[AAACE-NLA] Adult Can't Learn to Read reply

[Chris Francisco]

Hello All,

I really appreciated these words.  My mentor and teacher, Emmet Fox, 
defines wisdom as the perfect balance of intelligence and love.  I hear a 
lot of wisdom in these words.  Be well and thank you.....

peace and love,

Chris

At 07:47 PM 6/15/2006, you wrote:
>All Adults Learn all the Time:
>
>According to Paul Candy in his book on self-directed learning most adults 
>(80 percent) teach themselves new things all the time.  But it doesn't 
>take academic research to to prove what is evident throughout history and 
>society. Adults are always engaged in learning new languages, skills, 
>technologies, and processes and always have. If that were not true we 
>would not be able to function on this planet as a species.
>
>Just because it is difficult for some to reach a reading level in English 
>commensurate with the first year of college if they start reading late in 
>life does not automatically confer upon them the impossibility of doing 
>so. Nor does that prove they are somehow deficient in other skills and 
>abilities in their lives.
>
>Besides,the idea of using the IQ to determine intellect is flawed anyway 
>since it was originally designed to remediate problematic reading in 
>France among 4th graders, not determine a person's human mental potential 
>based upon polically motivated racial stereotyping (a distinctly American 
>twist at the turn of the last century.)  What we have is a politically 
>domineering conservative attack on anyone different from their own view of 
>what constitutes accomplishment. Genetics has been used to bolster white 
>superiority in all things despite the successes and accomplishments of 
>people of different cultures throughout the world over millenia. It is a 
>bogus claim.
>
>The fact that vocal conservative charlatans such as Ann Coulter have 
>captured the spotlight does not confer truth on what they say - and she 
>particularly is called on the lack of factual basis for her claims on 
>weblogs everyday. She lies repeatedly, misquotes, and uses ad-hominem 
>attacks instead of reasoned argument based on reliable research, and makes 
>no apologies for her brand of polemic. But there is no reasoning with 
>people who are so convinced they are right nothing approaching empirical 
>information can penetrate their defense mechanisms.
>
>The reason money is not allocated for adult education rests on the desire 
>of many anti-intellectual conservative Americans (Read Richard Hofstadter 
>again if you doubt me there) is because they simply don't want to spend 
>the money on education. Conservatives have been trying to destroy the 
>public education system since the Reagan administration.  This is not new. 
>And we also know what political party still brandishes that bloody 
>shirt.  It is no different than the attacks on the Arts and Humanities, 
>the Public Brodcatsing System (PBS), music education in school and who 
>gets access to quality education in this country.
>
>We should not let down our guard on both the continuation of the Public 
>School system and the needs of all adults to continue to learn and grow as 
>they (we) age. An educated citizenry is our only hope for continuing our 
>democracy, and conservative efforts to reshape this country in their own 
>image must be resisted at all levels of educational discourse.
>
>Wm. Peter MacMonagle, M.Ed.
>Central Piedmont Community College
>West Campus 2219
>Community Development/Workplace Basic Skills
>704-330-4668
>
>If you want what you have never had, you will have to do what you have 
>never done. Anon.
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org on behalf of tsticht at znet.com
>Sent: Thu 6/15/2006 3:03 PM
>To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
>Subject: [AAACE-NLA] Adult Can't Learn to Read
>
>June 12, 2006
>
>Theoretically You Can't Teach Adults to Read and Write:
>But Just Keep On Doing It
>
>Tom Sticht
>International Consultant in Adult Education
>
>Why is it so hard to get funding for adult literacy education? Innumerable
>studies, reports, TV shows, and statistical surveys in most of the
>industrialized nations of the world declare that their nation is being
>brought to its economic knees because of widespread low basic skills
>(literacy, numeracy) amongst the adult population. But repeated calls for
>funding commensurate with the size of the problem go unanswered. Why?
>
>Beneath the popular pronouncements of educators, industry leaders, and
>government officials about the importance of adult basic skills development
>there flows an undercurrent of disbelief about the abilities of illiterates
>or the poorly literate to ever improve much above their present learning.
>This was encountered close to a hundred years ago when Cora Wilson Stewart
>started the Moonlight Schools of Kentucky in 1911. Her claim that adults
>could learn to read and write met with skepticism. As she reported, Quote:
>"Some educators, however, declared preposterous the claims we made that
>grown people were learning to read and write. It was contrary to the
>principles of psychology, they said."   End Quote
>
>Today that undercurrent of disbelief still flows, but today it carries with
>it the flotsam and jetsam of "scientific facts" from genetics science,
>brain science, and psychological science. Look here at objects snatched
>from the undercurrent of disbelief stretching back for just a decade and a
>half.
