Combating negative biases about literacy learners
Colleagues: The only national organization for adult literacy learners, VALUE has called attention to the problem that many learners face as being considered as of low intelligence and unable to learn to read and write.
Under its four core principles which guide its work, VALUE takes several important stances with regard to adult literacy education, one of which I find particularly important. Under Principle 2, VALUE takes the position that limited literacy is a skill deficiency, not an indicator of low intelligence. They go on to say, quote”For many, adult literacy issues can be traced to previously unrecognized disabilities, failing schools, and family issues - all having more to do with class, race, gender, and cultural bias than intelligence. We must get rid of these biases and break down the barriers of personal shame and public stigma so we can gain the literacy skills needed to increase our contributions to the economy, our families, and our communities.”end quote
Recently I was interviewed by Dr. Bobby Wintermute from the New Books in Military History about a chapter I have written in Sanders Marble’s edited volume entitled Scraping the Barrel: The Military Use of Substandard Manpower, 1860-1960. In my interview I address the sorts of cultural biases VALUE learners have experienced in their lives which have rendered many of them insecure in educational contexts.
In the interview I was asked about the military’s use of low literate, low aptitude personnel during the Vietnam War under what was called Project 100,000. In my chapter in Scraping the Barrel and in the interview, I reported that, despite all the negative comments in writings about the lower aptitude men who fought in the Vietnam War, these personnel were called McNamara’s Moron Corps after Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara initiated the project, the actual data show that over 85 percent performed well in the military and years later most were employed and earning well above the poverty level that characterized them when they entered the military.
For those interested in listening to the interview with Sanders Marble and myself regarding the military’s use of substandard personnel, and how the actual performance of many of these personnel contradicts the biases against them, you can reach the interview online at
http://newbooksinmilitaryhistory.com
Tom Sticht
Here is the web site blurb re the interview:
Sanders Marble, ed.Scraping the Barrel: The Military Use of Substandard Manpower, 1860-1960
Fordham University Press, 2012
nterviewed by by Bob Wintermute on January 28, 2013
Sanders Marble, senior historian of the United States Army’s Office of Medical History, presents a collection of essays related to the problems of substandard manpower as defined at different times in Western militaries over the modern era. Accordingly normally rigorous peacetime entrance standards have established conditions for the exclusion of certain individuals on the basis of physical, intellectual, ethnic, and racial criteria. During conflict, however, such notions of exclusion and exceptionalism are modified to reflect the needs of the army relative to the specific crisis. Marble’s Scraping the Barrel: The Military Use of Substandard Manpower, 1860-1960 (Fordham University Press, 2012) examines eleven case studies related to so-called “substandard manpower,” offering a series of assessments on military force structure in wartime. in this interview, our host talks with Sanders Marble about the overall project and his specific essay on American forces in the twentieth century, “Below the Bar: The U.S. Army and Limited Service Manpower.” He also speaks briefly with sociologist Thomas Sticht about his contribution to the volume, a deep analysis of the Department of Defense’s much-maligned “Project 100,000″ in the essay “Project 100,000 in the Vietnam War and Afterward.”
Interview with Sanders Marble and Tom Sticht [ 59:58 ] Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download