Sister R. Leadership

Critical Literacy as (Re-)Reading and (Re-)Writing the World

Central to Sister R.’s leadership was her “rewriting” of the purpose of literacy education during her years with the FLP. Reading the world preceded reading the word (Freire, 2000; Freire & Macedo, 1987). That is, functional literacy (i.e., reading and writing the word) emerged as a by-product of the processes by which these Maya immigrants were supported in their understanding of the cross-cultural struggles they were encountering everyday as sojourners in the current context of U.S. educational, social, and immigration policies. This sociocultural leadership challenge has not been part of the many educational definitions of either literacy in schools or school leadership theory.

The work of Sister R. reframes educational leadership as the ability and willingness to engage in “rewriting” one’s world. Viewed from the perspective of social justice, this necessitates the rejection of society’s assigned roles and definitions for oneself and one’s community and a reframing of more justice-oriented positionalities. The work of Sister R. is best seen in its contrast with the policies and practices of education as manifested in the testing mania and standardization rampant in today’s public schools. Leaders in public schools (be they administrators or teachers) have become arbiters of top-down edicts, rendering too many classroom lessons meaningless, worse still, dehumanizing. The ability to challenge such oppressive structures is central to the task of educational leadership today. In traditional paradigms, challenging policies and practices of those in power is considered to be risk-taking. In the paradigm of these case stories, the real risk comes from being vulnerable to external authorities and following the mandates of oppressive systems.

The University of the Poor

It is not always possible to identify where a person’s leadership story first begins. But we can tell you that Sister R. was first initiated into literacy education while in Guatemala. As she accompanied a lay missionary (Y.) to the site of her first literacy class, they found themselves in the town’s garbage dump. “We’re here. This is where we teach,” said Y. Sister R.’s first students were those who lived in the garbage dump; the dump was her first classroom. When, however, it became too dangerous for clergy to work in Guatemala, Sister R. looked for a mission that would keep her with the Guatemalans, involved in literacy education, in the United States. In 1993, she became the founding director of the Maya Ministry Family Literacy Program. The program began when the Guatemalan Maya women of Lake Worth, Florida, approached Sister R. and Y. and asked them to teach them how to read English and Spanish so that they could help their children in school. The first set of lessons was held under the shade of a mango tree, at a bus stop, while the mothers’ toddlers played in the grass nearby.

Ten years later, when university professors (including Dilys Schoorman) began volunteering at the Lake Worth program (by then housed in a building!) they were welcomed by Sister R. to what she called, “The university of the poor. This is the third world within the first world. You don’t have to leave our shores to pass from one world to another.”

There was much that the professors learned at this university.

I thought I knew Freire based on my reading. But I realize now, after working with this program that I had to learn Freire through reading the world, not the word. It is only now that I “get” the theory that I discuss in graduate classes.

These are the words of Professor Dilys Schoorman. A typical question concluding any literacy project or community activity began with Sister R. asking the professors what they had learned. Such a question underscored the assumption that partnership with the community was a mutually educational endeavor. This focus elevates leadership for learning over other externally imposed measures. It further presumes that school leaders need to become less vulnerable, less “at risk” by engaging in community education, not just the teaching of functional literacy inside school buildings.

Making the Invisible Visible: Rewriting the Role of the Indigenous

The setting for the FLP is a small enclave of Guatemalan Maya immigrants located in the city of Lake Worth. It is home to one of the two largest enclaves of Guatemalan Mayans in the state of Florida, and, presumably, one of the highest concentrations of Maya people outside of Guatemala. Therefore, it was strange to learn that one principal of a local elementary school, when asked about the Maya enrolled at the school noted that there were none. How is that statement possible? This is not a rhetorical question. How could a principal not know about a community being served by the school?

We—meaning that you, we, and society—know that school district records all of these Maya students as “Hispanic,” a mislabeling that has linguistic, cultural, historical, and political implications. Sister R.’s response was to meet with the Maya families on the day that book bags were being distributed to students at the beginning of the school year, and conduct an informal survey of the families, the number of children enrolled in the school, and the indigenous languages they spoke. These “invisible” facts were then communicated directly to the principal, not as a “gottcha,” but rather as an example of leadership for learning.

