Return-Path: <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id g7MBAoX28884; Thu, 22 Aug 2002 07:10:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 07:10:50 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <NCBBKFFJMKFIFAGAFGNEMEJHDDAA.jlee@famlit.org> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Jon Lee" <jlee@famlit.org> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-FAMILY:1249] FW: Celebrating Labor and Literacy Days X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 2981 Lines: 62 From: Thomas Sticht [tsticht@znet.com] August 19, 2002 Celebrating Labor and International Literacy Days in September 2002 Thomas G. Sticht International Consultant in Adult Education On September 2nd, our nation honors America’s workforce and celebrates Labor Day. Later that week, on September 8th, the U. S. and the rest of the world celebrates International Literacy Day. Labor and literacy have a close, historical connection in adult literacy education in the United States. In 1911, Cora Wilson Stewart, Superintendent of Schools in Rowan county, Kentucky, called together a group of teachers and explained a plan for holding classes on moonlit nights to teach the rural laborers, farmers and their families of the area to read, write, and calculate. On Labor Day, September 4th, 1911 the teachers went out into the highways and byways to gather in to school all the adults who wanted to learn. The next night, September 5th, the first classes in what became known as the Moonlight Schools of Kentucky opened. That night some 1200 rural, working folk of Rowan county , aged 18 to 86, made their way through streams, over mountains and across hollows to begin their studies in the basic skills. Thus, was basic skills education brought to the rural workforce of America’s mountaineers and miners of Appalachia. In 1917, when the United States entered World War I, materials produced by Stewart for the Moonlight schools were adapted to teach reading, writing and arithmetic skills to tens of thousands of the new fighting forces of the first mechanized Army in U. S. history. These materials used the experiences of the adult’s everyday life and their work to teach the basic skills. Later, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and with the backing of a number of industry, business, and labor unions, the Civilian Conservation Corps was formed and once again basic literacy skills education was provided for millions of individuals in America’s work force to help them adapt to the increased demands for such skills as the nation moved further out of the agrarian into the industrial age. During World War II and up to the present, workforce basic skills educators have taught America’s work force to read, write, and compute using the "real world," functional materials that help them rapidly become work ready and able to find, keep and advance in a good job. On the first Monday of September each year, Labor Day, we celebrate our nation’s labor force. On each September 8th, we join with the rest of the world and celebrate International Literacy Day. This year, lets join our celebration of these two days in recognition of the tens of millions of adults who have labored to access to the world of print and knowledge to advance the economic and social well being of themselves, their families and their communities. Workers of the World…Read!
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