ElderChicks

March 8 was International Women’s Day and President Barack Obama has declared March 2011 as Women’s History Month in the United States.

At a time when the world is witnessing the astonishing struggle for liberty and democracy in many areas of the globe where women are oppressed and treated like chattel, it is fitting that we recall the struggle of Americans of African ancestry to achieve their civil rights and to participate in the democratic process of the United States.A major part of this history of civil rights achievement can be traced to the teaching methods of three great women leaders of adult literacy education in the United States. Today when we think of the use of technology in education we tend to think of computers, the internet, and a

host of digital innovations. But in the first half of the 20th century these three ladies used a very simple technology to bring literacy to millions of adults.

Cora Wilson Stewart and the Moonlight Schools of Kentucky

When Cora Wilson Stewart wrote about the Moonlight Schools of Kentucky, which she started in 1911 to teach illiterate adults to read and write, she recalled the words of one middle-aged man when asked about why he wanted to go to school. “Just to escape from the shame of making my mark” (Stewart, 1922, p. 18).

Knowing full well the longing that illiterate adults had to write their own names, Stewart invented a technology for teachers to use to teach adults to write their names. She developed special Moonlight School tablets that were made up of blotting paper. This was soft, deep paper that was used to blot up the extra ink after writing with a pen. Teachers were taught to use a pointed tool to carve the student’s name deep into the paper. Then, using a thin sheet of paper, students traced over the indented impressions of their names over and over until they could finally write their names without using the tracing paper. (pp. 78-79)

According to Stewart, many adults learned to write their names the first evening of school. She recalled that, “One old man on the shady side of fifty shouted for joy when he learned to write his name. “Glory to God!” he shouted, “I’ll never have to make my mark any more” (p.19)

Wil Lou Gray and the Write-Your-Name Crusade of South Carolina

The motivational power of being able to write one’s own name was used later in 1922-23 by Dr. Wil Lou Gray, State Superintendent of Adult Education in South Carolina, as part of an anti-illiteracy campaign across the state. Called the “Sign-Your-Own-Name” campaign in one county and “I’ll Write My Own Name” campaign elsewhere in the state, the Write-Your-Name Crusade aimed to get adults into literacy programs to learn to sign their names when voting and in other important situations.

The technology that Gray used to teach writing was a modification that used by Stewart, whose books called the Country Life Readers were also used by Gray in South Carolina literacy schools in the 1920s. According to Ayres (1988), Gray recommended to teachers that they ” use a thorn or hairpin to trace letters on copy papers prepared so students could practice at home.” (p. 101). Ayers suggests that this may have been an early use of what Ayers calls the “kinesthetic” method of teaching reading and writing and that Gray may have been the first proponent of this method for adults. But the fact that Gray was acquainted with Stewart, her methods and books, suggests that Gray learned the tracing method from Stewart.

Septima Poinsetta Clark and the SCLC Citizenship Schools

The magic of a person’s name in writing, and of Stewart’s tracing method of learning to write one’s name was passed on from Wil Lou Gray to Septima Poinsette Clark, the great civil rights teacher from the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. On January 7, 1957, Clark and her teachers started the first Citizenship School serving adult African-Americans on Johns Island in South Carolina. Clark (1962) recalled that when the teachers asked the students what they wanted to learn, the answer was that, “First, they wanted to learn how to write their names. That was a matter of pride as well as practical need. (p. 147).

In teaching students to write their names, Clark used what she said was the “kinesthetic” method which she had learned from Wil Lou Gray. Teachers were instructed to write student’s names on cardboard. Then, according to Clark, “What the student does is trace with his pencil over and over his signature until he gets the feel of writing his name. I suppose his fingers memorize it by doing it over and over; he gets into the habit by repeating the tracing time after time.” (p.148)

She went on to say, “And perhaps the single greatest thing it accomplishes is the enabling of a man to raise his head a little higher; knowing how to sign their names, many of those men and women told me after they had learned, made them FEEL different. Suddenly they had become a part of the community; they were on their way toward first-class citizenship.” (p. 149)

Clark was invited by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to join the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and establish Citizenship schools to teach African-Americans to read and write their names and other information to register to vote. In a few years, more than 10,000 teachers had been taught to teach adult illiterates to write their names and to vote, and over 700,000 new voters were registered. With this new political power of the democratic vote, voices of the oppressed were heard and the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s opened up a new chapter in the history of democracy in the United States!

The momentous effects of the simple technology of these three ladies of literacy in eventually bringing millions of socially excluded Americans to democracy is being replicated today by a much more sophisticated technology. The social media of the digital age are touching the hearts of the oppressed peoples around the world and they are striving for freedom and democracy. And it will come because these millions of people have had a voice, and to paraphrase the words of Septima Poinsette Clark, suddenly they have become a part of the world’s free community; they are on their way toward a global, first-class citizenship!

Books cited for further reading: Stewart, Cora W. (1922). Moonlight Schools: For the emancipation of adult illiterates. New York: E. P. Dutton,  & Co.; Ayres, DaMaris. E. (1988). Let my people learn: The biography of Dr. Wil Lou Gray. Greenwood, SC: Attic Press; Clark, Septima P. (1962). Echo in my soul. New York: E. P. Dutton & C0.