>
>2006. Ann Coulter is a major voice in the conservative political arena. In
>her new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Chapter 7 The Left's War
>on Science: Burning Books to Advance "Science" pages 172-174)  she clearly
>defends the ideas given in Murray & Hernstein's book The Bell Curve
>regarding the genetic basis of intelligence. By extension,  since The Bell
>Curve uses reading and math tests in the Armed Forces Qualification Test
>(AFQT), Coulter is discussing the genetic basis of literacy and numeracy.
>In her book she says about The Bell Curve book:
>
>Quote: "Contrary to the party line denying that such a thing as IQ existed,
>the book methodically demonstrated that IQ exists, it is easily measured,
>it is heritable, and it is extremely important. .Among many other things,
>IQ is a better predictor than socioeconomic status of poverty,
>unemployment, criminality, divorce, single motherhood, workplace injuries,
>and high school dropout rates.  .Although other factors influence IQ, such
>as a good environment and nutrition, The Bell Curve authors estimated that
>IQ was about 40 to 80 percent genetic." (p. 173) End Quote
>
>Coulter goes on to discuss the misuse of science in the same chapter in
>relation to AIDS and homosexuality, feminism, trial-lawyers law suits, DDT
>and environmentalists, abortion and stem cell research, and other topics
>that are controversial among large segments of the population but of
>mainstream concern in the far right conservative base in the United States.
>Because of her position as a best-selling author and spokesperson for
>conservative groups, Ann Coulter's ideas about the genetic basis of
>intelligence and high school dropouts can have a profound impact upon
>political thinking about basic skills education among adults who have not
>achieved well.
>
>2005. The Nobel Prize winning economist James J. Heckman  in an interview at
>the Federal Reserve Bank region in Chicago discussed his ideas about
>cognitive skills and their malleability in later life with  members of a
>presidential commission consisting of  former U.S. senators, heads of
>federal agencies, tax attorneys and academic economists. Later in his
>interview he discusses what Adam Smith, in his The Wealth of Nations said
>and why he, Heckman, disagrees with Smith.
>
>According to Heckman, Adam Smith said, Quote: ". people are basically born
>the same and at age 8 one can't really see much difference among them. But
>then starting at age 8, 9, 10, they pursue different fields, they
>specialize and they diverge. In his mind, the butcher and the lawyer and
>the journalist and the professor and the mechanic, all are basically the
>same person at age 8." End Quote Heckman disagrees with this and says:
>
>Quote: This is wrong. IQ is basically formed by age 8, and there are huge
>differences in IQ among people. Smith was right that people specialize
>after 8, but they started specializing before 8. On the early formation of
>human skill, I think Smith was wrong, although he was right about many
>other things. . I think these observations on human skill formation are
>exactly why the job training programs aren't working in the United States
>and why many remediation programs directed toward disadvantaged young
>adults are so ineffective. And that's why the distinction between cognitive
>and noncognitive skill is so important, because a lot of the problem with
>children from disadvantaged homes is their values, attitudes and
>motivations. .Cognitive skills such as IQ can't really be changed much
>after ages 8 to 10. But with noncognitive skills there's much more
>malleability. That's the point I was making earlier when talking about the
>prefrontal cortex. It remains fluid and adaptable until the early 20s.
>That's why adolescent mentoring programs are as effective as they are. Take
>a 13-year-old. You're not going to raise the IQ of a 13-year-old, but you
>can talk the 13-year-old out of dropping out of school. Up to a point you
>can provide surrogate parenting. End Quote
>
>Here Heckman seems to think of the IQ as something relatively fixed at an
>early age and not likely to be changed later in life. But if IQ is measured
>in The Bell Curve, a book in which Heckman found some merit, using the AFQT,
>which in turn is a literacy and numeracy test, then this would imply that
>Heckman thinks the latter may not be very malleable in later life. This
>seems consistent with his belief that remediation programs for adults are
>ineffective and do not make very wise investments.
>
>2000. It is easy to slip from talking about adults with low literacy ability
>to talking about adults with low intelligence. On October 2, 2000, Dan
>Seligman, columnist at Forbes magazine, wrote about the findings of the
>National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) of 1993 and said, Quote: "But note
>that what's being measured here is not what you've been thinking all your
>life as "literacy. " The cluster of abilities being examined is obviously a
>proxy for plain old "intelligence." End Quote He then goes on to argue that
>government programs won't do much about this problem of low intelligence,
>and, by extension, of low literacy.
