We interrupt the regularly scheduled post for a New Brunswick Literacy Minute

Not quite a heritage moment, but the post below is the first in a series by my friend Julie, who is very passionate about books, learning and literacy in New Brunswick. Here's the standard disclaimer: her opinions do not reflect the opinions of her employer etc. etc.  If you're not careful you might change your mind about something!

Hello readers!
Now that we have that out of the way….

I am passionate about a lot of things (for better or for worse!). Two of my biggest hot button topics are my love of my home province of New Brunswick, and literacy. This mostly works out for me because I work as a library manager in the town Florenceville-Bristol,  and I get to connect with other people who are passionate about these topics.

I recently attended a workshop that was put on by the Literacy Coalition of New Brunswick with Anne Hunt and Lynda Homer facilitating. There were people from all areas of the province who work with families of children ages 0-5.

In her opening remarks, Anne said something that really resonated with me when she was talking about different kinds of literacy. Commonly the term ‘literacy’ is defined as “the ability to read and write”. Amongst scholars, the term is expanded by adding qualifiers such as “prose literacy” or “information literacy”.

The International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey (IALSS) looks at four separate domains

•  prose literacy - continuous text, like what you are reading now
•  document literacy - written information that is discontinuous (ie. a pamphlet with charts/graphs)
•  numeracy - mathmatical concepts
•  problem solving - analytical reasoning

It seems to me that a lot of fuss has been made over the low literacy levels of New Brunswickers. And there should be!

When Statistics Canada released their report on the IALSS, they found that 56 per cent of adult New Brunswickers have unacceptable reading and writing skills.

The Survey rated the respondents’ proficiencies on a point scale they were assigned one of five levels, one being the lowest level of ability and 4/5 as the highest. Level 3 was selected as the “desired level of competence for coping with the increasing skill demands of the emerging knowledge and information economy”.

 The breakdown for New Brunswick was:

                                  Level 1     Level 2      Level 3      Level 4/5

Prose Literacy             22.7           33.3           31.6            12.4

It is important for the future of our province that we produce citizens who are able to function in society.

However, I think that we also need to assign value to traditional forms of literacy. I’m thinking of the way a fisherman can “read” the sea and know when it is time to haul in the nets and head for shore, or how a gardener can “read” the conditions and know when to plant and when to harvest. After all, the people of our province will all still need to eat, and reading about a garden alone won’t make it grow.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have every adult in NB reading text at the “acceptable” level? Of course it would.

Is it realistic? That is up for debate.

Perhaps some of these low scores can be attributed to the “use it or lose it” principle. What happens to prose literacy skills once the student has graduated if they choose not to read? There are excellent programs out there that are staffed by wonderful volunteers, like Laubach Literacy, who work with adult learners to improve their prose literacy skills. The catch is that the learners have to WANT to do the work.

There are many people out there who simply are not readers. For example, my Grandfather can pick out most words, but I remember pretty clearly the day that as an elementary student I climbed up on his knee and took over the reading duties. Just because he isn’t much of a reader does not mean that he doesn’t have a wealth of knowledge to pass on.

If we as New Brunswickers really want to improve our literacy situation, we need to have a dual focus:

1) Value and appreciate the transmission of ‘traditional’ knowledge – what I mean by this is to not discount our elders, and to take the time to learn what they have to teach. When the nukes hit, we might not be able to stock up on everything we need at the Superstore…then you’ll be glad you learned to plant a garden or sew a quilt!

2) Focus on the future – it is a great a noble goal to teach everyone to read…but I think that if we spend for time and energy on making sure our kids have strong literacy and numeracy skills before they leave elementary school then we will be helping to improve the future of our province. I’m not saying that adults aren’t worth the time, only that our return on investment will be greater if we get at the young ‘uns!

While statistics are merely numbers and can’t tell the whole story themselves, I would encourage you to look at the Statistics Canada report, it is really eye opening. And once you’ve done that I would challenge you to come up with some ideas of how we can help make our community a more “literate” one.