However, the rendering of people visible cannot be a one-time action. It entails redefining/rewriting the pervasive stereotypes of “Hispanic” and “the poor.” Subsequent leadership for learning actions by Sister R. included encouraging parents to ask for EdLine/online access, a computer program available to all families in the district that facilitates home–school communication and that allowed parents and children access to their grades, attendance, assignments, and/or practice exercises. While this technology was readily available to the two professor-authors, who were parents of children in the same school district, it was not extended to the Maya families in this school because they were not being recognized. And even when their existence was acknowledged, they were thought to be too poor to afford computers and so this service was not extended or encouraged to them specifically as a community.

But Sister R. did more to render the Maya visible and central to the “rewriting” of their lives by accompanying indigenous parents to parent–teacher conferences, but only when requested by parents themselves. When there were particular concerns about special education referrals of the students (who were English Language Learners), university professor-volunteers with the program would also attend the conference along with Sister R. The Maya parents were expected to lead the meetings and to have clear questions or concerns to be discussed. Sister R. spoke only when requested by the parent(s), and at the end if she was unable to ascertain the responses to the parent’s preidentified questions, she would say,

I know that there are still questions that [the participant] has and that I have not heard, or understood the answer. I know that when we go back to the FLP office, she is going to ask me to explain, and I am currently unable. So help me understand, so I can explain to this mother.

In so doing, she made the parents’ concerns visible and legitimate, exposed patterns of marginalization in which educators often engaged, and just by her side-by-side presence with the mother, demanded recognition and, more important, equity. And she did something else: She was teaching leadership skills to preliterate mothers. We often talk about leadership as skills needed in communities and organizations regardless of roles and titles, but how do we break free from hierarchical structures of administration and our presumptions about who can learn to be a leader? This, too, is not a rhetorical question.

To better understand who was learning leadership, we need some demographic data: The average education among the FLP participants was 2.4 years, a statistic skewed by the fact that three of the participants had 9 and 10 years of education. The median and mode of the group was 0 years of education. The majority (70%) had never been to school in Guatemala. Intersecting with this lack of educational opportunity is the poverty level of the population: 93% of the program participants fell below the poverty level, reaching as low as 68% below the poverty level. The highest reported income level was US$28,000 a year and this family of four was one of only two families that were above the poverty level. Many in the group were classified as “preliterate” to indicate that they grew up in contexts where it was not necessary to have print-based literacy skills, where oral cultural practices dominated or—as in the case of those who use indigenous languages as their mother tongue—the language itself might not be codified in typical print-based literacy contexts such as school textbooks or newspapers (Burt, Peyton, & Schaetzel, 2008) They spoke Q’anjob’al, Quiche, Mam, or Popti as their first language; Spanish as a second language; and English as a third language.

The Need to Redefine and Take Back School Curriculum

The philosophical approach to literacy education of Sister R. and her staff was striking, particularly in their distinction from those of the school district. Sister R. undertook tasks that needed to be done; not tasks that were easy or even apparently achievable. This was the basis of her educational leadership decision making. Thus, the FLP accepted the responsibility to educate those who had never been to school and who were among society’s lowest achievers in terms of formal literacy, who were attempting to acquire literacy in their second or third language when they had not achieved it in their first. The FLP offered literacy in the participants’ first and second languages (Q’anjob’al and Spanish) prior to English education (even though the school district, a source of program funding, did not accept any of the data pertaining to literacy achievement in these languages), because it made no sense to do otherwise. Similarly, volunteer tutors at the program were encouraged to view a child’s lack of knowledge in any subject area as an impetus (not a deficit); an urgent indicator that success was the only option available.

