Literacy: A Parent’s Perspective
In several of our recent blogs we have advocated strategies for parents who want to encourage literacy at home, or have attempted to paint a picture of the struggles many parents face in doing so. For this blog we have chosen to tell the story of “Maria” the mother of two children presently attending Para Los Niños Charter Schools. This story is being told in Maria’s own words.
I was born in Mexico, the daughter of an illiterate woman. My grandparents would not allow her to attend school because she was female and so she never learned to read or write, in her native language or any other. We moved to the United States when I was young, and lived in the Pico/Union district of Los Angeles. Despite her illiteracy, my mother became very involved in our community and church and in our schools, even serving on our PTA. I grew up in a Red Shield center, attending after school programs and enjoying the love and warmth of our small community.
My father encouraged me and my brother and sister to get an education and he stressed the importance of being able to provide for and take care of myself, but my parents separated when I was young and I had no one to encourage me to become educated or to help me with my studies. My mother was exceptionally loving and caring, and in the spirit of our rich culture taught us that family and faith were the great priority over other accomplishments and material things. My mother never accepted any kind of public assistance. She worked to provide for us and what we couldn’t afford, we did without. Perhaps because she herself was uneducated, she truly believed that hard work, self-motivation and honesty was the way to success, my mother didn’t place a high value on education and without my father to encourage me forward, I fell behind.
By the time I reached Jr. High, I was functionally illiterate, able to read only at about a third grade level. For a long time, no one knew this; I learned to mask it well. I began to act out, I was defensive and difficult. One day in detention a counselor realized I couldn’t read or write and tried to help, but there were limits to what one person could do.
Despite my inability to read or write, I got a job working for a financial institution. I was good with numbers and I could type, so I was again able to hide my secret. I became a teller, worked hard and gained an increasing level of accountability until one day a friend recommended me to a doctor who needed assistance with bookkeeping. The doctor immediately recognized that I was illiterate, but also valued me and realized I had the potential to learn. He encouraged me to go back to school, so at twenty-seven I began the process of earning my GED, but never finished. I stayed with the doctor for 20 years, until his situation changed and I became unemployed several years ago. I attended East LA Occupational Center during this time and at 47, I now hold my GED and have a wonderful job at USC .
I am now a parent myself; I have two children, a boy and a girl. Because of our experiences, my husband and I understand only too well the value of education and especially, the value of literacy. Like my mother, I am extremely involved in our community, our church and our school. Like my father, I strongly encourage my children’s education and impress upon them the importance of completing their educational journey. At times my children’s knowledge outpaces my own, and at times I am frustrated that I cannot help them with their schoolwork, but we push on.
Although family is the core of our house, reading and language, both in Spanish and in English, are important priorities. My husband and I both work, and my husband’s English is not strong, but we make time for reading together. We incorporate our rich heritage and cultural traditions into our home and often use these as a basis for learning, or for storytelling. Our family and our culture make our family strong and give our children the values they need to continue their education, and make good choices in the course of their day. I believe my children will go to college and we work hard to ensure this dream will be realized. We are not well off, and we go without many things others have, but we have a shared dream about our future that we are all working together to achieve.
If I had any advice to offer others I would compel them to get involved as much as they can in their children’s lives, to make education a huge priority and to support their kids as much as they are able to. I know only too well the constraints people in my community face and the consequences of falling behind. There is so much to learn and the better we are as parents, the greater the chance our children will succeed. We have to read to our children, tell them stories about where we come from and inspire them to think big. We need to spend time with our children so they know they are important. We need to read as a family and talk about the things we read. We need to create a new generation of readers and learners. This is not just the role of the school but of the parents as well.
I was born in Mexico, the daughter of an illiterate woman. My grandparents would not allow her to attend school because she was female and so she never learned to read or write, in her native language or any other. We moved to the United States when I was young, and lived in the Pico/Union district of Los Angeles. Despite her illiteracy, my mother became very involved in our community and church and in our schools, even serving on our PTA. I grew up in a Red Shield center, attending after school programs and enjoying the love and warmth of our small community.
