Literacy … The Key to the Poverty Trap

This is a must read from Lani Donaldson, President and CEO at Beacon Literacy.

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There are few problems in this world that can’t be attributed directly to literacy.

Poverty, crime and an overburdened social welfare system are the first, most visible effects when people don’t have the skills they need to succeed in the workplace. 

But, let’s take that a step further; people who can’t read are at the mercy of others for their information and their opinions.   They find it hard to make informed decisions about politics and the democratic process.  They are often ignorant of their own rights, and it’s not a stretch to see how literacy can be linked to issues of abuse, civil unrest and even terrorism.

It’s a complex problem on a global level but, even here in Alberta, it’s an issue that affects us all.  Whether you have chosen homeschooling or the traditional school system for your children, it’s important to understand the issues so that we can all work together to build solutions.

According to Statistics Canada (2005) 35% of working age Albertans lack the necessary literacy skills they need to succeed in our increasingly knowledge based economy.

Yes, in one of the wealthiest provinces in Canada, more than one third of the population lacks the literacy, numeracy and computer literacy skills necessary to become productive in the workplace.  Without those skills they are excluded from a wealth of employment opportunities and their ability to make a decent living is severely restricted.  At best they are forced to settle for poorly paid, menial work; if they can find work at all. 

People with poor literacy skills earn, on average, 2/3 of the income of other adults.  So based on our pitiful literacy record, it’s not surprising that our province, even with its rich resources, could have nearly 400,000 people living in poverty (Statistics Canada, 2011).   In fact, an estimated 73,000 children in Alberta are, or have been, living in poverty (Kolkman & Ahorro, 2011).

Alberta as a province experiences a huge demand for homeless shelters, food banks and support systems for the most disadvantaged.  And yet we are one of only 3 provinces without a poverty reduction strategy. 

And that is a problem which impacts us all.  It is estimated that the external costs of poverty, including healthcare, justice and social assistance, are as high as $9.5 billion every year*.

Then there are the emotional and psychological costs. People who cannot read face a barrage of obstacles every day - they can’t read signposts or labels; they can’t understand the instructions on their medications, or on appliances and machinery; unable to read contracts or commercial paperwork they are vulnerable to every kind of deception and fraud.  Their inability to read leads to an increased risk of accidents, higher rates of chronic disease and lower life expectancy.  Conversely, people with higher literacy skills are more likely to eat well, live a healthier lifestyle and enjoy good mental health.

Unfortunately illiteracy and poverty form a cycle that can trap people and their families for generations.  Of the children growing up in poverty, 20–25% will remain poor throughout their lives.  

Children in poor families often miss out on the access to quality childcare, educational programs and books that would help them develop early literacy skills in their formative years.   By the time they start Grade 1, they are already behind many of their peers and are further hampered by a lack of access to extra-curricular, educational programs.

And unfortunately, without any intervention, they will fall further and further behind every year.  In Grade 3 the curriculum shifts from learning to read, to reading to learn.  According to the Annie E Casey Foundation and the Center for Demographics Analysis in the US, those children who aren’t reading proficiently by Grade 3 are 4 times more likely to drop out without a diploma than proficient readers.  Those children without even basic reading skills in Grade 3 are 6 times more likely to drop out without a diploma.

Most children don’t fail in school because of a lack of intelligence – they fail because they missed crucial developmental opportunities in their early childhood. 

In a country where all children have access to full-time education for 12 years, illiteracy is a shockingly pervasive problem.  An estimated 36% of Albertans aged between 16 and 25 have poor literacy skills.   According to Literacy Alberta (2007) 30% of our young people drop out without a high school diploma.  And we have one of the lowest rates in the country of students going on to post-secondary education.

That lack of literacy translates to a lack of job skills or training and a lack of opportunities to escape from poverty. 

According to The National Council of Welfare, in 2000 “there is a strong association between school failure and the likelihood of becoming a repeat offender to the point where school performance is one of the best predictors of both juvenile delinquency and adult criminality”.

Statistics Canada (2005) has demonstrated that a low literacy level is ‘a reasonable predictor of involvement in crime’.   Research has shown that the average prisoner has literacy skills significantly lower than those of the general population; and that those who improve their literacy skills in prison are less likely to reoffend.

Literacy programs allow us to break this cycle of illiteracy, poverty and crime.

