The Icelandic Canadian - 01.04.2009, Page 7

Vol. 62 #2
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
49
Another interesting challenge presented by
the teachers was that without English, the
parents couldn’t help their children with
their homework.
Looking more closely at the results of
our school’s assessment, it was glaringly
clear that our students exceeded the
province and our board’s average, which
has been traditionally higher than the
province, in mathematics and in writing. *
The math achievement was easier to explain
given the less need for English comprehen-
sion; however, not having support from
parents could not be a factor impacting on
students’ reading abilities. The real mystery
to me became the high levels of achieve-
ment in writing for all students, given the
strong connection between reading and
writing. Interestingly enough, educators
understood the connection between the
development of literacy through a child
learning to speak and recording what they
have said, to reading what they have
recorded.
Without going into an academic plan
as to how we improved our reading levels,
1 can uncover for you the very essence of
creating a literate society, and how this
influences the academic achievement of the
students. In researching the home country
of our community and finding out that it
celebrated a 92% literate population, it was
easy to determine that the community
enjoyed a rich oral history. In addition, the
country had produced and published more
poets that most countries per capita, except
for Iceland!
I always knew Iceland enjoyed a 100%
literacy rate and accepted that fact easily
when I only saw half of my mother’s face
for most of my life. However, I wondered
if there was a link between the literacy rates
of countries and their standard of living. It
seems that the literacy rate of a country
could be connected to the fact that two
countries with a 100% literacy rate also do
not have a military. As my Mom would
say, “Why dance when you could be read-
ing a good book?” Why fight, when you
could be reading a good book?
Another interesting fact is that several
countries with high literacy rates are not
the richest countries in terms of world
power or economic basis. Cuba, for exam-
ple, has a significantly high literacy rate.
This is a country where many Canadians
travel and comment on the apparent pover-
ty of its people. With the economic down-
turn, the standard and quality of life is no
longer being measured by wealth or home
ownership, but by satisfaction or happi-
ness. Guess what people in what countries
are the happiest? Not the countries with
the most stuff or the finest weather, but
those countries with the highest literacy
rates. I can still hear my Mom say, “It does-
n’t matter what the question is, the answer
is education!” And education to my Mom,
is access to books. Today, it is access to
information. As a librarian, my Mom
would always tell us that the library is a
poor person’s university, and I always
remembered this. As a school principal, I
made sure that the school library was open
to parents and their children well into the
evening hours.
Knowing that our school community
had such a rich oral history, we used this as
the foundation to bring parents and grand-
parents into the school to have them share
their stories in any language. The students,
in return, recorded the history rich stories,
and once the stories were “published” in
our library, they were shared with all their
classmates.
There were many lessons in this simple
activity. It was the foundation of building
relationships with the parents and the
grandparents. It validated their culture and
language. But most of all, it said to our
teachers that literacy exists in all languages
and the conversations of English are only
bridged when everyone has an understand-
ing of this.
Oral language is the key to commonal-
ities of highly literate countries. One story-
teller once announced that the world is not
made up of atoms but of stories. What we
call stories, researchers call case studies.
I remember visiting our relatives in
Arnes, Manitoba, and after every great
feast, my aunts and uncles and cousins
would sit around a fire with a slice of
vinaterta and a strong cup of coffee or a
shot of Brennivin, taking turns reciting
poetry or telling stories in Icelandic. Not