While the Mayas’ lack of access to formal education was viewed by Sister R. as a facet of the social injustices faced by women ¹ and the poor in Guatemala, functional literacy per se was not the primary goal of the FLP. Instead, effectiveness was measured by how well the participants negotiated social interactions within the larger community (e.g., with schoolteachers, physicians, store clerks). All participants in the FLP were encouraged to ask questions of doctors, teachers, and other personnel. Evidence that they had solicited and received information from a variety of community agencies constituted valued literacy practices. Key to Sister R.’s philosophy was the requirement that her students teach others what they learned, thereby “spreading the wealth” of literacy. The families of this program thus became leaders in this community who had the knowledge and skills to interact successfully with teachers, health care providers, employers, bankers, and so on despite the fact that they had never been to school and were deemed functionally illiterate when they arrived in the United States.

A key example of her “failure is not an option” approach to literacy education was the successful implementation of an HIV-AIDS education and prevention program when it was discovered that the community was deemed a “hot spot” for rising HIV-AIDS infection rates. In the face of a potential “silent genocide” of a community unaware of the disease, multiple failed efforts by public health agencies in HIV-AIDS education with the Maya, and despite the lack of proficiency in a Mayan language, Sister R. directed the work of a staff member to effectively present HIV-AIDS education and prevention programs in five different Maya languages; an effort made possible through her grassroots community leadership. The project has reached more than a thousand nonliterate community members who now understand the disease and its risk factors, make lifestyle choices and changes, and are willing to be tested.

The End of a Program That Refuses to Die

In the 1st week of February 2011, the diocese that had been the financial sponsor of the program informed Sister R. that they would no longer fund the program, with immediate effect. This came a week after Sister R. was complimented on her work and asked by the Bishop to continue what she was doing.

If leadership were delimited to individual accomplishments alone, then this financial decision would certainly be a sad ending to these case stories. But the leadership lessons to be learned do not end with the diocesan decision. The Guatemalan Maya women, the same preliterate and invisible women of the case stories wrote letters to the Bishop. These same women who, just a few years earlier did not even speak fluent Spanish let alone English were now capable of writing letters. And what did these letters say and to whom were they addressed? In this case, they reminded a pastoral shepherd, a Bishop, of his need to serve the poor. But leadership is more than reclaiming voice.

These Guatemala Maya women organized as “Mujeres Luchadoraspor Alfabetization Familiar” [Women Fighting for Family Literacy]. They elected officers to be the representative voice of the group and continued their collaboration with the university advocates. They organized to pay for the once-free literacy classes. They needed money for rent and to pay teacher salaries. And they were willing to accept the short-term cost for their long-term vision. The university, too, organized. This past summer, a professor conducted a summer program with the parents and children utilizing her master’s students who were given practicum experiences. This was arranged with the parents. Sister R. inspired the parents; but she also inspired university faculty. The question is whether any leaders within school systems can similarly inspire and be inspired by community and grassroots leadership.

We end with the words of Sister R. as she reflects on the meaning of refusing to die:

The diocesan leadership terminated the FLP in the first week of February by terminating funding. The poorest women in the diocese became the financial resource to continue the FLP by offering their “widow’s mite” into the collective basket so others may live. The generosity of the poor oftentimes outspends the conditional funding of others.

While the Finance decision was swift and severe, the poor do not live on finance alone. Finance is one element to living not the measure of the whole person. The well of Hope is rooted in the Faith that we are more than what others would like to tell us is our worth.

In this age of accountability, might school leaders, practitioners, and researchers take this message to heart and understand that literacy (and numeracy) is one element, not the whole of a human being? Might school leaders come to understand that even as they are directed to make swift and severe decisions, the consequences go beyond their own careers as they are transferred voluntarily and involuntarily to other school settings?

A leader’s responsibility does not begin or end with himself or herself or the rewards or sanctions of the position. Rather, as the “Mujeres Luchadoras” wrote, we are shepherds here to serve the needs of community and children and that means building capacity in others with whom we work. We cannot ask everyone to stand up to institutional authorities, but can ask school leaders to become educational leaders. The measures of educational leadership go beyond literacy and numeracy test scores (or even financial exigencies) as we have now learned from these Maya women and the case stories of Sister R.