[AAACE-NLA] Qualifications of Teachers

[tsticht at znet.com]

August 11, 2006

Qualifications and Preparation of Teachers in Adult Literacy Education

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

Today, in the wake of international and national adult literacy surveys
using standardized tests, there is much concern that our nation is weakened
by the presence of tens of millions of adults with no, weak, or only
marginal literacy skills. To repair this situation, in part, the nation has
in place an Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) consisting of some
3,000-4,000 programs serving around 3 million adult students. This AELS
works with a teaching force of nearly 150,000 teachers, including some
75,000 part-time and 25,000 full-time teachers aided by 50,000 volunteer
tutors.

In an earlier time, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, there were
also millions of adults in need of literacy education and thousands of
school teachers out of jobs because of the economic disaster. To solve two
problems at the same time, the federal government initiated a program to
hire unemployed teachers to teach adult literacy. Then, as now, the need
existed for materials to be used in training educators how to teach adult
illiterates or limited education.

In 1930, William S. Gray, sometimes known to millions when his fictional
children, Dick and Jane, are mentioned, prepared a Manual for Teachers of
Adult Illiterates. In 1934, the manual was revised by a group from state
education offices and renamed the Manual for Teachers of Adult Elementary
Students. This recognized the need for education of both illiterates and
poorly educated adults.

Chapter IV of the Manual is titled, Qualifications and Preparation of
Teachers. This is as much an interest today as it was almost three quarters
of a century ago. The chapter opens with a statement that bears repeating
today, when at times there are attempts to "teacher-proof" instructional
systems or to provide national standards and accountability systems that
reduce teachers to positions of secondary importance. The chapter states,
"The results of instruction are determined largely by the skill,
efficiency, and insight of teachers. In consequence, those who teach adult
elementary students should be exceptionally well trained and well
qualified, for the task is an exacting one. Careful studies of the qua