Notes on "Can't Read, Can't Write"
It's always a little dangerous to discuss any important issue solely on the basis of a TV programme about it, but that is one of the reasons for doing so. I guess that this Channel 4 series (Mondays, 9pm, one left to go as I write, but accessible through 4onDemand) will be much shown and discussed on teacher education courses in the coming autumn term. It can't be taken at face value, so it is an interesting exercise to disentangle what is useful and what is misleading. These notes are simply to help tutors and others to find the material within the first two programmes which may serve as useful triggers for discussion, and I have also transcribed some remarks verbatim and added some of my comments.
New readers start here; Phil Beadle, an inspiring but non-specialist teacher with no experience of teaching basic literacy or teaching adults, is engaged to teach seven adults to read and write within six months. They have all somehow arrived in adulthood without any ability to read at all... Phil is clear about his lack of specialist knowledge, but and it is suggested that he can succeed where others have failed (or others have not even tried, of course).
I don't pretend to be an adult basic skills specialist, either. But the more one does know about the topic of a TV programme, the more unreliable and contrived some of its self-righteous manipulation may well appear, and I have some experience in adult education generally.
Here are Phil Beadle's own reflections on the state of adult basic skills education
The Setup
So let's start with the programme premise. "Over five million people can't read and write well enough to cope in the modern world". (These figures are slightly better than those used in the Moser Report in the mid-'90s) It then goes on to suggest that nothing is provided for them (we'll come on to the encounter with standard provision, later). We are introduced to a selection of non-readers who will make up the class of nine (not all of them get to feature), and they are clearly very carefully selected, as one might expect. But the point which is not made is that they are very far from typical of the majority of the people who take Adult Basic Skills courses, most of whom are off the bottom rung of the ladder where the featured learners are stuck.
This sets up the "plot device" for Beadle's encounter with established adult literacy provision, which may be necessary in order to establish his exceptional credentials, but does a severe disservice to work in this field in FE and Adult and Community Education. It is not helped by the advocate we meet for Skills for Life, who, even allowing for unfair editing, represents all those who have seriously missed the point!
She introduces Beadle to the approved Skills for Life curricula, etc. and strangely seems proud to claim that she understands it... Then she arranges for him to sit in on a literacy class (which does seem intended to grind any residual enthusiasm or hope out of its participants) which appears to be using ESOL materials in the claimed absence of suitable reading matter for native speakers of English. They meet after the session (Episode 1; 16 mins in):
DH (expert) (?); Did you find it useful? Did you pick up some useful techniques?
Phil Beadle: I didn't pick up anything at all.
DH: ...right... You're sounding quite negative...
PB: I thought it was horrendous. I thought it was absolutely horrendous. I don't think anybody learned anything. At all. There was no new information in the lesson. I found it quite depressing. I found it upsetting, actually, the lesson. It was really quite upsetting that the provision was --- incompetent. Incompetent. Sorry --- it's a bit much. (Leaves)
(Probably recorded later)
DH: I actually take offence at what Phil has actually said. In fact I feel quite upset. My teachers are following the Skills for Life work-packs laid down by the government, and because of doing that we actually get the results at the end of the day, because they pass their exams. Because that is what it's all about.
The expert's final remarks are mind-boggling. Perhaps that it is what happens to some Skills for Life specialists who spend too long in the system. Thankfully even I am not cynical enough to regard this person as representative.
Some of the Learners
Linda listens to Shakespeare and poetry on audio-books and longs to be able to read it. Coaxed to put some letter sounds together, she races ahead to complete the quotation, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" She quite spontaneously and accurately uses "correlate" in her conversation. Is it just me or does she bear a distinct resemblance to Julie Walters in "Educating Rita"?
Listen to an interview with Linda from the NIACE website
Teresa is unable to buy food in her local supermarket because she cannot read the word "ham" on a packet, despite having had it spelled out for her by her daughter. Are we expected to believe that she is so dependent on reading letters to recognise a packet of sliced ham? That contextual clues count for nothing? That she has never been in that shop before, or learned from the experience of accompanied shopping?
See "Shopping list" video clip on this page
So how was she briefed or directed for the filming; was she asked to go to the mini-market and show what it would be like for her if she had to rely entirely on actual reading to find her ham? This may be a useful discussion trigger, because of course non-reading adults develop a wide range of coping skills to get by (recognising designs, pretending to have forgotten glasses...). Sometimes those stratagems are just good enough actually to get in the way of proper reading.
