We found that women at WISH are like many literacy learners; they had difficult and interrupted experiences at school and consequently have big gaps in general knowledge. General knowledge is the basic information that most high school graduates take for granted. Being confident about your general knowledge means being familiar with the geography of the world, having some basic benchmarks in Canadian history, some practical knowledge of how governments work, etc.
We make a strong effort at WISH to build women’s general knowledge so that they feel more connected to the world. Working with general knowledge topics also makes it easier for women to contemplate preparing for their GED or other upgrading.
Building lesson plans around general knowledge areas is familiar territory to literacy and ABE instructors. The difficult part is knowing when a lesson like this might work. Dramatic or eventful reporting in the news can provide a meaningful moment for building general knowledge. When the tsunami took its deadly toll in the Indian Ocean, none of us knew where Banda Aceh was located. We got out the atlas and all became more familiar with that part of the world together. Everyone likes to discuss current events from a place of confidence.
Once when a federal election was called, we made a quiz that asked participants to match the national party names with their logos. We wanted to make sure that women would recognize the parties at the ballot box. This worked well and then we had a basis to discuss some of the policies held by each of the major parties.
During the investigation of the Picton Farm, we created a scrapbook of newspaper articles. This scrapbook was important to women. Every week, they could catch up on the investigation when they came to WISH, synthesizing what they heard on the street with what was being reported in the paper.
Of course, games provide the most fun. We have used Junior Canadian Trivial Pursuit and made crosswords and wordfinds. One time, we discovered that several women around the table grew up on the east coast of Canada. At the next session, we brought the Atlantic chapter from A Beginning Look at Canada (Anne-Marie Kaskens, 1998 Prentice Hall Canada Inc., Don Mills, Ontario ) to give to everyone. It was a workbook style chapter covering some basic facts on the four Atlantic provinces and requiring reading and writing. At the same time, we asked the experts, the women who grew up in the east, to create a collage of their knowledge of the area using words and drawings and magazine photos. Participants seemed to enjoy both the workbook style assignment and the more creative work using their local expertise.