LITERACY IS SCHOOLING AND LEARNING IS DOING

Learning literacy and learning about work are not synonymous, and may in fact be incongruous in the minds of the students who participated in this study. Learning literacy was associated with schooling, whereas learning about work was associated with doing. For example, when students discussed their learning activities in the different settings, they often described what they learned in the classroom and what they did in the coffee shop and job placements. Marion summarized this idea (the italics are mine):

When we are in the kitchen, we are doing the different things like baking, cleaning [and] cash. In school, we learn the reading, writing and grammar. [In] the kitchen, work together like group, like real work. The class, we learn the reading and writing.

For Marion, the classroom, the main setting for literacy activities, was equated with school, and the kitchen was equated with work. She learned academic skills (like reading, writing and grammar) in the classroom, and did work (such as baking and operating the cash register) in the kitchen.

Previous research has also made a clear distinction between the way in which adults perceive learning literacy and other forms of learning. Zieghan (1992) described adults who value the opportunity to learn in a practical way over learning literacy, which was aligned with schooling. Quigley (1993) noted that adults resisted traditional schooling models but valued other forms of learning. Similarly, the adults in this study made distinctions between learning literacy and learning about work. But there is a critical difference: the students in the employment preparation program value learning literacy just as much as learning about work, and sometimes even more. It should be no surprise that adults who enroll in literacy education programs place such a high value on learning literacy. After all, they have sought out a traditional academic environment that perpetuates a literacy–as–schooling view, a view described by Purcell–Gates et al. (1998) and Beder (2001). But the employment preparation program is not solely a traditional academic environment. It has attempted to present a variety of literacy and learning activities in which literacy is presented as skills (in the classroom), tasks (in the classroom and coffee shop) and practices (in the coffee shop and job placements). Despite this combination of activities, students continued to distinguish between learning literacy and learning about work. Both Stacey and Nadine said the ideal program structure for them would be attending a class–based program in the morning where they could continue to learn literacy skills, and participating in a placement in the afternoon where they could gain experience and learn about working.