Greetings to everyone,

Since this is a women and literacy list serve I assume that all have a deep
concern and interest in advancing women through a literacy perspective.
Also, I assume that you all love reading and writing and would like to help
others feel the same way. 

To get the numeracy and math anxiety discussion going I would like to begin
from a different direction. I would like to tell you a little about my
"anxiety" with English class during my k-12 years. Although I never made bad
grades, English class was a challenge for me. Remembering all the sentence
structure rules was overwhelming and didn't make sense. Diagramming a
sentence, as well as the other 10 or so that were assigned, was a painful
task. The process didn't make sense to me and I wasn't able to carry the
exercise over to writing.

Writing was and still is another challenge and most of the time almost a
painful experience for me. You could say that my anxiety about putting words
on paper is a stumbling block and I have to work extremely hard just to get
started. There are times when I must write something important, like now,
that my stomach gets knots in it, my mind goes blank and I have to write and
rewrite over and over. Just before I send this email my anxiety level will
increase drastically because someone will read this and find mistakes or
think the writing is terrible. Where does this anxiety come from? Probably
past experiences with teachers that loved and knew their subject but didn't
teach the way I learn. We know a lot more now about how learning takes place
than in my k-12 years. 

Now, for today's discussion question: Is there a relationship between
literacy and the content in a typical English class in the US? 

I look forward to the discussion. 

Judy Ward
 


Judy Ward, Ed.D.
6886 Young Farm Avenue
Springdale, AR 72762
Phone: 479.361.2223
Fax: 479.361.2223
Email: j.e.ward at cox.net

Arkansas Adult Numeracy Campaign
Teaching Mathematics Effectively to Adult Learners