Creating Reciprocal Learning Relationships Across Socially-Constructed Borders

All the higher mental functions originate as actual relations between people. (Vygotsky, 1978: 57) In reading the literature on adult literacy programs, it does not take long before one realizes that attrition is one of the key challenges facing the field (Belzer, 1993; Dirkx & Jha, 1994; Perin & Greenberg, 1994; Quigley, 1992). Similarly, in reading the literature on pre-service teachers, it is clear that training them for multicultural environments is a key challenge (Bornstein, 1999; Bringle & Hatcher, 1996; Dunlap, 1998; Paine, 1989; Warren, 1999; Zeichner, 1996). At the same time that these dilemmas face adult literacy practitioners, researchers, and teacher educators, service-learning is being discussed as a potential solution for a variety of educational and community dilemmas (Eyler & Giles, 1999; Holmes, 1999, Meyers & Scott, 1996; Sax & Astin, 1997). This paper addresses the role that relationships play in the learning processes of both college student tutors and older adult learners in one particular service-learning program, Project WRITE (Writing and Reading through Intergenerational Teaching Experiences), as they participated in intergenerational learning pairs. For the purposes of this paper, learning relationships are defined as the socio-academic connections between older adults and their college student tutors that encompass both personal and learning exchanges. Relationships formed within college student/older adult learning pairs were central to the learning that happened in this intergenerational, multicultural service-learning literacy tutoring program. There were two central elements to the building of reciprocal learning relationships: 1) a valuing of caring, personal relationships between members of diverse learning pairs within the context of tutoring, and 2) an ability to transform previous assumptions by reflecting on the ways that both individuals and social structures shape learning. The data will show the ways in which the presence of these elements facilitated learning and the ways in which the absence of these elements discouraged learning for both members of the learning pairs. Our work posits that the kind of "border crossing" (Giroux, 1991; 1992) needed to form relationships in this program addresses the needs of older adult learners and the needs of a generation of new teachers by fostering learning relationships across differences. Giroux (1992) suggests that, "Students should engage knowledge as border crossers, as people moving in and out of borders constructed around coordinates of difference and power" (p. 29). What is less clear from his discussion of border crossing and border pedagogy is how this border crossing happens. What makes it possible for people to cross these borders? What are the benefits of doing this kind of border crossing? How do people build relationships in spite of the borders they encounter? How can people make more than a superficial connection across borders? Because border crossing is especially salient in an environment that brings people from a variety of races, ages, and socioeconomic classes together, Elisabeth Hayes and Sondra Cuban (1996) use the metaphor of border crossing to describe the experiences of college students in a service-learning class about literacy. Hayes and Cuban write, "As we looked at our students' experiences from [the perspective of border pedagogy], we felt that service-learning offered a wealth of opportunities and examples of border crossing" (1996, pp. 6-7). The authors examine the many borders that the students cross--borders both physical and conceptual--and discuss the pedagogical benefits of the border crossing metaphor for students in service-learning classes. Hayes and Cuban suggest that students can gain a critical stance on issues of inequality, injustice and illiteracy by "analyzing dominant [adult literacy] texts," "conducting interviews" with their learners, and "questioning the system" in the context of the service-learning class (1996, p. …