Contempt of Parliament is Contempt for Canadians

con·tempt (kn-tmpt)
n. 1. The feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless; scorn.

2. The state of being despised or dishonored; disgrace.

3. Open disrespect or willful disobedience of the authority of a court of law or legislative body.

I know it's very quaint of me to care that our current government has been found in "contempt of Parliament."  But I hope everyone understands that this is the first time in CANADIAN HISTORY this has happened, and that it has happened twice in a month.
 
When I look at Stephen Harper and his mean band of merry men, I see people who intend to maintain a grip on power by dragging Canada (and Canadians) into the gutter.  As it's probable we move into an election, consider that Harper & co. have:
 

 lied about documents presented in the House of Commons

 

 refused to acknowledge that the government did nothing to prevent the torture ofAfghan detainees

 

 interfered at an aid organization known for its even-handed judgements

 

 shut down Parliament twice to avoid non-confidence votes

 

 defended ministers accused of influence peddling

 

 broken Canada's electoral laws

 

 ignored a Supreme Court ruling that Omar Khadr be removed from Guantanamo and returned to Canada

 

 removed the phrases "international humanitarian law" and "child soldiers" from our foreign policy

 

 removed the mandate for "equality" from the agency responsible for the Status of Women

 

 decided to put forward a budget whose big ticket items are corporate tax cuts, fighter jets and prisons.

 

Welcome to Harperland - where a "law and order" government acts as if it were above the law.  How demoralizing for Canadians.  Wake me up when it's over.

Exhibit A: the Irish

For a long time I have been mildly obsessed with this little mystery I like to call New Brunswick.  As in, New Brunswick, who the heck are we, anyway?

New Brunswick is a lot like Canada in miniature.  We like to talk about "Canadians" but it's really more of a term of convenience in many ways.  What makes a Canadian?  Love of beer?  Compulsive small talk about the weather?  Nobody is entirely sure what a Canadian is supposed to look like, or what language they are supposed to speak etc.  So it is with New Brunswick, too.

One thing is for sure - New Brunswickers have a serious deficit, and I'm not talking about money.  I'm talking about our lack of self-knowledge and cultural identity.  Name me one New Brunswick song, story or painting.  Name five New Brunswickers who have made a significant contribution to modern politics, business and culture.  I bet you are struggling right now. If you're not, please leave your list in the comments. We don't teach it in school so most people have no idea.

So . . . for a long time I've been contemplating the idea of a series of posts about New Brunswick, and all the different groups and their respective legacies.  Seeing as how tomorrow is Saint Patrick's day, I thought I would provide you with some interesting factoids about the Irish who passed through NB and settled.

• Historians estimate that, between 1815 and 1865, the majority of immigrants to NB were Irish (60%) 
•  In the period between 1827 and 1835, alone, some 65,000 Irish migrants landed.

We had different Irish here, as opposed to Halifax or Newfoundland.

• The sources of Irish migration to New Brunswick were not primarily from the port of Waterford.
• New Brunswick’s Irish generally came from either Munster or Ulster, provinces whose port cities had strong ties to timber ports and merchant centres in New Brunswick.

Irish Protestants settled in different places than Irish Catholics.

• While Protestant Irish tended to settle the Saint John River valley, Irish Catholics could be found in great numbers along the Gulf of St Lawrence, in the entrepôt of Saint John, or in the timber-rich valley of the Miramichi River, in the northeast.

I have Irish Protestants in the family, so it's not surprising we're here in the valley.  At some point in the future I will present a snapshot of the Scottish, the Acadiens and the original peoples who were here before "Crown Land." 

Here's a bit of Irish humour to go with your beer.

An American lawyer asked, "Paddy, why is it that whenever you ask an Irishman a question, he answers with another question? "Who told you that?" asked Paddy.
-----------------------
An Irishman, an Englishman and a beautiful girl are riding together in a train, with the beautiful girl in the middle.The train goes through a tunnel and it gets completely dark. Suddenly there is a kissing sound and then a slap!


