(Download) "Lessons of Poverty: Towards a Literacy of Survival." by Journal of Curriculum Theorizing # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Lessons of Poverty: Towards a Literacy of Survival.
- Author : Journal of Curriculum Theorizing
- Release Date : January 22, 2005
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 186 KB
Description
By the time I entered kindergarten my family had been without a home, but not homeless, for a year. We lived in a church basement located in a small poor community in Eastern Kentucky and survived on what churchgoers generously provided. Both of my parents were unable to work because of poor health and disabilities. My dad had been sick since he was a child. I never knew exactly what was wrong with him; all that I knew was that he had stomach problems and every once in a while he had a spell that nearly took his life. Unable to afford proper health care, he only received medical treatment when he had one of these spells. But even then, we could not afford proper medical attention he needed. Most of the time during these spells, he remained bedridden; curled in a fetal position for days, and at time, for weeks. Dad was never the one to hide his pain from us. We knew how much pain he was in; his illness engulfed our living space. He did preach, though, when he felt well enough at rural churches with congregations of twenty or so folks about as poor as we were. Dad rarely received pay for preaching. Every once in a while they would pass the collection plate around for our family, but they mostly gave us what we needed to survive--food and a place to live. My dad met my mom as a traveling evangelist. He began preaching at thirteen and traveled from one small town to another across Kentucky and Tennessee preaching everywhere he could. He was invited to be one of the preachers at a weeklong tent revival meeting in a small town about forty miles south of Louisville. My mom lived with her mother, step-father and six brothers and sisters in a three-room house located just outside this town. My mom was the only church-going Christian in her family. She went to church as often as she could; it was the only time when she escaped the everyday realities of her alcoholic, abusive step-father, and her responsibilities as the oldest child to raise her brothers and sisters.