Conclusion

Seeing the complexity of awareness needed for both workers and learners around such issues as presence, trust, boundaries and crises, adds awareness to the question of why learning to read is such a difficult and lengthy process. Where the struggles around each of these issues are ones which a literacy learner has to carry out in private - to reveal her difficulties in these areas is to have herself judged as “abnormal” - then energy is required not only to struggle with the difficulties, but also to hide this struggle. It is crucial therefore that, within the literacy program, the range of what is normal be broadened and the discourse opened up to include awareness of the struggles that many learners, whether survivors or not, have in a broad range of areas. If the challenges learners face are made an active part of the curriculum then all learners can benefit from exploring what it takes to be fully present in the classroom and from the knowledge gained from the times of less presence; from discovering a deeper understanding of ambiguity and middle ground rather than staying with the stark contrasts of all or nothing; from considering crises and how to live both in and out of crisis; from examining questions of trust in terms of the possibility of trusting their own knowledge and trusting others in the class or group not to judge and put them down; from learning to set boundaries and respect the boundaries of others; from deciding which stories to tell when; and from creating a safer place to learn.

The funding constraints and bureaucratic structures which shape literacy work are limiting the recognition that a whole range of learning is integral to the literacy learning process. Unless these challenges are recognized, the accessibility of literacy will be limited to those who can learn fast and easily.

Possible Actions:

• Promote discussion within the literacy community about the challenge for . literacy workers to respond to so many complex issues. Questions such as: Should it be an expectation that workers take on so much? Will such a focus take attention away from reading and writing instruction?
  
  
• Create discourses about a range of possible approaches to increase awareness in the literacy program and classroom so that learners and literacy workers can: