Yesterday I was talking to an adult learner about the primaries that will occur in Georgia on Feb. 5th. She shared with me that she is going to wait until the general election to vote, because there are too many candidates and it is too hard for her to figure out what each one stands for. To make matters worse, she added they are all bad.  I asked her what she already knew about the candidates. She told me the following:

Candidate 1- Her husband will get back into the White House and he has poor moral judgement
Candidate 2- His biological father is the type of person that we are at war with
Candidate 3- He ran last time and lost, so he must not be any good
Candidate 4-There is something weird about his religion
Candidate 5-He is too religious
Candidate 6-He has mafia in his family
Candidate 7-He is not good with money

(I left out the names in the above list, because I want to minimize spreading rumors, misinformation, and personal opinions about specific candidates).

I asked her if the elections are being covered in her adult literacy classes and she said no. I asked her why she thought that was so, and she thought that it was because the teachers think that  politics is a taboo subject and does not belong in the adult literacy classroom.

This conversation left me with a whole bunch of questions:

1. Is there a resource for adult learners where they can click on a certain topic (like abortion, same sex marriages, gun control, etc) and read a few sentences written in plain English about each candidate's position?

2. Does coverage of election material belong in the adult literacy classroom?

3. How do we counter rumors and misinformation with groups of people who have difficulty reading?

Any thoughts?

Daphne