slow learning

It is snowing madly here this morning...winter wonderland! Beautiful now. A bit concerned about the forecasted ice pellets. But we can take it. You all know how intrepid Torontonians are when it comes to snowfall ;-)

In this neck of the literacy woods, programs have been offered chunks of end-of-year funding to be spent between February 1 and March 31 on 'rapid retraining' for people who have-been or are-about-to-be laid off because of restructuring.

Program workers who want to avail themselves of this face the challenge of developing a proposal in a few days and then creating a program, organizing resources, recruiting learners and retraining them rapidly - all this in 2 months. They will do it. We all know how intrepid literacy workers are. For real. No I-mean-this-ironically smiley face here.

But it will not be easy. As one program worker pondering this barrier-laden opportunity said, "Nothing rapid happens here."

Her comment made me laugh - a somewhat bitter laugh I must admit. And then it made me think about some discussions we had a while back about 'slow learning'. You can get a flavour of those discussions over at www.literacyenquirer.ca - click on lf podcast.

Have a great weekend. Slow down. Take it easy. It will all still be there Monday.