[AAACE-NLA] American Educator Letter

[tsticht@znet.com]

AAACE-NLA Colleagues: As you know advocacy for adult education requires
various activities. One activity is trying to gain constituencies for adult
education. Toward this end, I am pleased that the following letter to the
editor of the American Educator magazine was published in the Winter
2007-2008 issue. The American Educator is the official magazine of the
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and goes out to over a million
readers. It is good to have a mention of adult education in a magazine that
is focused primarily on K-12 teachers. We adult educators can use the
support of K-12 teachers in our struggle for meeting the needs of tens of
millions of undereducated, disadvantaged adults in our knowlege-based
society. Tom Sticht

Letter to the Editor

Remembering Shanker

The fall 2007 issue of American Educator presents an excerpt from a new
biography of Albert Shanker, AFT's dynamic President from 1974 until his
death in 1997. The issue discusses some of the more than 1,300 columns in
the New York Times written by Al Shanker with the heading, "Where We
Stand." While most of the articles dealt with matters of concern to
children's education, Al was also interested in adult education,
particularly the education of disadvantaged adults. I had the honor and
pleasure of serving with Al on an advisory panel for the Work in America
Institute in the early 1990s. I was also fortunate in having three of the
"Where We Stand" columns discuss some of the research that colleagues and I
did with adult learners.

Al Shanker was a direct, thoughtful man of great wisdom and humor. This new
biography, coming a decade after Al's death, celebrates the life and work
of a true leader in American education.

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
El Cajon, Calif.