It is clear that such complete non-readers are very rare in the adult population (apart from among people with visual impairments or learning disabilities). Certainly the point is well made that somehow they have been through the educational system without their needs ever having been addressed, but to present them as typical of non-readers is bizarre. Incidentally, there is no mention of specific learning difficulties--most obviously of dyslexia--nor any attempt to contextualise the needs of the sample. Are there, for example, any demographic factors which correlate with difficulty in reading, as there just may be? [Dyslexia is first mentioned in the context of a learner's child, in episode 2, 16:56]
The major teaching strategy adopted by PB in the first episode is real kinaesthetic learning. This slightly surprised me, because I have picked up from his Guardian Education columns that he has not fallen for all the "learning styles" nonsense which is still being touted. But this was not just "anything which involves movement is kinaesthetic learning"; this was using whole bodies to internalise the shapes of letters, to ground those abstract symbols in experience which could be felt. So consider using a clip from this as a demo of what it means to take this approach seriously (and—as in the case of the space-hoppers game in episode 2—to get away from the learners' baggage about schools.
Baggage handling
Jumping ahead a little; Beadle was (thankfully) not always a perfect teacher, and of the material shown (I'd love to have seen the out-takes), his failings showed most in his reversion to school-teacher type, and the animosity that provoked in Linda in particular.
As she said, after an incident which had culminated in her walking out;
[22:36] Linda: "You made me feel really small and horrible and like I shouldn't be saying anything. I just felt terrible.So I thought, well, I don't want to be here ... for a little I just sat there thinking, you're a child and you can't just get up and go. And then, hang on a second! I'm an adult and I've had enough of this. And then when you threw your tantrum I thought right, that's it, I'm off!"
What had led to this? An odd sequence of events, in which—perhaps as a function of his increasing frustration and perhaps exhaustion after trying endlessly to stimulate the learners and to think of new ways of teaching them—Beadle regressed to type.
He introduced spelling strategies [07:17] saying, "spelling strategies, which apparently..." That "apparently" distances him from his point. It means "I don't really know about this, but I have been told that..." It's inauthentic, and adult learners spot it a mile off. Part of their baggage is highly developed crap-detection.
He is doing front-of-class teaching on the whiteboard [19:40]; he approaches it with his customary enthusiasm, but he has his back to the class, and he has a thankless task of teaching about the usage of the comma in a list (with no indication that anyone has expressed any interest in it). "If you're going to write properly, you've got to know where commas go..."
See "Back to School" clip on this page
So he loses them; he is teaching the syllabus, no longer teaching the learners. Children are used to that; adults aren't. As he comments afterwards;
[21.05] "I don't particularly want to spend the whole of a lesson in a dialogue about why I ask them to do something; just bloody do it!"
Sorry; sometimes that is what andragogy demands.
Knock-on effects
The programme does not set out to make much of it, but acquiring literacy is not merely the addition of just another skill to those already possessed. We saw in the first programme the implications of not being able to read; having been sentenced to that condition for decades, the effect of liberation is bound to be profound. More than that, so much else depends on the ability to read, that learning to do so has unexpected consequences.
Linda, both articulate and emotional as ever, complains at the start of part 2;
[05:47 et seq.] "Not only have you given me reading, but you've given me the rest of the f***ing world, and I don't particularly want it, thank you!" [07:04]
Later, she refuses to try to write; [34.00] "She's desperately trying to hold on to bits of her old self." To adopt the language of threshold concepts, she is in a liminal position, between two worlds, and two selves. Eventually she overcomes her difficulty with the help of a calligrapher, who helps her to explore the patterns in written script. That is interesting, and may say something about visually-based learning, but it is not addressing the ontological angst which Linda appears to be articulating. On the other hand, that is not a problem for Teresa, or Kelly...
...or James
At part 2; 33:30 James the plumber's mate is still struggling with single syllables after two months. This is a good trigger video moment to use in class; PB takes him through words formed with the stem "-ake". PB coaches him to read "hake" and "jake" etc., but he still can't manage "make" on his own. He seems to recognise it when suggested, but he hasn't got it and he can't make the rule work on his own.
What is it like for him?
The guy is trying really hard; his attendance has been perfect; he is seeing fellow-learners get it and overtake him, and he must be mortified that he is still almost on square one, trying to link the names and the sounds of letters and stringing those sounds together.
[There were three parts to the series; the final part concerned the learners taking an examination. The relevance of such assessment to their needs was only briefly touched on.]
A note on using video in class.
Remember and respect copyright, of course. But this is more about using clips as triggers to promote discussion and learning.
The commonest mistake is to show too much. Less is more. Think between ten seconds and a minute. More than that may well confuse the issue. Brief the students and show a precisely-chosen shot (such as James, above) for just a long as is needed to make the point, and pose the question associated with it. If necessary you can show it again at once or later, or you can show a longer excerpt after the students have come up with their own ideas and responses, or you can link to it from a VLE. But keep it short and focused.
ATHERTON J S (2008) Learning and Teaching; [On-line] UK: Available: Accessed:
(Note that if you are using Internet Explorer, and it is doing its "nanny" thing, the full reference will not display. There will be a bar across the top of the screen advising you of "blocked content". Click on it and select "Allow blocked content" and confirm in the pop-up box. I know it's a pain, but we're stuck with it.)
Original material © James Atherton: last up-dated 29 May 2008
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