[AAACE-NLA] "Success" thresholds

Tue May 17 21:08:11 EDT 2005

I have had your same experience Virginia, PACE program for 12 years.  Same
as you outlined, now I teach in adult education/family literacy but without
a pre-school funded through DAEL.   Retention is very hard for all our
families, and I hate this because our program in the past helped them
realize how important a routine and keeping on a schedule can be for their
family and their pursuit of goals such as obtaining a GED.

Not sure what is next for adult education but it is my passion and I have
adjusted,but I sure miss PACE!!

Thanks,
Judy Ashmore
ACE2 Family Education Coordinator
Madisonville, Kentucky 42431

-------Original Message-------

From: Virginia Tardaewether
Date: 05/17/05 19:18:24
To: National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE
Subject: RE: [AAACE-NLA] "Success" thresholds

This has been an interesting dialogue.  The best retention rates I've had
were during the years I taught in a family literacy program where the
curriculum was integrated around family goals, children and parents
interacted every day and parents supported each other in goal attainment.
Parents and children attended school for the entire school day 4 days a week
( we don't even offer that many hours of course work here anymore).  Every
class day was very personal and focused on content that fit the GED and work
skills needed for these parents.  They defined those needs, not I. This was
an intense program but those parents were successful in reaching their goals
and they continue to be successful as families. They have gone on with their
lives after the GED and have met career goals, college goals, and
educational goals they set for their children. They own their own cars,
homes, computers and are employed. These folks started out highly at risk of
non-completion, but have extended their personal and family success to their
communities.
Va

Virginia Tardaewether
Chemeketa Community College
4000 Lancaster Drive NE
Salem, OR  97305
503-399-6147 
A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or the others the ones going
crazy? 
-----Original Message-----
From: aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org
[mailto:aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org]On Behalf Of David Collings
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 11:24 AM
To: 'National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE'
Subject: FW: [AAACE-NLA] "Success" thresholds

The message below is from Charlene Lutes.

David C.

From: Charlene Lutes [mailto:CLUTES at message.nmc.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 1:41 PM
To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: RE: [AAACE-NLA] "Success" thresholds

Hello, George.   Sorry for the delay in responding to your thoughts.

                   In continuing our conversation about persistence,
environment and potentiality for the nontraditional adult learner, I'll say
when I found that by appealing to the adult learner's purpose to draw out
that innate desire of what they would do with their lives if time and money
were no object, we began to see aspects of them with which we could connect,
and this led us to a whole new approach to delivering the curriculum and
relating to them as living souls first!
It's hard to explain because I think what we do now has a spiritual
component to it, and we can connect with that, and on that level we are all
alike! To see the sun you can see it better looking directly by it rather
than looking right at it.  We address retention indirectly by helping
discover who they are first.  Our approach emits some sort of a trust, and
with this then we can start to travel down that academic path.  
               This approach in our environment seems to have led to our
high retention rates.
We create a one-room school or cohorts as we say in higher ed.  The
instructors come to the learners so that they develop a sense of belonging
in this type of setup.    Learners become fearless and comfortable and then
are even more open to learning.  We make sure that initially they are able
to master a couple concepts to demonstrate to them they are successful
learners after all.  When they see that for the first time in their lives
they are mastering content they have never mastered before, they begin to
believe in themselves as learners.  This goes for math too.

           For a long, long time I did self-esteem and motivational
workshops for adults, and through these workshops I learned that it 
appeared" that I was making headway with helping adults gain confidence in
themselves as lifelong learners.  No so.  I would see them months after our
workshops, and although they mentioned what a great time they had in our
workshop, nothing in their lives had changed really---mainly their deep
belief in themselves and their desire to go to school.  They came to the
workshops to change their lives, but somehow it never happened.  That is
because unknown to me at the time I had skimmed the surface of their lives.
I only appealed to their "hopes and dreams" without showing them the way to
get them.    When I came back to education at the community college level, I
found that when you "use the principles" to deliver the curriculum, not just
give the principles to the learners, something deeper happens.  
          They see it takes hard work, but now they know who they are, where
they're going and how to get there.  It puts "the monkey squarely on their
backs," so to speak, and shows them if they are willing to do all it takes
because they are the master of their own ships......
Oh well, I could go on and on, but won't bore you with things you already
know at this point. 

