[NIFL-AALPD:1533] Re: ABE practitioners leaving the field; [AAACE-NLA] Adult Literacy Leadership and Advocacy

[Bonnie Odiorne]

I am cross-posting, because I believe that recent threads on both lists are
pertinent:
I would like to continue this thread from a similar point of view, and refer
list serve members to the advocacy and professional development lists
regarding questions asked about why adult educators leave the field,and what
National Literacy and adult ed organizations are doing about leadership and
advocacy in our field. I, too, may, in my current job search, be one of
those folks about to leave the adult ed field. Not because I'm not
dedicated: I was and am very committed to "my" program that integrated
technology and basic skills education. Not because of my population base: I
accepted and was challenged by the fact that an increasing proportion of my
students happened to come from a mental and behavioral health drop in
center, and I faced many issues I "wasn't trained" to face, and did it
gladly. I even "accepted" the decision that made "my” program a lower
priority in the umbrella organization’s “strategic plan.” Adult education
doesn’t seem to be part of anyone’s strategic plan; someone pointing to the
gross disproportion of Head Start vs. Adult Education dollars suggested that
the thinking might be “an ounce of prevention is woth a milligram of cure”,
or something like that. I even accepted that my adult education experience
was not “typical”, part of my city’s adult education infrastructure: we’re
far from being the “people’s republic” of anywhere; I’ve previously lived in
one of those people’s republics, and the turf wars were as intense as any
corruption battle in the center of the universe, as our former governor
called our city. The city’s adult education infrastructure seemed a closed
system; I worked in community-based organizations, where, tellingly, I was
the infrastructure. What I want now at the end of my so-called career is an
infrastructure that is flexible and will allow me to use my skills, and have
(barely) enough money to pay me a living wage. This may be in one of our
local institutions of higher learning, who are increasingly serving those
members of the adult education population who do succeed at lower levels. My
spectrum of experience from academics of a much higher level to literacy
level adults may finally mean something. Or not, depending on how all this
plays out. I may remain partially unemployed, and part-time in an adjunct
position. Until people willingly want to reach out a hand to those who haven
’t “made it,” are willing to question the system that produced them, rather
than atrributing whatever reasons to their lack of “success,” we, the
teachers of this population, will have to be content with those small
successes we are allowed to measure. Or, as is increasingly happening in
Middle and High Schools, putting these adults in a containment pattern that
recalls Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish;” keep the “other” surveyed and
controlled, and believing whatever the system is feeding out this time. No,
I don’t have a study or controlled research to back up my opinions, just my
own life experience. And the saddened conviction that I am not alone.
Bonnie Odiorne, Ph.D.

-----Original Message-----
From: nifl-aalpd at nifl.gov [mailto:nifl-aalpd at nifl.gov]On Behalf Of pat
fina
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 2:06 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1533] Re: ABE practitioners leaving the field


In reply to Steve Quann's excellent post about teachers leaving the field:

I, too, will shortly be forced to consider that option. I am in my seventh
year of teaching ABE. I get paid part-time; I work full-time. I get less
pay per hour than full-time teachers for doing exactly the same (or more)
teaching, preparation, counseling, curriculum development, paperwork, staff
development, and service to the field that they do.  They receive paid sick
time; I do not. I cannot afford to lose a day's pay, so I teach through
sickness and pray I am not infecting my students. I have lost three teeth
since 2001, all of them intensely painful for months before they rotted
sufficiently to be classed as emergency extractions and pulled free. I make
jokes about jack-o-lanterns and continue teaching. Full-time teachers
receive a month of paid vacation each year; I receive two weeks of unpaid
time off that leaves me scrambling for rent that month. The city that
employs me falsely claims that state law prohibits them from offering me
health coverage or pension. The truth is that their policy of refusing to
allow part-time employees to claim more than 19.5 hours per week is the
sole impediment to my participating in their benefits plan. According to
the city's view, a full-time teacher with no college experience is a
permanent employee with full benefits from day one, but I can point to a
part-time teacher with a doctorate in ESOL and over a decade of graduating
new English speakers who is considered a temporary, emergency employee
unworthy of having his health protected. Where is their shame?

For years my annual income was low enough to qualify me for MassHealth, but
in 2002 I committed the unpardonable sin of earning an adjusted gross
income of $20,006.04 and have been uninsured since. According to a recent
study by Brigham & Women's Hospital, I am, therefore, 43% more likely than
insured individuals to die before I'm 64. I live in a city so famed for its
liberalism that it earns the epithet "The People's Republik of...," yet
city officials seem to have no problem whatsoever making Sophie's choice,
saying who shall live and who shall not.

For years I have lurked on NIFL lists and read much about the pedagogy of
the oppressed. Until ABE learns that it, too, is an oppressor, the
hemorrhaging of talent will continue.

Peace, friends,

Pat Fina