#28 Develop New Materials
Besides teaching literacy, I have a constant backlog of literacy materials that I am either developing, improving, or making from scratch. To say that this could be a full-time job–without any of the other 20 plus things I’ve mentioned so far–would be an understatement. In reality, it gets relegated to little snippets of free time.
My Nahuatl primer series was barely off the presses before I started thinking about changes I will make “next time around.” As soon as I started classes with the adults, a group of Spanish-only-speaking adults asked me when I was going to do a class for them, so I started working on a Spanish primer series.
I have no desire to be the literacy teacher here forever. In fact, first steps are already underway to get trained local teachers. That entails the writing of materials in the native language to aid them in class. Teachers manuals, homework sheets, books with questions written out, flashcards, helps for teaching numbers…the list goes on and on because we want to someday leave the community with a complete set of aids, done with excellency.
The believers (and the kids) are eager to read any new Bible stories, so I have a pile of them waiting to created and checked. My library kids are always wanting to know what is new in the book collection.
That is a good thing. If no one wanted new things to read, that would be a bad sign for the state of literacy here. So, I keep plugging away at new stories, new books, and all kinds of other new materials.
One thing that brings joy to me is that literate Nahuatl adults and children can be co-creators with me in these new materials. We already have over thirty books in our library authored by local people, and as more and more learn to express themselves in their own language, that number will surely grow.
