A Holiday Greeting

The Pearls of Adult Literacy Education	 November 23, 2007

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

When you send your Holiday Greeting cards, do you use cards with your name
printed on them, or do you sign them personally? It is easy to skip this
personal touch, and so much more efficient to just have the cards printed.
But when we do this, we run the risk of  forgetting the deep meaning that
being able to sign one’s name has had in the history of adult literacy and
the struggle for civil rights. Like a chain of pearls, a major part of
this history of adult illiterates and their passion for learning to write
their names can be traced by following the teaching methods of three great
women leaders of adult literacy education in the United States.

First Pearl: Cora Wilson Stewart and the Moonlight Schools of Kentucky

When Cora Wilson Stewart wrote about the Moonlight Schools of Kentucky,
which she started in 1911 to teach illiterate adults to read and write,
she recalled  the words of one middle-aged man when asked about why he
wanted o go to school. "Just to escape from the shame of making my mark"
(Stewart, 1922, p. 18).

Knowing full well the longing that illiterate adults had to write their
own names, Stewart developed special Moonlight School tablets that were
made up of blotting paper. This was soft, deep paper that was used to blot
up the extra ink after writing with a pen. But Stewart had teachers use a
pointed tool to carve the student’s name deep into the paper. Then
students traced over the indented impressions of their names over and over
until they could finally write their names without using the tracing
paper. (pp. 78-79)

According to Stewart, many adults learned to write their names the first
evening of school. She recalled that, "One old man on the shady side of
fifty shouted for joy when he learned to write his name. "Glory to God!"
he shouted, "I’ll never have to make my mark any more" (p. 19)

Second Pearl: Wil Lou Gray and the Write-Your-Name Crusade of South Carolina

The motivational power of being able to write one’s own name was used
later in 1922-23 by Dr. Wil Lou Gray, State Superintendent of Adult
Education in South Carolina, as part of an anti-illiteracy campaign across
the state. Called the"Sign-Your-Own-Name" campaign in one county and
"I’ll Write My Own Name" campaign elsewhere in the state, the
Write-Your-Name Crusade aimed to  get adults into literacy programs to
learn to sign their names when voting and in other important situations.

The method that Gray used to teach writing was similar to that used by
Stewart, whose books called the Country Life Readers were also used by
Gray in South Carolina literacy schools in the 1920s. According to Ayres
(1988), Gray recommended to teachers that they " use a thorn or hairpin to
trace letters on copy papers prepared so students could practice at home."
 (p. 101). Ayers suggests that this may have been an early use of what
Ayers calls the "kinesthetic"  method of teaching reading and writing and
that Gray may have been the first proponent of this method for adults. But
the fact that Gray was acquainted with Stewart, her methods and books
suggests that Gray learned the tracing method from Stewart.

Third Pearl: Septima Poinsetta Clark and the Citizenship Schools of Johns
Island, SC

The magic of a person’s name in writing, and of Stewart’s tracing method
of learning to write one’s name was passed on from Wil Lou Gray to Septima
Poinsette Clark, the great civil rights teacher from the Highlander Folk
School in Tennessee. On January 7, 1957, Clark and her teachers started
the first Citizenship School serving adult African-Americans on Johns
Island in South Carolina. Clark (1962) recalled that when the teachers
asked the students what they wanted to learn, the answer was that, "First,
they wanted to learn how to write their names. That was a matter of pride
as well as practical need. (p. 147).

In teaching students to write their names, Clark used what she said was
the "kinesthetic" method which she had learned from Wil Lou Gray. Teachers
were instructed to write student’s names on cardboard. Then, according to
Clark, "What the student does is trace with his pencil over and over his
signature until he gets the feel of writing his name. I suppose his
fingers memorize it by doing it over and over; he gets into the habit by
repeating the tracing time after time." (p.148)

She went on to say, "And perhaps the single greatest thing it accomplishes
is the enabling of a man to raise his head a little higher; knowing how to
sign their names, many of those men and women told me after they had
learned, made them FEEL different. Suddenly they had become a part of the
community; they were on their way toward first-class citizenship." (p.
149)

May The Chain of Pearls Go Unbroken

When I get a Holiday Greeting card, I like to see a hand written
signature. I know printed cards are more efficient. I know people have
lots to do and pre-printing their cards saves them lots of effort and
time.

Still, when I get a card with a handwritten name, I feel more closely
related to the person or persons who sent the card. I feel a continuity of
good will that I don’t get as readily from a printed name. The written
name seems more alive, more personal, more human. And, as an adult
literacy educator, I know how many millions of adults have overcome shame,
social, and political exclusion by learning to write their names. So I
value a handwritten signature on a greeting card. It makes me feel that
the chain of literacy is intact and the "pearls of adult literacy’s past,"
Stewart, Gray, and Clark,  have straddled the thin temporal boundary of
the 20th and 21st centuries and their work goes on.

It is my hope for this Holiday Season that the chain goes unbroken for the
next year, and for all the years to come.

Happy Holidays!

(Signed in handwriting): Tom Sticht

References

Ayres, DaMaris. E. (1988). Let my people learn: The biography of Dr. Wil
Lou Gray. Grenwood, SC: Attic Press.

Clark, Septima P. (1962). Echo in my soul. New York: E. P. Dutton & C0.

Stewart, Cora W. (1922). Moonlight Schools: For the emancipation of adult
illiterates. New York: E. P. Dutton, & Co.