>
>These types of popular press articles can stymie funding for adult literacy
>education. That is one reason why it is critical that when national
>assessments of cognitive skills, including literacy, are administered, we
>need to be certain about just what it is we are
>measuring.  Unfortunately, that is not the case with the 1993 NALS or the
>more recent 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). These
>assessments leave open the possibility of being called "intelligence" tests
>leading some, like Seligman, to the general conclusion that the less
>literate are simply the less intelligent and society might as well cast
>them off - their "intelligence genes" will not permit them to ever reach
>Level 3 or any other levels at the high end of cognitive tests.
>
>1998.  Dr. G. Reid L yon of the National Institute of Child Health and Human
>Development provided an Overview of Reading and Literacy Initiatives to the
>U. S. Congress Committee on Labor and Human Resources on April 28, 1998. In
>his testimony he stated that in learning to read it is important for
>children to possess good abilities in phonemic analysis. He stated:
>
>Quote: Difficulties in developing phoneme awareness can have genetic and
>neurobiological origins or can be attributable to a lack of exposure to
>language patterns and usage during the preschool years.. It is for this
>reason that the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
>(NICHD) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) considers reading
>failure to reflect not only an educational problem, but a significant
>public health problem as well. Within this context, a large research
>network consisting of 41 research sites in North America, Europe, and Asia
>are working hard to identify (1) the critical environmental, experiential,
>cognitive, genetic, neurobiological, and instructional conditions that
>foster strong reading development; (2) the risk factors that predispose
>youngsters to reading failure; and (3) the instructional procedures that
>can be applied to ameliorate reading deficits at the earliest possible
>time. End Quote
>
>Discussing why some children may have difficulties learning to read, Lyon
>went on to say:
>
>Quote: Children raised in poverty, youngsters with limited proficiency in
>English, children with speech and hearing impairments, and children from
>homes where the parent's reading levels are low are relatively predisposed
>to reading failure. Likewise, youngsters with sub-average intellectual
>capabilities have difficulties learning to read, particularly in the
>reading comprehension domain. End Quote
>
>Taken together, these statements by a senior government scientist advisor to
>both the President and the Congress of the United States indicates that the
>NICHD considers that in some cases low literacy may result from genetic,
>neurological, sub-average intellectual capability or a combination of these
>and other factors. Again, this may contribute to wide-spread beliefs that
>adults with low literacy may possess faulty genes, brains, and/or
>intellectual abilities and are unlikely to benefit from adult literacy
>education programs. From a policy perspective, then, policymakers may think
>that funding such programs may be regarded as a poor use of public funds.
>
>1997. In a January 7, 1997 article in the Washington Times , a prominent
>newspaper
>published in Washington DC and read by many members of Congress, columnist
>Ken Adelman wrote:
>
>Quotes: The age-old nature vs. nurture debate assumes immediacy as the new
>Congress
>and new administration gin up to address such issues as poverty, crime,
>drugs, etc. .This, the most intellectually intriguing debate around, is
>moving far toward
>nature (and far from nurture) with new evidence presented by an odd pair -
>gay activist Chandler Burr and conservative scholar Charles Murray. .In
>brief, their new findings show that 1) homosexuality and 2)
>educational-economic achievement are each largely a matter of genes - not
>of upbringing. .If true, as appears so, the scope of effective government
>programs narrows. Fate, working through chromosomes, bestows both sexual
>orientation and brainpower, which shape one's life and success. Little can
>be altered - besides fostering tolerance and helping in any narrow window
>left open - through even an ideally designed public program.   (page B-6)
>End Quotes
>
>The juxtaposition of homosexuals and those of lower educational and economic
>achievement is an obvious rhetorical device meant to stir negative emotions
>about both groups, This is a rhetorical device brought back into play by
>Coulter in her 2006 book  cited above.
>
>1991. One of the beliefs in our culture is that the brain and its
>intellectual  capacity  is   developed   in   early   childhood. There is a
>widespread belief that if children's early childhood development  is not
>properly stimulated, then there is likely to be intellectual
>underdevelopment leading  to  academic   failures, low aptitude, and social
>problems such as criminal activity, teenage pregnancy and welfare. It will
>be difficult if not impossible to overcome the disadvantages of
>deficiencies in early childhood stimulation later in adulthood. So why
>invest much in adult education? We need instead to put billions of dollars
>into early childhood education.
