I wonder about what it means to be trustworthy and the limits of how trustworthy we are in literacy. Are we reliable and do we always give feedback in a way that is not damaging? In literacy, it may be crucial to be careful in any interaction about honesty and to recognize that a learner's responses may include past history and more than a “reading” of the actual words. For example, when workers assure learners that they are happy to teach something several times, or tell a learner that she is “doing well,” does the learner “scrutinize every word” and does that “exquisite atonement to unconscious and non-verbal communication” serve to tell a different message, perhaps of frustration, impatience or failure?

Many ways of working to help to build learners' trust in their own knowledge, trust in their ability to judge the safety of a situation and the trustworthiness of others, could be developed and used more consciously in literacy programming. Many processes which are already used by some teachers, such as journal writing, timed writing followed by reading aloud, and group work, might help to build such skill. Trust-building exercises would also be important to strengthen the possibility for taking controlled risks in a literacy setting.

I heard repeatedly from therapists and counselors that to be trustworthy, workers had to learn to respect their own boundaries and the boundaries of others, and support those who do not have good boundaries to learn to create them. Counselors spoke about the importance of workers coming to recognize when their own boundaries have been crossed, noticing their own anger as a guide to that, and learning to put back in place the clear limits that are necessary to avoid feeling burnt-out, “used” and angry at those who make demands. The ability to re-instate boundaries when they have slipped is an important skill to model for women who may not have learned even the simple right to keep boundaries. In contrast, literacy workers often spoke about how hard they found it to create any limits and boundaries for themselves. A typical example of workers' ambivalence was one worker's account of closing her door after class and trying to ignore when students knocked. When we talked about it, she realized that she had never given herself permission to tell students when she was and was not available to them and to ask them to respect her “boundary.” Instead, she said she felt angry that they hammered on her door when she needed to get office work done .Perhaps more often, workers talked about not even setting such basic limits, feeling unable to set any boundaries, feeling they had to stretch to meet their students' needs, which were too critical to be denied.

For workers, respecting the boundaries of learners may be especially hard with learners who do not maintain good boundaries themselves. Much therapeutic literature describes the connection between trauma and difficulties creating boundaries.

Some literacy workers spoke of trauma leading to building a “wall” or being completely exposed, and saw problems created from being over-defended or under-defended. Counselors and therapists stressed that to be trustworthy was to avoid “rescuing” even when asked, as to do so is to collude in the suggestion that the survivor cannot act on her own behalf and can only be “saved” by someone else taking over.

An obvious aspect of boundaries must be clarity about touching and the negotiation of touch. A hand on the shoulder, a pat on the back, or a hug that may seem a supportive gesture for some, could be invasive and traumatic for others. That basic respect for the boundary between one person's body and another's is important if the classroom is to be a place where a survivor can relax and feel safe. Alternative ways - words and looks of encouragement - to show support and encouragement or sympathy need to be found. The classroom offers quite a challenge for those who are not comfortable being too close to others, or close to men in particular. Working together at a computer or in a group at a table could be extremely threatening for some students. The proximity of an instructor coming up behind a student to help, or towering over a student who is sitting, could be a trigger. A male instructor would need to be especially sensitive to what might trigger students and take particular care around issues such as touch, closeness and relative height.