DAYTON, Ohio — Most of Joni Watson’s career involved teaching middle and then elementary school for the last 12 years.
During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, most classes in her school district shifted online.
Furloughed by the district like many others, Watson ended up making art videos online because teaching something so engaging was going to be difficult. Then, in 2021, she realized she was just tired. Having endured much of the pandemic, she retired.
Watson said she didn’t make it very far into retirement.
“It’s like I flunked retirement. I didn’t know what to do with myself,” Watson said. “I watched a lot of TV, and it was fun. Went out to lunch with my friends. Things that you can’t normally do during the day when you’re working full time. But I knew that that was not going to be it for me.”
Two weeks out of the classroom, Watson was trading art for connecting community leaders and helping people get connected to the right resources to boost their literacy skills. That’s besides helping them earn their GED through the Brunner Literacy Center in Dayton.
Selected as a Del Mar Encore Fellow, Watson’s dream of working for a nonprofit came true and gave her an opportunity to tackle something she repeatedly saw while teaching.
“Over 35 years, I’d come in contact with parents that couldn’t read or write.”
For Watson, working for the center gives her the best of both worlds and allows her to work part time.
In Montgomery County, one in five adults struggles with low literacy, according to the Brunner Literacy Center.
“What low literacy looks like, they may be able to read a stop sign or even recognize the shape and the sign,” Watson said. “But if they go to the doctor and get a prescription and then go and get it filled, they can’t read the information on the prescription bottle and that’s really dangerous.”
The problem keeps Watson constantly looking for partners that can provide solutions, especially since the Brunner Literacy Center is the only one in the Greater Dayton area right now.
