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

Mon Jul 26 14:17:38 EDT 2004

Isn't that a sad truth!  

-----Original Message-----
From: Virginia Tardaewether [mailto:tarv at chemeketa.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 12:18 PM
To: bonniesophia at adelphia.net; National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by
AAACE
Subject: RE: [NIFL-AALPD:1533] Re: ABE practitioners leaving the
field;[AAACE-NLA] Adult Literacy Leadership and Advocacy [faked-from]

I'd have to agree with these two folks. I've worked in adult education
for over 30 years and have only been lucky enough to have full time pay
for full time work for 10 of those years. AND I am LUCKY!.  Who can
afford to work in this field?  We have too many part-time positions with
full time expectations.
va
-----Original Message-----
From: aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org
[mailto:aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org] On Behalf Of Bonnie
Odiorne
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 11:27
To: nifl-aalpd at nifl.gov; aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: RE: [NIFL-AALPD:1533] Re: ABE practitioners leaving the
field;[AAACE-NLA] Adult Literacy Leadership and Advocacy

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

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