According to the UK Department of International Development there is clear evidence that adults who take part in literacy schemes are more likely to take an interest in their children’s education, encouraging them to attend and monitoring their progress.  Interestingly, they are also more likely to improve the health and nutrition practices of their family and take an informed interest in protecting the environment.

Finding a solution to this costly and pervasive problem is in all our best interests.  It is estimated that a 1% increase in average literacy rates would yield a 1.5% or $18 billion permanent increase in the GDP and a 2.5% increase in productivity (Columbe and Tremblay, 2005). 

We live in a country with a shortage of skilled workers because our children are not being taught to read. Even while we have people living in poverty because they aren’t qualified for lucrative employment, we still need to import skilled workers and professionals from overseas.

It’s a huge problem, but not one without an answer.  When you give people the literacy skills they need to succeed you create a ripple effect that spreads to every area of our society.  It makes financial sense for us all and turns life around for the individuals, their families and their communities.

A truly effective solution needs to be multi-generational, but it also needs to start with our education system, which most of us agree is flawed: 

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      Early childhood education is a highly effective investment in the future success of children, building a foundation for academic success and career opportunities. 

·         The school system needs to take responsibility for ensuring that every child has the tools they need to learn to read and to succeed in every aspect of their academic career.

·         Adult literacy programs benefit not just the individuals but their families and future generations to come.

Illiteracy is an epidemic problem, it’s societal and it affects us all.  Red flags have been raised by teachers and homeschool parents – perhaps it’s time we invested in solutions.

*Briggs, A. & Lee, C.R. (2012). Poverty Costs, An Economic Case for a Preventative Poverty Reduction Strategy in Alberta.  Calgary: Vibrant Communities Calgary and Action to End Poverty in Alberta.

You're Not a Terrible Parent If You'd Rather Be At Work

When I read this in a dad's blog I laughed aloud:

"You should enjoy every moment now! They grow up so fast!" 

I usually smile and give some sort of guffaw, but inside, I secretly want to hold them under water. Just for a minute or so. Just until they panic a little.

Here's the rest, great read:

 

To Parents of Small Children: Let Me Be the One Who Says It Out Loud

I am in a season of my life right now where I feel bone-tired almost all of the time. Ragged, how-am-I-going-to-make-it-to-the-end-of-the-day, eyes burning exhausted.

I have three boys ages 5 and under. I'm not complaining about that. Well, maybe I am a little bit. But I know that there are people who would give anything for a house full of laughter and chaos. I was that person for years and years; the pain of infertility is stabbing and throbbing and constant. I remember allowing hope to rise and then seeing it crash all around me, month after month, for seven years. I am working on another post about infertility that will come at a later date.

But right now, in my actual life, I have three boys ages 5 and under. There are many moments where they are utterly delightful, like last week, when Isaac told my sister-in-law that, "My daddy has hair all over." Or when Elijah put a green washcloth over his chin and cheeks, and proudly declared, "Daddy! I have a beard just like you!" Or when Ben sneaks downstairs in the morning before the other boys do, smiles at me, and says, "Daddy and Ben time."

But there are also many moments when I have no idea how I'm going to make it until their bedtime. The constant demands, the needs and the fighting are fingernails across the chalkboard every single day.

One of my children is for sure going to be the next Steve Jobs. I now have immense empathy for his parents. He has a precise vision of what he wants -- exactly that way and no other way. Sometimes, it's the way his plate needs to be centered exactly to his chair, or how his socks go on, or exactly how the picture of the pink dolphin needs to look -- with brave eyes, not sad eyes, daddy! He is a laser beam, and he is not satisfied until it's exactly right.

I have to confess that sometimes, the sound of his screaming drives me to hide in the pantry. And I will neither confirm nor deny that while in there, I compulsively eat chips and/or dark chocolate.

There are people who say this to me:

"You should enjoy every moment now! They grow up so fast!"

I usually smile and give some sort of guffaw, but inside, I secretly want to hold them under water. Just for a minute or so. Just until they panic a little.

If you have friends with small children -- especially if your children are now teenagers or if they're grown -- please vow to me right now that you will never say this to them. Not because it's not true, but because it really, really doesn't help.

We know it's true that they grow up too fast. But feeling like I have to enjoy every moment doesn't feel like a gift, it feels like one more thing that is impossible to do, and right now, that list is way too long. Not every moment is enjoyable as a parent; it wasn't for you, and it isn't for me. You just have obviously forgotten. I can forgive you for that. But if you tell me to enjoy every moment one more time, I will need to break up with you.

