Meaning

The loss of meaning in life that Herman refers to may also lead learners to have difficulty dreaming of possibilities or imagining goals. Learners often have difficulty trusting their own knowledge, perhaps not surprisingly, as there is so little support in society for the meanings many women make from their standpoint. Many learners have enormous difficulty finding meaning in a text, even when they are able to decipher the words. Much of this difficulty may be about limited vocabulary, and lack of experience with a wide variety of words, but the concept of loss of “meaning” suggests new questions. For women who have experienced violence, it is particularly crucial that they have opportunities to name their own experiences, create their own meanings of their lives and have those meanings validated. Such work might support learners to generate complex and relevant goals and meanings in texts and in life.

Conclusion

Some literacy workers suggested that learners who have issues they need to “heal” should be referred to a therapist or counselor. For some women that may not be an option: they may feel it is not acceptable to spend time on their own needs; there may be no appropriate counseling available in their community or the form of counseling available may not be a mode they can work with. Some women may have worked on their issues from trauma, or they may be accessing counseling at the same time, but the issues do not simply go away because the session is for “literacy” not “therapy”. Several literacy workers spoke strongly about the need for a recognition that issues that surface in literacy may need to be addressed there (perhaps as well as being addressed elsewhere) and an awareness that even if learners do not disclose histories of abuse, issues that result may still be present in the literacy group and program. Programming needs to be designed to take into account the possibility that control, meaning and connection may be complex and difficult terrain for many women and creative approaches need to be developed to help women to explore these difficult areas. Learners may be healing through their participation in the literacy context and the creative possibilities incorporated into the learning process may simultaneously enhance learning AND healing.

Possible Actions:

• Initiate discussion in the literacy community about issues of control, meaning and connection and the implications for all aspects of literacy work.
  
  
• Open up discussion in classes, groups and programs widely about control and difficulties with control.
  
  
• Create openness to allowing learners to pace their own learning in a variety of ways.
  
  
• Generate creative options to make it possible for learners to control their learning within a structured framework. Eg. Team teaching to create “inhale” and “exhale” rooms, where learners can make their own choice whether to “inhale” new material or “exhale” their own work, or work they want to finish.
  
  
• Create clarity about expectations and clear guidelines for learners in less structured situations.
  
  
• Offer workshops to teach processes of making choices, visioning and building towards goal setting and taking control over learning.
  
  
• Explore the implications of issues of control, meaning and connection for learner leadership activities and participatory education practices broadly in literacy programs and networks.
  
  
• Assess possibilities for forming viable support discussion groups for women learners/survivors and facilitate the start up of such groups.