Literacy and Waywardness

Mary Braselton
Director, Associate of Arts in Teaching Program
Midland College

The term wayward kids isn’t used much anymore. Yet, few among us have not either had wayward kids in our own families or known others who have. The hope is that kids will outgrow their waywardness and become upstanding, productive citizens in society. Occasionally, they do.

This is the story of two very different individuals who found their way to a certain extent. These stories are told with permission though the places and names are changed.

Now a truck-driving 35-year old, Rob entered into an adult literacy class because he could not read.

Speaking in front of a large group of senior-level university students nearing the certification phase of their training, he told this story. “My parents moved a lot because they needed to find work to put food on the table. For me, that meant trying to fit in at one different school after another. The cool kids wouldn’t accept me.” Soon, he found it easier to assimilate into the wayward kid group who had much more important things to do rather than sit in classrooms and read. As a result he never learned to read. You should see his reading to-do list!

Immediately, hands sprang up around the classroom, and the disbelieving university students wanted to know how he graduated from high school or passed the CDL if he couldn’t read. And they wanted to know how his parents were involved in his education.

In response, he merely shrugged and said in a subdued voice, “This is not easy to admit to a bunch of future teachers, but I cheated on everything. My girlfriend wrote my papers and read the required books and summarized them for me right before a test and I cheated on the tests!” He also said that by the time he straightened out enough to take the CDL training, he had someone read the book to him and he memorized the pictures and probable answers. He found he could read in short spurts if he didn’t have to read long passages and respond critically.

It took him a few years to understand the importance of reading, and he did it for those he loved—his children. At the age of 35, he entered into an adult literacy program because he didn’t want his children to know he couldn’t read. Rob has not only turned from wayward kid to productive citizen of society but he has also become an enriched human being in the process, he realized what he had missed in life—understanding the written word and why most of those words are important to being a productive citizen.

The second story is that of an individual who is a little different from the first. I met Geraldo in a group of a dozen people who had failed the Examination for the Certification of Educators in Texas (ExCET) one or more times. My dean had asked me to coach these folks through the professional educator’s examination because all of these individuals though currently employed in school districts were about to lose their jobs if they didn’t take and pass the certification examination required by the State of Texas.

Geraldo had taken the exam ten times and had failed it each time. (The rules have changed significantly since this event took place). He was certainly on the verge of losing his job if he did not take it one last time and pass it. During this initial roundtable session in the dean’s conference room, six people read a practice question for me and analyzed each multiple choice question giving rationales for/against each answer, and then it was Geraldo’s turn. In a strong, affable voice and with twinkling eyes, he began to read the question looking around the table and smiling at several points. We all liked him and smiled back. As he read, he mispronounced several critical words and, in fact, substituted entirely different words in the context. These errors changed the question completely. I allowed him to go on to see how he fared with the analysis. He carried those misperceptions through the analysis consistently repeating the mispronunciations and the substitutions. He could not select the correct answer because Geraldo could not read!

What this story tells us like the first is that it is quite possible to be functionally literate and succeed to a certain degree, but eventually a performance ceiling will be reached. To wit, this young man had completed college and was hired as a non-certified teacher/coach (legal at this time). He was a very successful coach and dearly beloved by his community and by his students, yet he could not read at the level he needed to fulfill his teaching/coaching dreams. How had he completed college if he couldn’t read? In fact, how did he get out of high school with this limitation?

There are multiple answers, but in Geraldo’s case, he attributed his success to two things: he was a great athlete and he was a teacher-pleaser. He said he received special privileges in terms of no pass, no play during its formative years, and his personal charm appealed to a good many of his teachers. He worked the system. It happens.

To public school teachers, wayward kids are a daily reality. These kids sit or try to sit on the back rows, they stare out the window or down at their laps at their hidden cell phones, or they put their heads on their desks and sleep or, in Geraldo’s case, smile and nod appropriately at the appropriate times. However, most of these students rarely respond to questions verbally. Shoulder shrugging (even with a charming smile) is common. Conscientious teachers — and most are — try daily to connect with these students hoping to awaken the thing inside them that will turn them on to learning. If we were to peek into the homes these kids come from, we might see parents who are desperately hoping for a miracle.

It is true that all students need mentors, but it is also true that success comes as a result of personal responsibility of seeing beyond self and understanding the important role each has to play as part of a community. That means reading and analyzing what you read, listening and reflecting on what you hear. If I had a magic scepter, I would so decree it for every citizen.

NOTE: Nationally, an estimated 30 percent of adults over the age of 25 need literacy intervention. Midland County mirrors the national average (www.midland.edu/n2r/faqs). Contact the Midland Need to Read office at (432) 682-9693 to receive tutoring or to volunteer.

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This column first appeared in the January 17, 2012 edition of the Midland Reporter-Telegram, and appears here, in its entirety, with the MRT's permission.