future. It's a cruel lesson that never leaves her as she puts in long hours here at the high school cafeteria in Swift Current, Sask.
"I'd get papers in the mail to be filled out and I wouldn't be able to fill them out so they didn't get done," Richard says. "I was never able to figure out that I had to pay a bill at a certain time of the month and if it wasn't paid at that time of the month then there was interest on it.
"I would have panic attacks in grocery stores if I had a cart in front of me or somebody behind me when I was trying to find what it was on the shelf that I wanted."
What is so shocking about Lynda Richards story is how common it is.
Last fall, hockey coach Jacques Demers drew great attention to the problem of literacy when he revealed that he could not read or write. His dramatic revelation gave a peek into the sad and almost invisible world of illiterates in Canada.
What the numbers say
For years Scott Murray crunched numbers on illiteracy and administered two major international surveys at Statistics Canada. And what his numbers say is that Canada's situation is particularly shameful when you look at the two worst categories:
- Nearly 15 per cent of Canadians can't understand the writing on simple medicine labels such as on an Aspirin bottle, a failing that could seriously limit the ability of a parent, for example, to determine the dangers for a child.
- An additional 27 per cent can't figure out simple information like the warnings on a hazardous materials sheet, the kinds of warning that set out workplace dangers such as risks to the eyes and skin.
In total, 42 per cent of Canadians are semi-illiterate. The proportion is even worse for those in middle age. And even when new immigrants are excluded, the numbers remains pretty much the same.
But what's worse is that for the past 15 years there's been scarcely any improvement.
Real life implications
Murray's study shows that among heavy-truck drivers in Alberta, for example, the lower their literacy level, the higher the probability that they experience an accident or spillage. These are real effects — driving big rigs off the road into a ditch.
"The economic costs and social costs are large enough that we should be ashamed," Murray says. "We haven't made the investments with our own citizens in order to release their full potential."
Richards with her grandchildren.
Lynda Richards knows this first-hand. "I was from a low-income family and I went to school and a lot of times I didn't smell very nice because we lived on a farm. I didn't have a Mom. I had a brother and my Dad."
Lynda simply gave up on reading in Grade Eight. Her prospects and her self-esteem were about zero. "Most of my life, I had teachers tell me that I would never amount to anything and that I would never learn, she says.
"I remember a teacher one time putting me in front of the class and wanting me to read and I threw my glasses on the floor and I trampled on them."
Trapped in the fog
Lynda has had a tragic life. Two of her children died in infancy. Struggling on as a single mother with her remaining daughter, she has also battled alcoholism.
It was only the boozy fog of her addiction that made the shame of illiteracy bearable.
"When I was drinking and drugging, it was easier for me to say what it was that I needed. And when I wasn't, when I was sober, it was really hard for me to go and ask for help."
Lynda's daughter, Shawna, sensed something was definitely wrong with mum. "I guess when she was a child there were nursery rhymes and she could memorize those. So that is what I got," Shawna recalls.
For a while, Shawna could play along with her mother pretending to read those nursery rhymes, but then she just let loose.
"She was taking me to a karate lesson and I introduced her to my friends," Shawna says. "And I didn't mean it hurtfully. Like, I really didn't because I didn't know. But I introduced her as my stupid mother."
Lynda Richards was around 40 when she finally realized her life was at a dead end. She was in the exact age group with the worst illiteracy record in the country.
She decided to go back to school — not knowing she was trapped.
A Catch-22
Nayda Veeman was until recently the head of the Saskatchewan Literacy Network. Her research reveals the system is rigged against those most in need of help.
"If people want to get into adult upgrading programs, generally they have to meet a certain level before they can be admitted," she says.
"If somebody, for example, didn't succeed in getting a high school education when they were going to school and they want to get a further education, they will have to pass a pre-test, typically, to get into an upgrading program. So that means that people who have the most skills tend to get into those programs and have the most access with regard to training allowances and so on."
So the paradox is that in Canada, if you're critically illiterate like Lynda Richards, you often can't pass the tests to get the literacy training. It's as if hospitals kept out the critically ill and admitted only the not-so-ill.
And as if tests aren't roadblocks enough, then there is the money.
"Money was a big obstacle," Richards says. "Trying to find a place where you could live on social assistance and raise a child and have her in school and have myself in school as well.
"And being able to buy the clothes that we needed for both of us to go to school. Because before I went to school, I didn't need the clothes. I could have a couple of pairs of pants and a couple of shirts and that would last me."
The other snags
Canada's federal system creates built-in snags — a patchwork of competing programs with different priorities — and with adult education falling through the cracks.
