What goes on here?
Practitioners Study the Practitioner-Student Relationship

The thrust for this research took place early in the summer of 2002, after a routine regional meeting of administrators of adult literacy programs. A few of us meandered through a number of issues that affected our work as practitioners 1in adult literacy.

Gradually the exasperation built, as it so often can. We had a story to tell about literacy work – its complexities, messiness, frustrations, excitement and small celebrations. Occasionally a barrier was successfully bridged. Often another loomed up to replace it.

We agreed that our story needed telling, both for others in the field, and for ourselves. We needed to explore what was going on in a tutoring2 session, what made it click or go astray. We knew that the statistics submitted each month as evidence of our literacy work didn’t suffice. The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT) had informed the literacy community in September, 2001 that it was interested in assisting literacy workers with research, particularly with a strategy called the “research-in-practice circle.”

However, at that time they needed to limit their recruits to the Toronto area. Here was an opportunity to see if any of their professors would be interested in venturing further afield geographically. We e-mailed the professors at OISE/UT who had originally invited literacy workers to join the research field. One responded immediately and her interest and enthusiasm for our project encouraged us to actually take action.

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