[AAACE-NLA]Adult Learner Leadership

[Archie Willard]

Adult Learner Leadership

This past week I attended a meeting conducted by the Iowa Secretary of
State. This meeting was held to review the draft of the state plan
required for each state in order to receive federal dollars from the
Help America Vote Act (HAVA). HAVA is intended to improve the voting
systems in all the states. Among attendees at this meeting were people
from many different areas of our state government, people who
represented different types of disabilities, and others. I was invited
to represent the New Readers of Iowa. The New Readers of Iowa had met
with the Secretary of State in the past to try to help him make voting
in Iowa more understandable for everyone.

As the group went over the wording of the draft of the state plan, a
lawyer from the Iowa Attorney Generals Office recommended that the
language used be as close as possible to that used in the HAVA. I asked
her if the law required things to be written in that kind of language or
if things could be written in plain English. I explained that one of the
reasons that people with literacy problems (and many others who donut
have literacy problems) donut become involved is because they cant
understand documents written at that level. I said that because the
state is required by law to hold public hearings on this state plan
people will need to be able read the plan and to understand it, so it
needs to be written in plain English. Everyone agreed that it should be
written as plainly and clearly as possible. I was asked to go over the
final document with the writers to give them input. This is a big step
for me and other adult learners.  It shows that if we as adult learners
keep working hard we can have input on how things are written and done.
It also shows we have a chance for our voices to be heard if we can get
through the door.

The lack of adult learner leadership is hurting adult literacy today.
Adult learner leadership needs to be seen and heard in all areas of our
country. That's why the VALUE Leadership Conference June 26 - 28 in
Tampa, Florida is so important. I encourage you to support and send
representatives to this conference. When you help adult learner
leadership you help the whole literacy field. We are lacking adult
leaders to help move literacy forward in this country. A lot of things
need to be fixed in adult literacy today and adult learner leadership is
one of them. For starters, we need leadership in the areas of voting and
health-literacy. If we are going to make changes we are going to need
strong leadership in voting. If society is going to understand that
there are literacy problems and we want to get their attention, we can
point out that there are health problems caused by poor literacy skills.

For information on the VALUE Leadership Conference:

 http://literacynet.org/value/

Archie Willard
Adult Learner



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Archie Willard
millard at goldfieldaccess.net
URL - http://www.readiowa.org/archiew.html