[AAACE-NLA] complex relationship between learning toread&learning to learn

[George demetrion]

Hi Andrea,

You raise some important issues that merit additional analysis.  In terms of your second sentence, "If higher numbers/grade levels matter in achieving life transforming experiences, then we should focus on how to raise the numbers," the "if" is the critical word.  Or perhaps it's "when, how, to what extent, and the degree to which the two are not directly correlated.  The numbers, after all, are a construct.  There's nothing wrong with constructs, we can't live without them. Problems come in when we mistake the construct for the reality, in which the numbers are viewed as "objective" data and the narratives are viewed as "subjective" data with all the incumbent dilemmas of "response bias."

I state this not to deny the significance of what you say in the first sentence, "The numbers matter, maybe not to  the student, but certainly to the funders."  One wonders, though, why that is so?  Certainly, the quantitative metaphor is taken axiomatically in some circles as the surest path, if not to the truth, to the closest approximation to it that can be achieved by fallible humans.  Certainly, that assumption can be challenged, notwithstanding the value of a quantitative metaphor when there is a tight alignment between that which is measured (adult literacy learning, however variously it is defined) and the instrumentalities of analysis.  I suggest that there is also a darker side to what might be referred to as the idolatry of the quantitative metaphor; namely that the illusion of exactitude serves as a cover to a political process that does not in fact want to unearth the complexities and richness of adult literacy education because at the public/policy level the value system is not in place to support what such learning would imply.   

On this interpretation the marginalization of the rich narrative data combined with a thoughtful analysis of such data based on a qualitative comparative framework may be viewed as a signpost of the marginality of the values as well as many of the accomplishments and life transformations that students attain in the process of engaging adult literacy education at whatever level of reading and writing progress achieved by particular students. Only stating this, of course, is merely a faith-based assertion.  Evidence is clearly wanting.  At the same time there is a good deal of evidence already available, which perhaps needs greater sifting and comparative, critical analysis, which then could ground the research, in a field that in many respects is still emerging, on a sounder basis.   

Any such work, however, requires a methodological pluralism which focuses on a quest for the desired knowledge as defined through a cogent problem definition rather than ruling out certain modalities of information gathering and analysis as appropriate or illegitimate from the get go. This requires a repudiation of what may be the greatest sacrilege to a sound scientific approach which can account for the complexity of human culture, namely identifying experimental design (as currently defined) as the gold standard of scientific research.  The phrase, "get behind thee Satan," would not be too strong if the goal is to establish competent theories and designs of research.  If any field should be probing these matters with depth, it should be that connected to the study of literacy--a field that links the technology of reading and writing with that of meaning making and knowledge acquisition, however the two are complexly entwined in their variable complexity.

But of course my words are merely those of a clanging cymbal.  I know not of what I speak.

George Demetrion

----- Original Message -----
From: AWilder106 at aol.com
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 10:12 PM
To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] complex relationship between learning toread&learning to learn

Nancy will probably chew my head off on this.

The numbers matter, maybe not to  the student, but certainly to the funders.  If higher numbers/grade levels matter in achieving life transforming experiences, then we should focus on how to raise the numbers.  If we can't agree on the numbers themselves, then we have to work on that problem, too.   

Andrea


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