the oldest student how mary walker learned to read

But first came marriage, sharecropping, and a son. “She only knew that top to bottom, front to back, that book was filled with words”-words she vowed to learn…someday. Image copyright Oge Mora, 2020, text copyright Rita Lorraine Hubbard, 2020. “At week’s end, she would offer Mama the one lonely quarter she had earned.” One day, Mary met an evangelist who gave her a Bible, telling her “Your civil rights are in these pages.” To raise money, Mary worked long hours every day of the week without a break to eat, drink, or even use the outhouse. With the help of the Freedmen’s Bureau, they moved into a one-room cabin. While many freed slaves moved north, Mary and her family, like others, chose to stay in the South.

When Mary was fifteen, the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. In bed at night, she would think “When I’m free, I’ll go where I want and rest when I want. But when she stopped for a moment to rest while “picking cotton, toting water to Papa and the other slaves who chopped wood for the train tracks, or helping Mama clean the Big House,” she watched the birds and dreamed of being free.

The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read Written by Rita Lorraine Hubbard | Illustrated by Oge MoraĪs a child slave on an Alabama plantation, Mary Walker knew the rules: Keep working and no learning to read or write. To learn more about today’s holiday and UNESCO’s global literacy programs, visit the United Nations International Literacy Day webpage. In response, this year’s initiative focuses on “‘literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond,’ and especially on the role of educators and changing pedagogies.” 2020 also ushers in a new five-year program: UNESCO Strategy for Youth and Adult Literacy to develop policies and strategies to address the learning needs of disadvantaged groups, especially women and girls to leverage digital technologies to expand access and improve outcomes and to monitor and assess literacy programs. In 1966 UNESCO (United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture) established International Literacy Day on this date to “actively mobilize the international community to promote literacy as an instrument to empower individuals, communities, and societies.” This year, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected education and educational resources around the world.

The oldest student how mary walker learned to read