If you are a parent of small children, you know that there are moments of spectacular delight, and you can't believe you get to be around these little people. But let me be the one who says the following things out loud:

You are not a terrible parent if you can't figure out a way for your children to eat as healthy as your friend's children do. She's obviously using a bizarre and probably illegal form of hypnotism.

You are not a terrible parent if you yell at your kids sometimes. You have little dictators living in your house. If someone else talked to you like that, they'd be put in prison.

You are not a terrible parent if you can't figure out how to calmly give them appropriate consequences in real time for every single act of terrorism that they so creatively devise.

You are not a terrible parent if you'd rather be at work.

You are not a terrible parent if you just can't wait for them to go to bed.

You are not a terrible parent if the sound of their voices sometimes makes you want to drink and never stop.

You're not a terrible parent.

You're an actual parent with limits. You cannot do it all. We all need to admit that one of the casualties specific to our information saturated culture is that we have sky-scraper standards for parenting, where we feel like we're failing horribly if we feed our children chicken nuggets and we let them watch TV in the morning.

One of the reasons we are so exhausted is that we are oversaturated with information about the kind of parents we should be.

So, maybe it's time to stop reading the blogs that tell you how to raise the next president who knows how to read when she's 3 and who cooks, not only eats, her vegetables. Maybe it's time to embrace being the kind of parent who says sorry when you yell. Who models what it's like to take time for yourself. Who asks God to help you to be a better version of the person that you actually are, not for more strength to be an ideal parent.

So, the next time you see your friends with small children with that foggy and desperate look in their eyes, order them a pizza and send it to their house that night. Volunteer to take their kids for a few hours so they can be alone in their own house and have sex when they're not so tired, for heaven's sake. Put your hand on their shoulder, look them in the eyes, and tell them that they're doing a good job. Just don't freak out if they start weeping uncontrollably. Most of the time, we feel like we're botching the whole deal and our kids will turn into horrible criminals who hate us and will never want to be around us when they're older.

You're bone-tired. I'm not sure when it's going to get better. Today might be a good day or it might be the day that you lost it in a way that surprised even yourself.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

You're not alone.

This post originally appeared on The Actual Pastor.

Little Girls and Their Friendships

Men don’t do friendship like women do. They have good friends sure, they may even have mortal enemies, but if they need to fill a chair at poker even a guy they don’t really like is welcome. They don’t need, let alone want, to talk to their friends every day and certainly as young guys they never felt some other guy might take their friend away. They sit side by side for hours and never exchange a word. 

Whatever jealousy they may feel to great depths when their women is being charmed by some guy, they don’t even notice if there best friend is spending more time with some other dude.

Women and girls go about friendship and love in a much different way. 

As a result it’s tough for men to counsel their wives and daughters about friendships. Just as it is hard for women to understand how the boys and men in their life can be friends with guys who don’t seem to be good pals.

My husband’s Montreal friends are a posse he has had since he was a kid. Once, one came through town and didn’t even call him. They hadn't seen one another in years. I was shocked. The guy was here two days. Donny didn’t care. “Yeah wouldn’t been nice to see him but I guess he was busy.”

He didn’t dwell on it, wonder what he might have done to piss the guy off so that he didn’t want to see him. He didn’t reevaluate the friendship and determine it no longer seemed balanced. He didn’t lose a moment over it.

When I became pregnant I took parenting classes, met women waiting at the doctor’s office, struck up conversations with other enormous women taking a break on a bench to rest their tired feet and my world of friends began to change. 

Of course I still had my old pals, women I was tight with, had know for years, who knew my secrets and I knew theirs.

But when the baby came, suddenly the only people with whom I could identify were the new moms. My old pals came and cooed and brought gifts, but they left, and in light of the fact I didn’t bathe, or wear clean clothes or talk about anything but my kid and sore nipples, they stayed away.

Overnight my world was made up entirely of people I did not know six months before and may never have met had we not shared the same new shocking and overwhelming lifestyle of fatigue, fear and filth (not the kids but our clothes/hair/house).

I met a great girl in a fatty swimming class and we became fast friends. When the babies were born about a week apart we stayed tight and then a third women came onto the scene she stole my friend away.

I was 41 and I behaved like a child. I missed her, called her all weepy and emotional and though I have no memory of what it was really all about or what I said I know it was very important at the time.

