Can't read, can't write

The first episode of the TV series Can't Read, Can't Write was aired on the BBC tonight. It should be compulsory viewing for every teacher.

My brain is fizzing.

The utter inadequacy of the adult literacy programme is astonishing... and scandalous! Just the way that prospective learners have to enrol on the programme is in itself a barrier (which I learned from a radio interview with Phil Beadle earlier this week, rather than from the TV series).

I think what struck me most and left me gasping with disbelief was the reaction of a woman who heads up one of these programmes when Phil Beadle (what an apt name) found fault with the system and the materials. She didn't like his maverick resistance to and criticism of the curriculum. She said repeatedly that her teachers followed the government curriculum which bore results. Her idea of results? The students passed the exam at the end, "because that's what it's all about, isn't it?"

No, it flipping isn't. Who puts people like this in charge of learning programmes?

It's all about releasing these people from the prison of adult illiteracy in a world which does not cater to them. It's about empowering them.

How do you catch a bus if you can't read a timetable? How do you open a bank account if you can't fill in a form? How do you prepare even a heat-and-eat meal if you can't read the instructions? How do you learn to drive if you can't read the roadsigns and master the highway code?

Phil was dismayed and discouraged every time he looked at the curriculum and spoke to its proponents. But, when he spoke to the learners, he was ignited and the light went on in his eyes. My kind of teacher. A true wild-eyed zealot.

Some of the people had become ingenious at hiding their disability (because disability it is). One woman in particular seemed incapable of attaching sounds to written letters. She was a bright, cultured woman who wanted to read Hemingway.

She tried to run her fingers over the letters and could only make sense of them if she could feel their shapes. Not much help with current printing technologies. You could tell her that this was the letter T, and she would repeat that. She could tell you all sorts of words that contained that sound. She could recite Shakespeare sonnets. But show her the T again and she had no idea what it was. There just seemed to be a wire in her brain that wasn't connected the same way as everyone else's was. I found myself shouting at the TV, "Teach her braille!" It didn't matter that she wasn't blind - she might as well have been for all the sense she could make of the squiggles on the page.

Phil didn't teach her braille, and he did have her reading her first words (albeit slowly) within 3 weeks. I still think braille would have been a good starting point for her, but the rest of the series will reveal whether or not I am right.

If there is any way you can get your hands on this series, please, please watch it. It will stir you, infuriate you, inspire you. It will remind you how 'unflat' this world really is - even in our educated societies.