"Getting federal bureaucrats to talk to provincial bureaucrats without the constitutional differences getting in the way is impossible," says Murray.
So he invented a study that cleverly circumvented the messy Canadian set-up by comparing us with other countries.
"One of our strategies was to create an international survey that collected data on the nature of the illiteracy problem in other countries, so we could have a conversation not just about ourselves but about our trading partners."
As a result, what came to light, says Veeman, is that Canada's approach to adult illiteracy is based largely on unpaid or lowly paid amateurs, not well-paid professionals.
"I think we approach it much more from a volunteer model," she says. "Since the early 1990s there has been a lot of cutbacks in government funding and the issues of accountability have come down on community-based programs, compromising service delivery."
Lynda became a casualty of inadequate teaching. When she finally got into an adult education college in Swift Current, the staff encouraged her to give up:
"The teachers started saying that I should quit, I should go back to working in a restaurant or doing stuff that I did before. And that there was no shame in that. But I was very angry."
In her dead-end world, she dreamed of a universe that, it seemed, could never be.
What the Swedes do
After examining Scott Murray's international literacy survey, Nayda Veeman made an on-the-spot survey of her own — in Sweden. The result became her PhD thesis, which has an urgent warning for all of us.
"Adult education is like a train," Veeman says. "You should be able to get on it when you want and get off when you want. You should know where it's going and you shouldn't have barriers to get on. And that's what we don't offer."
Over in Sweden, in the town of Vasteras, Sabine Ekstroms' story sounds much like Lynda's, at first anyway.
"I always thought I was stupid, I wasn't as smart as the others," she says. " I did a lot of cheating. During gym and when we did orienteering, I would follow one girl who read the maps, because I wasn't able to. When we took dictation in class, I would usually copy from someone. When we had drawing, someone would draw for me."
Sweden is sort of a Canada-on-the-Baltic: A liberal democracy with a vast network of social services.
In a UN index that ranks quality of life, Canada and Sweden are tied in 5th place.
But in one vital area — literacy — the Swedes have beat us cold. Those surveys that Scott Murray invented that measure functional illiteracy have Canada with its 14.6 per cent rate trailing Sweden at 7.5 per cent, first place in the world.
Veeman spent a year discovering what the Swedes are doing right.
"They have municipal adult education programs offered in 288 municipalities across the country and that is a program that taught by a professional teacher, she notes. "There also was a priority given to people with the least education."
Simply put, the Swedes see learning as not just something you do in your early years. It is a life-long pursuit, a feature of everyday life that never ends.
Helping those who need it most
While both countries have illiterates, the difference is: What happens to those who fall through the cracks?
In the literacy stakes, Sweden trounces Canada at every age level.
For the middle-aged, being unable to read can be truly grim. In Canada almost half have low literacy skills. In Sweden the figure is just 15 per cent.
Sabine Ekstrom
Sabine Ekstrom also worked for rock bottom wages in the food industry. But what happened to her was quite different than what happened to Lynda Richards.
"It's the government who pays," Ekstrom says "I received a subsidy. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to enroll. In Sweden, it's also your right to get a leave of absence to go back to school. You have at least a year to study and improve your education, without losing your job."
Richards other obstacle was trying to raise a young daughter.
Raising a family is an issue for Sabine, too, and for another young Swedish mother, Lena Hallengren, Sweden's minister of education.
Lena Hallengren
Sweden, Hallengren notes, has a system of "pre-school education and that is possible for everyone who is studying, working, staying on parental leave, maybe unemployed. They have the right as a parent to have pre-school education for children between one and five with a maximum fee, which is related to their income. So the question of daycare is not a problem."
For Richards there were also those literacy course tests that seemed designed to keep her out. In Sweden, the idea is to get you in.
Ekstrom says, "I went to the manpower office and asked them to help me. They said, 'You might have dyslexia, do you want to be tested? And then we can see what you should study and what direction your career should take.' That's how it began."
In Sweden there is also an array of options.
Komvux
For example, Komvux, an adult education high school such as the one Sabina is in. There are also "folk-building" schools run by organizations such as unions. And there's the tradition of study circles, where the like-minded learn about anything that interests them from pensions to painting.
Unlike Lynda, Sabine had instructors who wanted her to be a winner.
"The teachers here are very approachable. You get lots of help, and you don't feel different. You get inspired by the teachers, encouraged by them, with the attitude of 'of course you can.' There's no problem."
Josefi Eriksson is a stellar example of an illiterate whose life was utterly transformed by the Swedish system. She was dyslexic and couldn't read or write.