Let me know if you want to continue our talk in the future.  Charlene

l

05/16/05 11:40 AM >>>

Charlene,

Thanks for posting that.
If you could provide some details on the environment you and your colleagues
were able to create, that would be wonderful.
Our retention rate is nothing Id write home about, though the extent to
which situational barriers over program-based ones are operative is not
quite clear.
Ive always operated with the assumption that metaphorically speaking, adult
basic is a 50/50 proposition.  That folk lore could be dead wrong.  A
discussion on how to enhance persistence within the realm of what might be
defined as the realistic, while keeping open to potentiality would be
welcome.
George Demetrion

From: aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org
[mailto:aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org] On Behalf Of David
Collings
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 10:38 AM
To: 'National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE'
Subject: FW: [AAACE-NLA] "Success" thresholds

The message below is from Charlene Lutes.

David C.

From: Charlene Lutes [mailto:CLUTES at message.nmc.edu] 
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] "Success" thresholds
I believe your statistics are reasonable for the population that you
describe.  However, I have a theory that might increase your retention.  So
often the reason why there are so many of these who fail to "rise to the
highest expectations" is the fact that they do not see a purpose for their
lives in the long run.  If you could create an environment where they are
also seeking to know more about themselves and their purpose---talents,
strengths and abilities---and how to apply these to their everyday lives
including the basic skill development they are doing, you might see an
increase in interest on their part.  I've studied this, and I ended up
creating a one-room school environment that has retention rates most years
of above 90%.  This last semester it fell below that for the first time in a
long time, but overall we're doing the best that we can.  

 Charlene A. Lutes, Ph.D.
Transition Coordinator---Bridge
Northwestern Michigan College
1701 E. Front Street
Traverse City, MI   49686
(231) 995-1971   FAX (231) 995-1972
________________________________

 Charlene A. Lutes, Ph.D.
Transition Coordinator---Bridge
Northwestern Michigan College
1701 E. Front Street
Traverse City, MI   49686
(231) 995-1971   FAX (231) 995-1972
________________________________

>>> "Debbie Yoho" <dwyoho at earthlink.net> 05/12/05 4:30 PM >>>
Colleagues:  I'd like to throw out some numbers for your reaction.  I am
struggling with deciding what might be "reasonable" expectations of
"sucess" for my program.  Does the following info seem unusual or typical
to you?  Put another way, would you draw any conclusions from these data,
and if so, what? (these are true data from my program)

A workforce basic skills program served 33 adults over a two-year period. 
Workers were released twice a week (a total of 3 1/2 hours study time) from
their work responsibilities to attend literacy instruction away from the
job that combined individual, small group, and computer-assisted
approaches. Instructors were all experienced, paid and professional. The
tested entry skill levels ranged from 0-4.9 grade equivalents. None
finished high school.  Participation was voluntary but strongly encouraged
by supervisors. 

At the end of two years, 12 of the 33 post-tested above 5.0 and were
"promoted" to another program to continue toward a GED. 10 remain in this
program for a third year (all in this group originally scored below 3.0). 
2 retired from their jobs and left, 1 quit his job and left. 7 dropped out
for other reasons (most in this group showed sporadic attendance), and 1
became seriously ill and is on medical leave.

Can anyone make anything of this?  The information I have shared is typical
of the data I am asked to report often.  Others are drawing various
conclusions from these data.  What do you say?

For the Cause of Literacy for All!  Debbie

Deborah W. Yoho
Co-moderator, NIFL-Health Listserv
Executive Director, Greater Columbia Literacy Council
Past President, SC Adult Literacy Educators
2728 Devine Street,  Columbia, SC  29205
803-765-2555   Fax  803-799-8417   dwyoho at earthlink.net

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