My father encouraged me and my brother and sister to get an education and he stressed the importance of being able to provide for and take care of myself, but my parents separated when I was young and I had no one to encourage me to become educated or to help me with my studies. My mother was exceptionally loving and caring, and in the spirit of our rich culture taught us that family and faith were the great priority over other accomplishments and material things. My mother never accepted any kind of public assistance. She worked to provide for us and what we couldn’t afford, we did without. Perhaps because she herself was uneducated, she truly believed that hard work, self-motivation and honesty was the way to success, my mother didn’t place a high value on education and without my father to encourage me forward, I fell behind.
By the time I reached Jr. High, I was functionally illiterate, able to read only at about a third grade level. For a long time, no one knew this; I learned to mask it well. I began to act out, I was defensive and difficult. One day in detention a counselor realized I couldn’t read or write and tried to help, but there were limits to what one person could do.
Despite my inability to read or write, I got a job working for a financial institution. I was good with numbers and I could type, so I was again able to hide my secret. I became a teller, worked hard and gained an increasing level of accountability until one day a friend recommended me to a doctor who needed assistance with bookkeeping. The doctor immediately recognized that I was illiterate, but also valued me and realized I had the potential to learn. He encouraged me to go back to school, so at twenty-seven I began the process of earning my GED, but never finished. I stayed with the doctor for 20 years, until his situation changed and I became unemployed several years ago. I attended East LA Occupational Center during this time and at 47, I now hold my GED and have a wonderful job at USC .
I am now a parent myself; I have two children, a boy and a girl. Because of our experiences, my husband and I understand only too well the value of education and especially, the value of literacy. Like my mother, I am extremely involved in our community, our church and our school. Like my father, I strongly encourage my children’s education and impress upon them the importance of completing their educational journey. At times my children’s knowledge outpaces my own, and at times I am frustrated that I cannot help them with their schoolwork, but we push on.
Although family is the core of our house, reading and language, both in Spanish and in English, are important priorities. My husband and I both work, and my husband’s English is not strong, but we make time for reading together. We incorporate our rich heritage and cultural traditions into our home and often use these as a basis for learning, or for storytelling. Our family and our culture make our family strong and give our children the values they need to continue their education, and make good choices in the course of their day. I believe my children will go to college and we work hard to ensure this dream will be realized. We are not well off, and we go without many things others have, but we have a shared dream about our future that we are all working together to achieve.
If I had any advice to offer others I would compel them to get involved as much as they can in their children’s lives, to make education a huge priority and to support their kids as much as they are able to. I know only too well the constraints people in my community face and the consequences of falling behind. There is so much to learn and the better we are as parents, the greater the chance our children will succeed. We have to read to our children, tell them stories about where we come from and inspire them to think big. We need to spend time with our children so they know they are important. We need to read as a family and talk about the things we read. We need to create a new generation of readers and learners. This is not just the role of the school but of the parents as well.
Labels: role of families and cultural traditions in literacy development
posted by Editor at 10:34 AM
1 Comments:
Great to read that "Maria" finally achieved her GED, but sorry to read that she lost encouragement after her parents divorce...I have commented before that I am not an educator but I have observed a few things in the Hispanic community and, as written by "Maria", the concept that "hard work, self-motivation and honesty" in addition to "family and faith" will be enough to get by on is a fallacy the community sadly continues to cling to...
In these quickly changing technological times, education is more important than ever, in addition to competency in the use of technology and I don't see how that can happen in low-income communities where education is not as highly valued as it should be when 'family and faith' are often put first, especially in Hispanic households. How can one get the message across to the community that education is paramount in the face of the daily concerns of money needed to provide basics? There have been articles in the LA Times where high school students acknowledge that they are often needed around the home to help with the parents and the homework often suffers due to this...
I do hope your agency can manage to stress the importance of education and literacy to the families that you serve so they find a way out of the confines of low-income hardships.
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