Then Fern added with a laugh, "Besides, you're so darn busy doing your own little thing there with your own tutors and your own students that you almost don't have time to worry about being isolated!"

In some ways, Fern likes the isolation of her job. She likes the independence, being able to establish her own priorities and expectations. She also has a part-time job as a speech pathologist, which she eXplained is also fairly independent in terms of supervision and direction. "I guess I'm just used to my own success or failure being dependent on my own success or failure," Fern said matter of factly.

We talked about the characteristics of women who successfully take on jobs in literacy. Fern feels that women in literacy are strong, intelligent individuals who enjoy a challenge and don't mind hard work. I laughed out loud when she sat back and said, "You couldn't just put some old dish rag in a program and hope that she could survive because she couldn't!"

As much as Fern likes to be independent, she feels very strongly that literacy workers should have proper training. Coming from a background in speech pathology, which has very strict guidelines, Fern was aware when she started her work in literacy that practices in literacy are dangerously unstructured. She was amazed at how little training the government expected her to have to be able to teach adults to read.

"You could never practice in other fields the way we practice in this field," Fern commented. "And they let us do it and they encourage us to do it. When I came into literacy, I looked around and I thought, 'This is against the law, isn't it?' No? You mean we can do this?' I felt so unqualified and unknowledgeable to be doing what I was doing. And then gradually I learned. I'm learning everything a little bit at a time. I still don't know very much about reading theory and how to teach really disabled people to read. And I'm still thinking - being in this job is like a little girl who's gotten dressed up in her mother's clothes and is going out and trying to fool everybody!"

I mentioned the concerns that others had expressed about inadequacies and even feeling like a fraud. Fern said she understood those feelings perfectly. "I have to work at not letting it bother me," she admitted. "I try to be honest and I try to keep in sight what I know and what I don't know. I tell the learners, 'This is my background, this is what I know about, I'm not an expert.' If! worried too much about what I don't know, I'd never be able to survive in this job."

Working around her family commitments and her other part-time job, Fern does her best to keep up to date with the latest literacy research and information. She accesses all the professional development she can and looks forward to any new learning she can work into her schedule. Being in a remote, rural community, Fern has learned to tap into all possible resources. She enjoys that part of her job and has especially enjoyed recruiting and training the tutors for her program.

"I love my tutors!" Fern said generously. "They're so gutsy. When I train the tutors, I know it's like somebody saying 'OK, I want you to go out and counsel this person on Alzheimer's and I'll teach you everything you have to know in 8 hour!' They are so brave. Some of them come from a related background but the majority don't. They are just well meaning people trying to do something good for someone else. They have a love of people and a love of books. There is nothing in it for them; there's no glory, no recognition and no pay for sure."

When I asked Fern if she found it humbling working with her tutors, she said thoughtfully, "No, not humbling, but definitely enriching. I just feel like a better person for knowing these people."