The train comes out of the tunnel. The woman and the Irishman are sitting there looking perplexed. The Englishman is bent over holding his face which is red from an apparent slap.

The Englishman is thinking "Damn it, that Mick must have tried to kiss the girl, she thought it was me and slapped me."

The girl is thinking, "That Englishman must have moved to kiss me, and kissed the Irishman instead and got slapped."

The Irishman is thinking, "If this train goes through another tunnel, I could make another kissing sound and slap that Englishman again!!

Sabbatical: month 1

Back in November, I realized it's been seven years since university and I want to take a year off.  Now obviously I need to make a living so it doesn't mean quitting my job.  But I have a lot of projects on the go - some of which pay, some of which don't, and starting April 1st I am re-organizing my life.

When I first came up with the idea, which is based on an instruction in the Old Testament (yes, the Bible) that after seven years of cultivation the Jews should let their fields rest for a year, I was very nervous but excited.  I couldn't even imagine what I would do for a whole year without endless meetings and rehearsals to fill my time.  I am a work-a-holic and even two or three days off can be very unsettling for me.  But I decided this was yet another reason to try to slow down, not plan, and see what happens.

Now I am starting to see small ideas taking root - mostly I am remembering that before I did so much volunteering and community organizing, I was a musician.  A person who loved music, listened to music, went to concerts, wrote music and practiced music for her own improvement.  I have started taking a few organ lessons and combined with visits from musicians from away (thanks guys!) and working with Tracy on "Squirrel On a Wire" I can see that music continues to inform and inspire how I work and why I work.

I am excited at the prospect of having a "happiness project" and having time in the day (most days, anyway) to do what brings me joy and helps me improve my life.  It's my hope that in a year I will be able to take this energy and bring it back to the community.

Here's a great TED video about work-life balance and what it means.

I'm not the best ___________, but . . .

Over the past week I have been very inspired by my sister Tracy's debut recording project,  "Squirrel On a Wire."  Watching these songs take shape has been a slow process - words were conjured and later changed, melodies revised, chords substituted, keys changed, arrangements devised.  Hundreds of hours of work, for six songs.

The sound world is so hard to pin down - it can't be seen or touched and how something is played is just as important as what the note or word happens to be.  Each note is scrutinized - first when it is written, later when it is revised, and again when it is recorded.  It will be reviewed yet again before it is pressed closer to permanence.

This project has been especially interesting because of the number of instruments and musical styles involved: guitars, trumpet, accordion, harmonica, multiple vocal layers, electric bass, percussion, and even a string quartet. 

The players came and went over five days, while slowly, painstakingly, the recording was assembled like a patchwork quilt.  Little scraps were stitched together into a sum far greater than their parts. 

Art is amazing.  Humans are amazing.  Recording technology, which makes sound waves into little digital bits that then turn back into soundwaves, is like a miracle from another world. 

When musicians who have never even met play in perfect recorded harmony, I am at a complete loss for words.

Sometimes when I work on a project, I notice little sub-themes that appear and re-appear.  Often they are not the main focus - ie. "now I am going to make a cd containing 6 songs I have written" - they are slightly "off topic" but interesting nonetheless.

In the case of "Squirrel On a Wire," one of those emerging themes was "I'm not the best _________, but . . . ". Usually it was a musician commenting on their own lack of technical perfection.  We all have holes in our musicianship with which we are unhappy.  It's part of being human. 

But what I find very interesting is that musicians who say "I'm not the best __________, but . . ." are really saying that they find music-making so inescapably compelling that playing is not a choice.  It is a vocation, and although they are keenly aware of their own imperfections, the joy of making music remains.  It's not about perfection, it's about the joy.

And I think that really came through for me this week:  musicians can be a lonely breed.  We spend so many hours alone, practicing our instruments and chasing the sounds around in our heads.  And often we are quite self-critical.  But even if you're not the best _____________, you still have the capacity to play, for your own joy and hopefully to share a bit of it with others.