>
>That these beliefs about the consequence of early childhood development are
>widespread is revealed by articles written by prominent journalists in
>major newspapers. For instance, on Sunday, October 13, 1991 the San Diego
>Union newspaper reprinted an article by Joan Beck, a columnist for the
>Chicago  Tribune , that  argued  for  early  childhood education because,
>Quote: "Half of adult intellectual capacity is already present by age 4
>and 80 percent by age 8, ... the opportunity to influence [a child's] basic
>intelligence - considered to be a stable characteristic by age 17 - is
>greatest in early life." End Quote
>
>A  year earlier in the same newspaper on October 14, 1990  an adult family
>literacy educator was quoted as saying, Quote: "Between the ages of zero to
>4 we have learned half of everything we'll ever learn in our lives. Most of
>that has to do with language, imagination, and inquisitiveness." End Quote
>This doesn't hold out much hope for the adults in family literacy programs.
>
>Joan Beck was quoting research by Benjamin Bloom in the 1960s. But Bloom did
>not show that half of one's intellect was achieved by age 4. Rather, he
>argued that IQ at age 4 was correlated +.70 with IQ at age 17. Since the
>square of .7 is .49, Bloom stated that half of the variance among a group
>of adults' IQ scores at age 17 could be predicted from their group of
>scores at age 4. But half of the variability among a group of people's IQ
>scores is a long way from the idea that half of a given person's IQ is
>developed by age 4. This is not even conceptually possible because for one
>thing there is no universally agreed to
>understanding of what "intelligence" is. Further, even if we could agree on
>what "intelligence" is, there is no such thing as "half of one's intellect"
>because no one knows what 0 or 100 percent intelligence is. Without knowing
>the beginning and end of something we can't know when we have half of it.
>
>1990. A report by the Department of Defense shows how these beliefs about
>the
>possibility of doing much for adults can affect government policy. After
>studying the job performance and post-service lives of "lower aptitude,"
>less literate personnel, the report claimed that they had been failures
>both in and out of the military. Then,  on February 24, 1990, the Director
>of Accession Policy of the Department of Defense commented  in the
>Washington Post newspaper, Quote: "The lesson is that low-aptitude people,
>whether in the military or not, are always going to be at a disadvantage.
>That's a sad conclusion." End Quote  A similar report of the Department of
>Defense study was carried in the New York Times of  March 12, 1990. Then on
>April 8, 1990 Jack Anderson's column in the Washington Post quoted one of
>the Department of Defense researchers saying, Quote: "...by the age of 18
>or 19, it's too late. The school system in early childhood is the only
>place to really help, and that involves heavy participation by the
>parents." End Quote
>
>Regarding the news articles about the Department of Defense studies of "low
>aptitude" troops, the conclusions were based on analyses of the job
>performance of hundreds of thousands of personnel in both the 1960s and
>1980s with Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores between the 10th
>and the 30th percentiles, the range of  scores which the  Department   of
>Defense  studies  called "low aptitude."
>
>But contrary to what the Department of Defense researchers and accession
>policy maker stated, the actual  data  show that in both time periods,
>while  the   low aptitude personnel  did  not   perform  quite   as  well
>as   those   personnel  with aptitudes above the 30th percentile,  over 80
>percent of the low aptitude personnel did, in fact, perform satisfactorily
>and many performed in an outstanding manner. As veterans they had
>employment rates and earnings far exceeding their rates and earnings at the
>beginning of the study. Further investigation by the media would have
>revealed these discrepancies between what the Department of Defense's
>researchers said and what the actual findings were. But as it stands, these
>popular media types of stories reinforce the stereotypes about adults with
>who score low on intelligence or aptitude tests and perform poorly on tests
>of the basic skills of literacy and numeracy.
>
>We can find these pieces of scientific debris all the way back to the
>Moonlight Schools of 1911.  Following her account of those educators and
>academics who declared that teaching grown people to read and write was
>contrary to the principles of psychology, Cora Wilson Stewart said, Quote:
>While they went around saying it couldn't be done, we went on doing it. We
>asked the doubters this question, "When a fact disputes a theory, is it not
>time to discard the theory?"  There was no reply. End Quote
>
>Today when we ask why the funding for adult literacy education is so little
>so late, there is still no reply. So we just keep on teaching adults to
>read and write. And we do it on the cheap, even though it is theoretically
>impossible.
>
>Thomas G. Sticht
>International Consultant in Adult Education
>2062 Valley View Blvd.
>El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
>Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
>Email: tsticht at aznet.net
>
>
>
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