Josefi Eriksson
Josefi went back to the classroom in her early 20s. She's now 29, has a university degree and returns to her old Komvux to encourage those like Sabine to never give up.
"That's really good here in Sweden because I feel like whenever you need to have help, to have a degree, you can have the right help to have your degree. Either if you are twenty, thirty, forty or fifty," she says.
The Swedish war on illiteracy
The "no problem" Swedish attitude to literacy and reading are part of the culture there. You see the results everywhere. More than 60 per cent of Swedes use public libraries; in Canada, the figure is less than 40.
In Sweden almost everyone follows current events, In Canada less than 80 per cent do, according to surveys.
TV can be also part of the war on illiteracy. What's popular television drama in one country is also likely to be a hit in the other.
But in Sweden, television is part of what fuels the country's drive to literacy. There is no translation dubbed in for the many foreign programs. Viewers are forced to read, or they're lost.
Jon Crispinsson
Jon Crispinsson is a big time TV personality in Sweden who hosts two popular network programs — about books. One runs in prime time. It is a huge ratings winner, with about the same audience as CBC's The National, though in a country with less than a third of Canada's population.
In Sweden, books are good TV.
"It would be unthinkable not to have a program about books on Swedish television," Crispinsson says. "Otherwise, it would be treason against the audience."
He'll tell you, it all comes down to a simple notion. "Without literacy, there is no real democracy, I would say. You cannot be a part of the modern society if you can't read."
I am an investment
For former illiterates like Josefi Ericsson, the payoff is that all society gets a dividend. "I think the philosophy of this country is that they want to help people to grow as a person and to learn to read and write and to give something back.
"I think the system saw me as a investment in society. That's why they gave me this opportunity to study and to read all these years."
So great is the stress on literacy in Sweden that there are three education ministers. Hallengren is just one of them. In Sweden, she boasts, if you're illiterate, we just won't give up on you.
"You always get a second chance and a third chance and a fourth chance," Hallengren says. "It's never too late and if you missed the chance for some reason — maybe you had problems, which is not that unusual, if you're sixteen-seventeen — you get a new chance."
For Sabine Ekstrom, who is in her 40s, her second chance means not having to go back to her old supermarket job when she finishes her studies.
"I was very bored with my job. I wanted to do something else," she says. " I felt I had to know more things, have more computer skills, learn more English. I thought OK, I have to get back to school again. Now it feels like the world has opened up a lot more."
A daughter's will
Back in Swift Current, Lynda Richards struggled to open up her world. But it wasn't the system that turned her life around. It was her daughter Shawna who gave her the will.
"I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, you know. I'm going to school with my Mom," Shawna says.
As Lynda recalls it: "When I did start school, we used to sit at the table and we'd do our homework together. If I had a bad day, she would say to me, 'Mom, you can do it. You know, this is just a bad day today, you can do it.'"
In a triumph of grit, Lynda acquired her Grade 11 diploma, And then for her, an even greater honour — a certificate to become a chemical dependency counsellor.
"I was so proud of that," Lynda says. "My daughter was there at the graduation and I was very proud of myself. I did it. I did it."
Lynda Richards and Nayda Veeman — the illiterate and the literacy scholar — now colleagues and soldiers in a common cause
Lynda has become a non-stop activist, a sort of born-again trans-Canada literacy missionary.
"I know the shame, the guilt, the hurt, the walking with your head down," she says. "And not knowing all the things you can do, the places that you can go if you have an education."
"When I was asked to sit on the board at the Saskatchewan Literacy Network, I made a promise to myself way back then, that was about eight or nine years ago, and I said whatever they asked me to do for literacy, I would do it because it's given me a life, a life I never knew I could have."
At the high school cafeteria, she still puts in long hours but she is no longer the cook. She's the boss. She has become a successful businesswoman, bought out the operation, and is now the owner.
"Literacy has given me back my life," she says. "Well, it gave me a life I never had."
As for Scott Murray, the literacy test guru who chronicled how shamefully Canada has been doing, his own revenge, of sorts, is that he's gone to work for the UN, for UNESCO.
"I'm pretty frustrated," he says. "Frustrated enough to leave the Canadian system and go try to measure this thing in other countries of the world.
No one calls Lynda Richards stupid any more, and she no longer has to pretend to read nursery rhymes. She now rejoices in a universe of words with her grandchildren. A Lynda Richards in Sweden would not be remarkable. There, she would have had a second chance and a third and fourth, too.
But a Lynda Richards in Canada is a rarity. She did get a second chance. Most never do.
