Statement 3
Tutors value good will over good training.

• Programs need to be set up with good teachers who want to teach.

• They criticize volunteers just to save their jobs. Tutors are needed until unlimited all-motivated adult educators can take over.

• Teachers come in because they're paid.

• Volunteers come with a pretty good attitude; they'll try.

• Some volunteers are highly trained because they're motivated to do good, they don't expect in return.

• I can understand the point that if you just put an unprepared person who can read [with learners] and just say "Teach them" there are a lot of things that one has to deal with...and it could be more damaging to everyone to put this volunteer, untrained, in. But what is a professional teacher but someone who's just been trained and a volunteer doesn't necessarily have to be untrained. Having a degree doesn't make you a good teacher; it's a personality type.

Motivation and preparation are key factors in learning situations. As mentioned, volunteer tutors are highly critical of the education system and particularly of teachers they perceive as being insensitive to students' needs or lacking a true vocation. The emphasis in the comments above address issues of motivation for teaching as much as or more than preparation for the job. Good-will and motivation emerge as being more important to the tutors than extensive preparation. Tutors believe that motivation based on good-will is the most important qualification to be a good teacher/tutor. The differences between their training (approximately 10 hours) and that of licensed teachers are minimized to a ridiculous degree. The tutors' perceptions of their own roles in literacy provision are based on perceived deficits in the adult education sector, namely that teachers do not care, are not committed to their students, and teach because they are paid to do so. In contrast, the tutors see themselves as doing their best and trying to help. Because of their sense of good-will, the tutors feel they have the most necessary characteristics to do the job, which may influence them to feel that additional training or help is unnecessary.