You don’t even see them at first…

and this is one of the problems.  

Imagine it’s 2007. We are in a library type of room: bookshelves, computers, round tables, the quiet hum of studying. Students are bent over textbooks or scribbling out essays as their volunteer tutors look on.  I am in my mid-30’s, the supervisor of a tutoring program in an adult education facility in Manhattan.

A volunteer once commented that when we are in full swing, the Center looks like a PR photo for volunteerism. Everyone so engaged and hard at work, the very best of humanity!

But something is off. Several students are not engaged. They are like soldiers facing the wrong way, stuck, as the rest of the troop hums forward.  

There is Clive*, in his 60’s, rounded shoulders, dark skin and a deeply creased face. There’s Clarice, a Jamaican mom who reads at a second-grade level. She can’t read, but she is smart like a steel trap. She has seen her three grown daughters through college or the military. I am a little intimidated by her. Nelson, still in his workman’s outfit from his job loading trucks at Walmart, unmoving, jaw clenching and unclenching, his eyes on me. Hyacinth, stout and bossy, in her 50’s. They are all waiting.

There is a similarity to their postures, a weary permanence. I am just the latest stop on their lifelong journey, and their unlikely, persistent belief that someone, somewhere can show them how to read. As long as I don’t kick them out, they aren’t leaving.

As I rush by, trying to get to someone I can actually help, they look up, their eyes boring into me: Did you figure it out? Are we going to get to work now?

No. I did not figure it out. We are not getting to work. I don’t think I will ever figure it out. My program is not set up to help them. There is no budget for them and no support from my administration.

And no matter where I look or who I call — experts in adult education —  I can’t find anyone who knows what I should do.

They are adults, and they can’t read. 

What do I do?

*not their real names.