And that’s how it is for most girls and lots of women. So when a dad or a brother says “Oh don’t worry, you’ll make new friends.” it doesn't help because we don’t make them that easily.

It’s not just about the fact that you feel a friendship slipping away it’s that you know how hard it is going to be to find it again. The time and effort that goes into finding another pal is so daunting that we’ll act like a moron to keep the ones we’ve got  - behaviour more likely to push people away. Just ask old boyfriends.

My daughter’s best and only real pal is away this weekend. We were at the park last night and her brother was playing with strangers who had a ball. That's all he needed to get right in there.

Clancy said “I miss my friend. I really need to get some more."

We lay in the grass and while I showed her how to pull new grass and eat the delicate, delicious little white end she explained what it was she wanted in a friend. She said being with this particular girl was so easy, just felt right. I knew exactly what she meant. I also understood when she said she didn’t have that feeling with anyone else and didn’t really like making small talk much, she’d rather be alone. But, one the other hand, she explained, I don’t like feeling lonely and missing one person so much.

It’s a “girl” conundrum and she’s going to have to work it out for herself but I worry for her and I feel her pain. When she thought recently she may have lost this girl she sat in the bath and cried, it was all I could do not to get in there with her and bawl too.

I had secretly hoped for a ball-busting shallow beauty who would be doing any and all heartbreaking, getting through life leaving broken hearts in her wake rather than trying to glue her own back together. It's not going to be like that though, this one wears hers on her sleeve. 

I remember my mother’s worry when she had to comfort my broken heart as a young girl. I’d come in crying after a break up (one in particular that took place while Meatloaf’s "Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad" was playing in the background) and I know she hid all the sharp knives when I said I didn’t want to live anymore.

I got through it, and many more heartbreaks, and everyone one of them helped to to better spot my Prince when he came along. It also honed a radar that can help me find a true gal pal in a room full of women.

Much as it is hard for her father to know what to say in these instances, it’s even harder for me not to tell her some things, she must work it out on her own.

Pie in the Sky

Royal Oak is finally going to get their much needed middle school. The neighbourhood has moved up and down and off the waiting list but now the news is final and it’s good...for those in the community with kids young enough to benefit from the future school. The families with older kids remain in the same conundrum, where to ship their kids as they get older.

I recall reading somewhere a few years ago that Tuscany had the highest population of kids under five in the province. I may have that wrong but the fact remains that the burbs are busting. You cannot walk through a mall without seeing pregnant women and little people crawling around the play area. We are breeders and running out of places to but our thousands of kids.

Here’s some pie-in-the-sky thinking...    

What if when new neighbourhoods are developed the builders all got together to build a school in the centre of the ‘hood that was ready to go when people move in to their new homes?

If someone is forecasting how many homes are needed and what type of family is going to move in can’t the school boards and builders get together to design a school to meet the needs of those predictions?

What if were designed to be a school by day and a community/ centre/ gym/ tutoring centre/ library/ resource centre/ childcare facility at 3:00?

I'm guessing it takes planning and doughs but surely a school sitting empty is expensive too.

The Renerts are opening their new school in the fall and the lights will not go off at 3:00 but instead the dance, music and karate programs that run during the day for the students will continue at night for neighbourhood adults and kids. There will also be math enrichment classes after school when Bright Minds starts up there in the fall. I bet the gym will be rented out too and any other available space that can help the community thrive.

It may take a village to raise a kid but the villager's doors are locked. The village kids are bussed all over town to go to school and few have tight connections to the kids in their own neighbourhood. But, if there was a central, supervised, vibrant spot in the centre of town that offered the stuff we drive our kids to after school...how cool would that be?

Tutoring, reading area, gymnasium, piano lessons, dance, library, arts and crafts...

The Calgary Board of Education is looking at using corporate dollars to add to their coffers. At least two sponsor’s names will be attached to Lord Shaugnessy High when it reopens this month.  

Alberta has no shortage of growing families and growing corporations. Businesses looking for ways to reinvest profits and feed into the economic future of the city and province. What better way to do it than help build places where the movers and shakers of the future can get an education, extra curricular activity and old-fashioned, much-missed sense of community?

Imagine hearing parents yelling to Come In For Dinner from their front stoop.

And imagine parents kicking the kids back out the door as they swallowed their last bite and headed for the community center.

Is this pie-in-the-sky ... ?