Dr. Jenny Horsman on Trauma and Literacy
Keynote Address

Adult literacy providers hear stories of transitions and desires for a better life from the adult literacy learners they work with everyday. Many learners enter into literacy programs with the ultimate goal to shift from their current domestic situation. More and more providers are discovering that the learner's current situation is often a violent and traumatic one. Layer upon layer of violent experiences affect the adult learner, not only as part of their past but also their present experience. One literacy worker told Horseman that out of 20 women in her class, 98% came from or were in an abusive relationship and 100% had violent childhood backgrounds. This illustrates the main point that Dr. Jenny Horsman conveys in her presentation, "Trauma and Literacy." One cannot work with adult literacy learners and ignore violence or trauma.

Learners struggle to get out from under the layers of abuse. Each step can be an extraordinarily difficult process. Psychologists have long known that trauma affects learning. Recently, educators have begun to address this important issue. Horsman asked the difficult questions concerning the impact of trauma on learning in her most recent discussion paper,"But I'm Not a Therapist: Furthering Discussion about Literacy Work with Survivors of Trauma." Violence and trauma have become a familiar story told by the literacy learner, yet silence surrounds the issue and obscures the implications for learning.

The pervasiveness of trauma impacts the learner's mental presence and performance in the classroom. The learner uses energy to deal with the violent issues as well as to hide the violent experiences. What energy can she possibly have left for learning?

Adult learners, especially women, try to speak out about the violence but are often "swallowed by the aftermath of silence." Even though violence and trauma are familiar experiences within the adult learner population, there are still layers of silence surrounding the violence. By remaining silent in the face of violence, trauma and abuse, literacy providers fail to keep the promise they made to work with the literacy learner. By opening up to talk about it, removing the layers of silence one by one, literacy providers start to become trustworthy in the eyes of the adult learner. Providers can help the learner regain control over their lives, stop the violence and subsequently channel the energy to learn. Horsman asks literacy providers to examine how their programs could be perpetuating the silence by treating violence as if it were an acceptable part of life.

It is important to question, listen to the talk about the issues, and to keep the discussion going in order to get beyond the aftermath of silence. Most of all, we must, when appropriate, be able to say to traumatized adult learners, "You need to tell your story, but I'm not the one to hear it. Let me help you find someone who can hear your story and help you through this trauma."

Mary Catherine Kenny
Graduate Research Assistant
Educational Psychology and Special Education