DEAR ANNE AND TANNIS:

I am sitting on a hill above the ocean in Nova Scotia. Thinking about work in this context brings up strange images: in the distance lies a tranquil sea that gives off a steady rhythmical sound and that fertile, moist smell that draws me back again and again to this spot: I know that if I walked down the hill to the rocks I would be drawn in to the overpowering intimacy of the sea, alternately frightening and soothing with its crashing waves, untenable/unknowable presence and murky depths. The tide goes in and out. My rhythm changes by the sea; I move languidly in and out of feeling the intensity of my connections to people and understanding the necessity of distance, the distance that gives perspective and occasionally, understanding.

You may wonder what all this has to do with working as a feminist in a community-based literacy program. I am confused by the role I should play as a feminist teaching adult women to read and write. In discussions with Anne, I have realized that my educated, middle class feminist consciousness is being raised and that my teachers are the poor, educationally disadvantaged women in my program. Anne reminded me of a quote from Alice Munro, "Any woman who tells the truth about herself is a feminist." If this is true, and it makes enormous sense to me, then all of the women in our community literacy program are feminists. We encourage, and indeed to some degree, insist that the learners write 'experience stories' about their lives. These stories are often heartrendingly honest and revealing about the struggles that these women have endured in their lives. Not only do we draw these stories out of women, we then publish them for other learners to read and reflect on. The writing is a testament to their honesty, courage and, yes, feminism.

Ironically the women and self-proclaimed feminists who work in literacy programs rarely write with such honesty and openness about their lives or work. Our middle class upbringing and stronger sense of self ensures that we protect ourselves from such open revelations about our personal struggles as women. We struggle with the distance that education, money and class creates between us and the learners. Like being by the sea, we try to keep our distance from the force and power of these women's stories but at the same time are drawn in to emotionally charged, intimate relationships. I think we ideally would like to walk a line somewhere between working as social service type educators and becoming wholly an equal member of a collective of strong women finding their voices. Sometimes you can walk that line, if you are very careful and don't let the waves catch your feet.

The tide is coming in. With some vision, perhaps we can welcome the tide instead of trying, vainly, to chase it back. Ultimately we do not teach but facilitate learning and critical awareness among the learners in our programs. We must ensure that there is a non-threatening and comfortable learning environment; we must welcome the new feminist voices and join our voices to the cry for decent housing, for food, for a non-abusive home life and for decent childcare and responsive health care. Many of the women trying to learn in programs across this country will leave those programs short of meeting their learning goals because their mother is sick, they cannot find decent, subsidized daycare, their husband is jealous of the time spent learning, or because they do not have enough money, energy or self-esteem. Facilitating learning therefore, does not simply mean providing books, pens and ill-prepared volunteer tutors (generally women) but also fighting the barriers that often stop women from pursuing their education. I don't believe we will be able to ensure women's access to learning/education until we have told the truth about ourselves. Like the women learners, we will have to be honest in the face of a threatening world, a world that often does not want to face the truth of women's lives today. The threats we may receive will be about funding cutbacks, about how we are too "radical" or "fringe", about being ungrateful. Telling the truth and retelling the truth again and again, is often very uncomfortable. Perhaps it will not hurt to feel a little uncomfortable and exposed, to get our feet wet from those waves, perhaps it will help to narrow the distance between us, the literacy workers, and them, the learners.