There are other difficulties with her present set-up as well. "I have almost no privacy. When I interview a student we have to talk in an open office area. Sometimes I am able to find an empty space somewhere when I need to do an assessment but not always, so now I do a lot of assessments in the evening in people's homes." Grace's frustrations are very real. "We are considered the bottom of the totem pole. When it comes to budgets and physical space we are the first ones to get cut back. It makes me feel second best sometimes and I think it makes the students feel bad too."

The cafeteria was filling up and the noise level had increased considerably but being a good sport, Grace agreed to carry on with our interview. She told me of the plans underway to build a new College facility in the spring of 1991 and is very much looking forward to better conditions. She also hopes that she will be able to raise the profile of the literacy program once they are in a more appropriate setting.

Concerned about her difficult working conditions, I asked Grace if she felt she is being acknowledged for the work she is doing. "In the beginning, money wasn't important to me. My job was part-time and still is. I'm paid three-quarter time but I work full-time. I don't even bother to keep track of the hours anymore. That didn't bother me at first because it was a new field for me (I didn't have any training in the education field) and I was learning a lot. That was enough payment for me. I'm still learning but even though I wouldn't ever consider myself an expert, I do have a handle on things now so it's starting to bother me that my efforts aren't being properly recognized. "

"I am appreciated by the students and tutors (which is important to me) but I would also like monetary recognition and the kind of credit that comes from being appreciated for my knowledge and my years of experience in the field. I know that without a teaching degree, I can't be paid as much as the instructors and that's fine, but what I'd really like is to be included in policy making and in the decisions that affect my program." Grace's voice was full of determination. "I want to be asked for my input and ideas because I know this program better than anyone else. I've had to learn a lot and learn it fast. I think my experience in the job should count for more than it does."

We talked more about the pros and cons of education and/or experience. Through our discussion, I discovered that Grace's background and "experience" went well beyond the past 5 years of her work in literacy. "Even though I get frustrated sometimes, I stick with this job because I believe that I can give my students what I didn't get when I was in their shoes. I wasn't an illiterate adult but I had polio when I was young and had trouble all through school. I know now that I had trouble not because I was slow but because I missed so much school. I was in hospital for 2 months at a time (and never touched my schoolwork) but I never failed. They just shoved me along and shoved me along. I got my diploma but not matriculation so I had to repeat classes later and take extra courses to bring up my marks."

"I've gone through a lot of what our students have gone through. I thought because I had physical problems that mentally I was defective too. And a lot of people still think that. When people know that you have a disability they think your brain doesn't work either. I grew up with that attitude all my life and I still feel that I have to work twice as hard as anybody else to get what I want."

How can we ever begin to recognize the experience that someone like Grace brings to her work? She is not a quitter. Only a true survivor could go from feeling "slow" all through her growing up years to working in a field of education that helps adults learn what they often didn't think they could learn. Grace has first-hand lived- experiences that can't help but give her a degree of understanding and empathy that no university education could provide.